Credits
Who's responsible for this malarkey?
This is all Matt Shepherd's fault.
He's a writer and self-described art weirdo responsible for, among other things, the Tiniest Gallery, the world's smallest continously operating art gallery.
Antecedents
John Cage's 4'33"
A predecessor in the 'non-performance' arena. Key differences are the instrument (Cage's work creates 'deviance' by generally being performed in the context of other work), and the lack of audience involvement, so the performer is still 'performing'. Cage's intent is to recontextualize ambient sound as music, which isn't exactly the purpose of this thing, but the Venn diagrams overlap.
Come And Go by Samuel Beckett
The play starts with prolonged silence; the length of the silence is not scripted, but directors have been known to stretch it out. One production the author was involved with had the direction to do nothing until at least one audience member 'broke', by laughing, protesting, or otherwise freaking out.
Quaker prayer meetings
These are generally held in silence until a member of the group is 'moved to speak', after which there is an expectation that time will be given for the group to absorb what has been said before more words are spoken. While Quakers are welcoming of non-Christians, there is an implicit religious character to these meetings and seeking the 'still small voice of God.'
Mime
A rich and kind of shittily mocked theatre form, mime is intricate and complex. It's very much 'performance' in the classical theatre sense.
Probably other people who have done this before
A couple of hours of poking around on the web haven't turned up anyone who's done exactly this, but probably somebody somewhere has at some point. I'm not a scholar of theatre history. But this seems like an appropriate time in history to revisit this, if it's been done before, and if not, well, here we are.
Thanks to Theatre Kingston, and the Kick & Push / Fringe festivals
They've provided a venue for this idea that allowed it to happen. This wouldn't have been something that happened without them.