LONDON—Glasgow-based video artist Phil Collins may not have won this year’s Turner Prize (the distinction went to painter Tomma Abts), but of the four nominees, he chose the most directly engaging way to exhibit his work at the Tate Britain.

For the Turner exhibition, Collins has constructed a fully functioning and self-consciously mundane “office” in the museum—complete with an orange-and-yellow color scheme, wall-to-wall carpeting, neon lights and a drop ceiling—where he and a small staff are working on a new installment of his acclaimed 2005 project Return of the Real/Gercegin Geri Donusu from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day.

As the temporary headquarters of Collins’ company, Shady Lane Productions, the office has windows in two of its walls, which allow Tate visitors to watch the artist and his crew work on the project. The public display and professional transparency are only appropriate given the subject of much of Collins’ work—reality television.

The original version of Return of the Real was commissioned for the 9th Istanbul Biennial and focused on people in Turkey who felt that appearing on reality television programs had ruined their lives. Collins sought out former reality show participants, visited with them, learned their stories and eventually staged a press conference in which they publicly aired their grievances against the production companies responsible for the shows. He also compiled interviews with each subject, which formed the basis for a television documentary-style video.

For the current version of the work, Collins has embarked on the same project, this time working with people who have been on reality television in the U.K. Visitors to the Tate can see him in the process of editing the final video work through Jan. 14th.

ArtInfo caught up with the artist in his office at the museum, and, as a group of school children gawked at the window, Collins talked about his fascination with reality television and what contemporary art can offer to discussions of media and politics.

Phil, why did you decide to use the Tate exhibition as a tool in an ongoing project, rather than showing a completed work?

That was the essence of the conversation that I had with myself before arriving at the decision to set up an office.

If the office itself were invisible, and were it not in the Tate, it would just be a very different manner of proceeding. We needed to do the opposite of what some [reality television] production companies do. We’re not secretive. We are available.

Does the public scrutiny that comes with having your process on view in the museum change the way that you work—in the same way that reality television influences the events that is seeks to record?

It seemed only fair—if you’re illuminating a production, which is generally invisible and un-transparent—to become the victim of your own logic and become the monkey in the zoo.

There is a hatch [in the perimeter of the office] through which people can talk to us and ask us about the project, which they do continually. But at the same time we are highly confidential. We close the hatch when we are talking about contributors, location cities or anything like that.

But I actually probably look uglier than I’ve ever looked if that helps! Maybe the sense of being scrutinized does something to your appearance.

Why do tropes from talk shows and reality television, such as public confession and humiliation, interest you?

[Reality television] comes from the idea of testimony. You stand up and you say, “this is me and here is my story.” It comes out almost from the “town hall” tradition in the States—you know, very protestant, very Presbyterian. You embody the problem.

On British TV, a lot of people have paternity tests and lie-detector tests, and if they had money, they probably wouldn’t be there using TV as a solution. They probably would be elsewhere—and, of course, they are being interviewed by someone with a lot of money who says, “I understand.” But there is no address of the material issues; i.e. I’m not surprised that you’re an alcoholic if you live in a place with high unemployment and you have seven children.