A vast screen displaying weird spots of light and a soundtrack like a finger clumsily circling a virtual wine glass conjured up a sense of unease that darkened and spread as voices chipped in with snippets of what it is like to be sucked helplessly into the nightmare land of the missing.

When the lights went up and you saw the speakers – Australian Yana Taylor and New Yorker Irving Gregory – everything clarified for a fleeting moment. As did the backdrop, which for the next 55 minutes swept you, sleepless and bewildered, around deserted shopping malls at 4am and open countryside.

“People don’t know what to say. They forget it happens to the whole family. Going missing is not a crime,” intoned co-devisors Taylor and Gregory, sometimes engaging with, sometimes talking across each other.

Hopefulness is generally considered a good thing. But this pungent, powerful and thought-provoking study turned that idea on its head, leaving you with an understanding of how it must feel to turn up at the world’s gloomiest party, only to find yourself the only guest – your friends, the police, even your well-meaning acquaintances having long since given up on you, packed up and gone home.