A Mis-Guide to Anywhere

International responses to Wrights & Sites’ first book suggested that many non-residents of Exeter were able to employ versions of the book’s strategies in other places. Therefore the company explored the creation of a 'Mis-Guide' that deliberately sets out to provide transferable ideas, tools, inviting inventive dis-placement. Initially it was conceived as a 'generic' guide: an unusual approach for ‘site-specific’ artists, given the company’s recurrent focus on specific localities rather than 'types' of place. It became apparent that the same set of instructions/stimuli become radically different when transferred between places, and that these differences are informative and generative. After two years of research and walking experiments in Manchester, Channel Islands, Copenhagen, Zurich, Paris, New York, Shanghai, rural Zambia, etc, 'A Mis-Guide to Anywhere' was launched at the ICA (London, April 2006). In conjunction with 4 ‘Mis-Guided Tours’ that started and ended at the ICA, the launch was presented as part of the ICA’s Performance Programme. The book’s title and content explore the notion of ‘anywhere’ and its relations to ‘somewhere’. Created with an acute awareness of our own position in the world, our relative freedoms and particular perspectives, the book seeks to draw attention to connections and differences between disparate places. A contextualising agency is proposed: the work is completed by the walker and only becomes specific to its location in the walking.