As part of an ongoing project of private barter deals, I invite Musrara Mix visitors to “close a deal” with me and realize it during their visit to the festival. Fake Encounters is a project that endeavors to apply the rules of business or service relations outside their conventional contexts, so that each transaction is reexamined. I and my partners in the deal need first to try and establish how the other person can serve us in the existing conditions – in this case, within the temporal and spatial boundaries of the festival. We can choose services such as an imaginary tour of the area, a guided visit to the festival, assume one another’s roles, or anything else we can think of. We can also interview each other as part of the negotiations, so that we can ask for the most appropriate service before we make the deal.
