Have you ever had the feeling, upon entering an art gallery (or anywhere really), that you are out of place; that you are supposed to have something significant to say; that, while moving among the objects on display, you are not interacting with them in the right way; even that—in especially eerie moments—these seemingly internally-generated directives, come from elsewhere? Isn’t it time we talked about the body in social space?

The formations and deformations of motion, speech and being by “physical spatial structures and immaterial rule-based structures” are the subject of Josh Elston’s upcoming exhibit, Conversation Regulation, opening at Big Orbit Project Space Saturday, March 9 (7-10 pm).

The pieces, thru the formats of interactive sculpture, game and video, invite participants to have their thoughts and conversations redirected in playful and mischievous ways. With perspective askew, the question asked at the outset shifts: you aren’t ‘out of place’ so much as place has been arranged to exclude you. Elston has rearranged the gallery space so that it includes you. The channel of rule-making (the process central to the exhibit’s m.o.) is opened to flow both ways. As it turns out, the physics and metaphysics of control are neither natural, neutral nor stable. Come peek behind the curtain, literally.

Conversation Regulation opens at Big Orbit Project Space Saturday, March 9 (7-10 PM). It runs thru April 6. Admission is free, but you’ll have to cough up cash (and cash only) for beer and wine. Big Orbit is located at 30D Essex St. Buffalo, NY 14213.