Two guys in the Japanese restaurant, both in business suits, one railing the other with rhetorical questions to help him make his point.

 How does fiber function as an armour?
He asks, the other guys says nothing, picking at sashimi, waiting for his colleague to continue.
How does metal function as an armour?

In a bar two days later (think morning sunlight and filthy windows) the interactions are even less readable. Speaking languages you cant start to guess the meaning of, with a surfeit of gestures  that somehow remain opaque the guy in the Everlast sweatshirt confronts the woman drying glasses at the counter. If it's a friendly conversation or not, you cannot tell. At some point in the undubbed movie he proffers a photograph - visible from where you are sitting - the face of a child. Bar-woman looks blank, goes back to her labour. The picture is his daughter, the presentation of it a simple uncalled for intimacy? Or the child is missing, a trail he follows with detective incompetence, a rudderless ship? You can't know. Will never know. Leaving, the guy grins with cigarette in teeth, but his eyes are still probing the clientele, still looking for something, then he's gone.

*

Final cast for Drama Queens at the Old Vic tomorrow (Sunday 12th at 7.30) was announced a few days ago - remember you can get all the old news here first. Joseph Fiennes, Jeremy Irons, Alex Jennings, and Lesley Manville join Kevin Spacey in the project of Michael and Ingar (Elmgreen and Dragset) with a text by me.

Heading to Belgium to rehearse with the new cast of kids for That Night Follows Day, just as the original cast start their long journey back from the Melbourne Festival.

New York Times on Drama Queens here. You may have to register but it's worth it to see the picture of the actors stood slightly awkwardly besides the motorised sculptures - some kind of almost-ironic postmodern re-run of a Futurist moment. In the event though, they did a pretty great job with the text.

Lyn Gardner, Lois Keidan, Helen Cole, Ant Hampton, Robert Pacitti and pretty much the entirety of the UK Live Art scene have a good old go at Ekow Eshun here for his comments on the relevance and vitality of the sector, and for his recent announcement about closing the ICA's Live And Media Arts department. Not that anyone really connects the ICA with performance these days but really - with a bit of imagination they could have an interesting program there with plenty of relevance and vitality. I guess private hires of the theatre space is too lucrative a cash cow.

My work City Changes (and Art Flavours) are in their last week at Manifesta 7, Rovereto. City Changes has, at the same time,  also just gone on show at PACT Zollverein in Essen.

Butchers - where my Wait Here neon resided back in the Summer months - now has a new show comprising Marcos Chaves' video Laughing Mask. Curated by Ben Borthwick and Cylena Simonds, Butchers also has a new website here.