Ashley Williams goes straight for the big questions in his multi media meditation The Circulation Game; What is life and what on earth are we supposed to do with it? Whilst Hamlet had a play-within-a-play to help him find an answer, Williams, as a digital native, uses GIFs, memes and emoticons instead. He illustrates his philosophical monologue with a slick slide show of signs and symbols; some satirical, some irreverent, and some just literal. Suited, booted and sitting behind a table and tablet, the show felt like a live version of a Facebook feed from one of your more eloquent friends. There were some clever pop references; a neat parallel between the pointlessness of mankind and the role of Indiana Jones, for example. The text was cleanly delivered, yet Williams voice lacks the qualities to bring it alive, relying mostly on the images to help illustrate his point. This meant the text was often in danger of sounding like slogans from motivational posters; 'Consider your own paradise', 'Why sit there and have nothing?'. This may have been intentional, there may have been an irony at work in employing cliches and platitudes, but this wasn't clear. A good looking show, with some clever moments but no answers yet.
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