Session #4

Resources

On
10.-11.12.2022

Hosted by
Sophiensaele Kantine

Participants (of the two days)
Alice, Angela, Annegret, Barbara, Camila, Clement, Elena, Julia, Laurie, Layton, Louise, Manon, Marga, Maria, Micha, Roni, Sabine, Sarah, Said (?), Tipphaine [+ two mega sweet dogs]

Day One
10.11.2022

Participants
Alice, Annegret, Barbara, Camila, Clement, Elena, Julia, Laurie, Louise, Manon, Marga, Maria, Micha, Roni, Sarah, Tipphaine [+ two mega sweet dogs: Hester & Pukka]

Structure
14h00 - 14h30 arrival
14h30 - 16h00 block #1
16h00 - 16h30 break
16h30 - 18h00 block #2
18h00 - 18h30 buffer zone and goodbyes

Arrival

• micha is late so can’t say anything about the arrival vibe *

block #1

SARAH: gives introduction about the project, the documentation and the day

—> creature round
CLEMENT: it would be nice to make a small round at the beginning to share how we arrived here, and I just wanted to suggest that we, just one after another, can describe with the creature that we feel like at this moment. Could be an animal, a mystical being, sth strange or beautiful etc.
I feel very much like this creature that is reborn from its ashes, a Phoenix, but actually I feel like it's this moment when it's being burned, so it's a bit like the decaying moment of the Phoenix.
ELENA: i feel like a clump of moss
LAURIE: i feel like a rabbit, that kind that wants to hide in the hole but also it's a very curious rabbit
ALICE: i feel like a bird
MARGA: i feel like a pokemon that makes people see
CAMILA: I feel like a little bear
ANNEGRET: i feel like a snail
RONI: [inaudible]
LOUISE: lizard
MARIA: I feel like a slime roll, like I don't have a precise conception of where my body ends
JULIA: i feel like a raccoon
TIPHAINE: [inaudible]
BARBARA: i also feel like a snail, but more like hiding in the house
SARAH: an American possum, the ones that hang upside down with their tail— I feel really cute
MICHA: i feel like a beaver, because I'm supposed to be hibernating

—> names round
Hester, Pukka are the dogs

—> First block: POOL OF TOOLS hosted by Maria
SARAH: gives overview of the day
Back in at 10:20
MARIA: So in the lottery of how to go about deciding to continue with something very pragmatic. Means: get your computer later, we’re gonna do a collective thing of making Excel files and possibly a support group setup through social media. So I felt when it came to resources, there was an esoteric and even more somatic kind of river to me. And the other side was really pragmatic. When backbone started, I had this lingering wish. So it started from this… like needing almost an excel file open resource with bodyworkers. Paying so much money to be able to work is sth I can’t afford. And the practitioners have really different talents. And the Krankenkasse pays for some, for others not etc. I wonder if ppl are interested to set up a file. What could be the categories for such a file? Like price, politics, relation to drugs etc. setting up a huge paper maybe we can also first start thinking about what bodywork actually is for us?
RONI: also, what is the difference to health?
ELENA: there’s also a grey zone between them
CAMILA: maybe making two tabs?
ELENA: elaborates
ALICE: the first column could be technique

• all talk in confusion — seems to be sth ppl involved in, sth that really resonates *
  RONI: we need a column for personality
  ELENA: we don't need to decide how to sort it, because you do it as a sorting function to be sort whatever you want you to be sorted: alphabetically, by a category etc.
  RONI: what did it do to you?
  MARIA: i went for a hip discplacement
  ALICE: important to write what they are good at, and what not
  ELENA: its maybe also important to know who put it in there
  RONI: if you feel comfortable putting it in…
  ALICE: you can put the name in brackets… its also important to put the personality in there
  ELENA: I think it's not important if I bring it up, generally, it's important if I make a value judgment, and then it's clear that this was mine. I think the easiest way to solve that is to not have an extra category and extra work, but to have sth like, I put in felt person to be a bit nosy eg.
  ALICE: if we put our specific experiences…
  ELENA: …it also allows us to agree to disagree
  MARIA: [inaudible]
  RONI: what about language barriers?
  ALICE: also important how many times ppl see the person — once or many times?
  ELENA: the channel the person is best reached through
  LAURIE: the neighborhood
  MARIA: is the politics part of the personality? Maybe „notes on politics“?
  ELENA: for a therapist that’s super relevant
  MARIA: all the comments are good notes — not just politics
  RONI: whether they work with KSK / health insurance

categories: technique — notes on personality — price — name — insurance — languages — notes on treatment — experience — notes on politics — location — frequency — contact — best reached through — field — practical info

MARIA: I think all the comments should come with notes. I feel like anything that has to do with a description of your own perception of the personality, of the politics or of the experience should be commented on. But there is technique and then you were saying in this like Excel magical world that there are different… fields of practice maybe?
SARAH: lets make drop down menus
ELENA: elaborates about drop down menus
LAURIE: what would be the best open source version?
MARIA: we are making good experiences with crypt pad. it is open source and it's editable. You have a link, you click on the link, you can share it very easily. elaborates further
ELENA: what about having sth not just for body work, but for all kinds of other things — IT, taxes etc.?
MARIA: […] this is the second proposal: with lecken, we have a support system that started around Marianas funeral and then became sth for a larger group of ppl. The belonging is through raving. Its a telegram group. Its being incredible, because eg when monkey pox happened it was an amazing resource. Its a network. Its about praxises and subletting etc. Then there was storage space…
RONI: is it professional related?
MARIA: yaaaaa hmmm — its more ppl related than job related, but also covers professional things. Its about adding informations. Its a really material support structure. Its also ok to just read and not respond. Lets see how ppl feel about it. Other categories: tickets — sublets — housing — studios — plumbing — books — pets…
RONI: professionals (eg voice coach)
SARAH: recommendations
BARBARA: staff search
ALICE: does it make sense also to invite ppl for open practices? I’d love to be invited
ELENA: prop share
RONI: equipment
LOUISE: it would be good to have a frame, otherwise it’s spam
MARIA: yeah thats the interesting question, when does it become spam?
RONI: my personal taste would be more framed…
MARIA: my vibe is different… it would suit me too narrowly… I see this as a group of professionals — maybe we don’t like each other, but we have a feeling of belonging. With some people, we don't like each other, but we are acknowledging a belonging. And rather than shooting out into strange land, I would rather send it here, but of course it needs consent.
ELENA: if it isn’t a telegram group, we could also use slack, or discord ppl disagreeing let me explain…
LOUISE: but we do want to make it here and now
ELENA: i just want to explain. elaborates about discord and slack the problem with telegram is that its too unspecific.
ALICE: my thing is it should feel as banal as possible. I would encourage to stay on signal, we’re already using it. I thought we could make an agreement that any message should be responded in 24h. Otherwise its a disaster
ANNEGRET: i don't understand the proposal of 24h
ALICE: in order to not make it overwhelming
RONI: for me, i don't want to look at my phone all the time
ANNEGRET: when thinking about housing, I find it good to have email lists where I can go back to […] with telegram its much more unorganized
SARAH: two things: one, when we think about tools, you always try to solve all your problems with one tool, which is always a bit methodologically wrong. I think it's important also to think that this tool that we're inventing is connected to a lot of other tools that already exist. So this will solve some of our questions. And then we have to make it flexible enough so that they can be easily connected with others. But it's impossible to avoid repetition. So this just methodologically. And then I wanted to say, in terms of principles, I very much like to work in a way that says yes to everything, unless I cannot live with with it. I don't even ask myself whether housing is interesting for me or not, because if for anybody in the group housing is interesting, I can live with it. So then you work on a principle of welcoming the needs of everybody instead of needing to negotiate needs. And that's something that just wanted to throw in. And that's personally how I would operate on this kind of election.
BARBARA: to make it easier to trace, we can agree on certain key words, so things can be found easier in the chat
CLEMENT: when you mentioned equipment, I think most productions buy equipment, and a lot of people have equipment in their storage, which is very, very rarely used. And this would be a good thing to make an Excel sheet of equipment which are available. Equipment and eg housing are two very different things.
LOUISE: one thing that comes to mind is: it should be flexible, but it should also be sharp. Eg old fridges should be avoided. I’m also scattered, give me a second… what if you only offer there, but don’t ask? Its a place for surplus. Like if you’re going away on tour for 5 days, but don’t want to give the house to a stranger, you can insert it there. Or announcing…
ALICE: the suggestion of clement makes a lot of sense…
MARIA: i also resonate a lot with you Louise. What’s the nature of the channel vs. what is generally relevant, like in the form of a crypto pad? And then I wanted to say about this identifiers, I guess it works for both. This is sth we would have to discuss. Eg we would always write a keyword big, like tickets. So you maybe see it if you're willing to glimpse into your phone, or if you come across, and you see it's about tickets, and otherwise you don't read it. it's something in the present time, that pops out in a specific way or through emoticons.
ELENA: picking up on Sarah, I’d be interested on another list with stuff that is already there, like groups on FB. Like not inventing everything a new, but getting an overview of what already exists. Also with specific characteristics of all the sources that exist
CAMILA: sth related to only offerings: a place for only asking sth would be the biggest resource for me
RONI: i agree
MARIA: rambling
CAMILA: creating an intimate hub… I’m in the HZT mailing list and its amazing, always
SARAH: to be practical: for today, we could focus on these two tools: the body work resource, and one dedicated on how to communicate. And then we pin it on top of the signal.
MARIA: maybe there is a knot here: a database (body work) vs a channel. And then ppl can decide if they want just the one or the other, or both.
SARAH: the thing with the database is, you can multiply it, so you can have different tabs. for today, we just do the first tab, bodywork. And then, when someone is ready, we can do equipment, and Facebook groups, spaces etc.
MARIA: so we will have to do a migration thing
ELENA: another question: who gets access and who not? Who is part of backbone?
MARIA: this is part of the community agreement. It is relevant. The question is how do you include ppl? to me, it goes by emergence. You felt the vibe, you've been part of the discussion, so we interest each other. either we check in with each other like, is it okay, if I invite? You know, these two colleagues of mine, I think they could benefit from the group and be a resource for them? Or we improvise?
ALICE: how does it happen when we decide? Would I write it in the chat? And then ppl say yes or no?
RONI: i would propose another thing — a system of trust. We only add ppl whom we fully trust, we could make this agreement here.
MARIA: thats what the community agreement is, I wanted to say this. Maybe we have to make this community agreement and then make sure that every new person we invite first read it. So should we start?
LOUISE: the only thing the signal group needs is the community agreement
SARAH: and there need to be guidelines
ELENA: In the community guidelines, I would like it to be already considered and thought about what happens when there is an, what are we gonna call infringement? So I thought that's why you have moderators, usually rotating moderators, whose responsibility is to say something, who's going to step in and have the uncomfortable conversation?
MARIA: I feel its self regulating in that sense…
ELENA: …I’ve never seen this work
MARIA: can you tell about a situation?
ELENA: I've just seen so many recently in groups that we didn't talk about it beforehand. And then it bounced down and somebody took it on themselves, which was incredibly uncomfortable.
MARIA: what was the nature of those groups?
ELENA: partially pragmatic, partially… and then there was a person who didn’t pick up the vibe. And brought in some negative energy. And then a person had to step in…
MARIA: for me, this is the risk of community. In the sense that the more we are the messier we are, but also the richer we are. But your story is like: then somebody stepped in. Maybe this is the risk of this

ELENA: this can be part of the community agreement. In this group of 20 people there is an agreement who can step in. And it's not the feeling like only three, or rotate somehow or something. It's just if it's been talked about before, it's not a random space.
SARAH: in the moment we set up this agreement, everyone will feel responsible. And trust that also other ppl will feel responsible. it's also part of the failures that we decide to take risks on. It would make me feel very uncomfortable to make regulations.
ELENA: I just referencing back to the feminism realization that structurelessness invites tyranny within ourselves. So if we're completely structuralist, it actually produces unspoken hierarchies, which are very massive. So if you're transparent about about structures, then they actually allow for…

• intense discussion *
  ALICE: lets make the community guidelines
  MARIA: we can also set up a system that if someone feels uncomfortable one can reach out, and then there’s a certain score happening. Like what do you do when when something feels off? And then to check in, to go „I don't have capacity. Do you have the capacity to step in? I don’t feel it, do you feel it? But I can reach out and speak for you.“

• getting to work *

ANNEGRET: a concrete question for now: I don’t know whether I can [inaudible]
MARIA: this is revealing the nature of the channel…
ELENA: If somebody asks me for a purple wig… I don't want to go and sit down and make an excellent list of everything I have because I'm gonna just go… asking is really helpful
CLEMENT: [inaudible]
ANNEGRET: a typical question is who has a smoke machine
LAURIE: i do!
MARIA: we need two groups and two computers: 1 — the database with the excel — 2 — the community agreement
SARAH: and we need a signal group. And call it… I can be in the excel group
RONI: are we gonna make more than one excel sheet?

—> excel group: Alice, Roni, Sarah, Tipphaine
—> Community agreement group: Annegret, Barbara, Clement, Elena, Julia, Laurie, Marga, Maria
—> Signal group: Camila, Louise, dogs

MARIA: reads sth, maybe the final community agreement? Ppl cheer

• ppl are actually writing on a proposal already, elena knits, laurie writes on the computer *
• camila and louise are writing stuff on a paper board kind of thing *
• louise and camila make photos of the community agreement group working, maria rants a bit *
• Camila and Louise leave for a walk with the dogs, the community agreement group continues to work, same with the excel group *

Signal Group: https://signal.group/#CjQKIF3gYtfbnHXtw_GJv9GhcKWhb8RZWAtU9lz5jk9q5bDsEhAMut52lNaR7ULbR_nQq6rK

Resources: https://pad.envs.net/sheet/#/3/sheet/edit/b80eded65081fe833cca3aec56c46ca8/

Guidlines Signal Group https://cryptpad.fr/pad/#/2/pad/edit/9jF9yI8UbqvNMjujAbjfAIOV/

BREAK

—> block#2

MANON joins

• sarah and louise are announcing the session on stage *
  SARAH: the next section has a lot of happening at the same time. the principle is trust. You might feel uncomfortable but we will take care of you. We will guide you. Be open. Many things will happen at the same time. The first thing I wanted to ask you: take your bank card and put it in the hat
• sarah passes a hat around, ppl put their bank cards in *
  SARAH: we will explain what will happen to your card.
  LOUISE: the other thing that will happen: i will walk around and collect some data from you anonymously. And we will use that data tomorrow. So if you see me walking around that's what I'm doing.
  SARAH: be aware of the privacy of the facilitated conversations
• sarah plays some cheesy music from her phone in the microphone
  SARAH: that’s the jingle. Welcome to Santa Barbara.
  LOUISE: its a game where ppl are gonna take turn and tell us the stories of their career. 5 minutes each. Its an open mic situation.
  SARAH: we gonna start from the beginning. And for everybody in the beginning is different.
  LOUISE: we start there and see how far we can get. Tell us how you came to be in this room. But we would ask you that you foreground resources as a topic while you're explaining your career. We're understanding resources financially, we're understanding them emotionally, spiritually, perhaps in terms of time, space, community, your physical resources. And the last layer is — how did we [inaudible] it? Its common we hear stories of our careers that come from a place of scarcity — rather, try to tell it from an abundant place! Ressource oriented.
  SARAH: eg. instead of saying „I was so broke so I had to move to another country“ you could say „I was so in love with berlin“
  LOUISE: or instead of saying „I never did professional ballet training“, I could say, „I really loved ballet as a kid“. So I [inaudible] fantasized about it.
  SARAH: you could say „I started as a professional dancer because I was very lucky“ instead of finding other excuses.
  LOUISE: make an inventory in your head with things that happened that allow you to still be here. And then to speak from or towards those things.
  SARAH: we will go for 40’, like 8 episodes. And then we see if we go for more. No one is forced. continues to further introduce Santa Barbara * we have been practicing this over the years in many different places. and you can do it with your sex life, your life story etc. it's an absolutely open source practice, please develop it further! Here comes the jingle again!

[this part unfortunately was very poorly recorded, so quite some bits were inaudible for the transcription; maybe ppl remember and can fill the gaps]

ALICE: i started dancing with 8. I took classes with an old danish ballerina, she was called nini. After two years I went to the conservatoire régional. I went for ballet and contemporary dance. I could go there three times a week. instead of going to high school I went to this school that had an agreement with the conservatoire so I spent a lot of time in dance classes. That’s how I grew up. long pause I went into ballet bc I loved it a lot. My parents then moved me to another high school so I could do a good Baccalauréat. I was not talented in dance but very passionate. And then, I also had the luxury of having one year before university to check if there was any possibility for going professional. I went back to the conservatoire. My greatest luck there is that they kicked me out after the first year. Which resulted to my very good friend Alix telling me to come over to P.A.R.T.S. And then I went to the audition and they took me there. There it was incredible, I discovered other ways of dancing and moving much more relevant to how I can move. I also met ppl with whom I fell in love. I left the school in the beginning of the second year. So i started working, with the person I was in love with and with close friends. We created a collective and we were touring all the time. It was an amazing community. In the conservatoire I also met Anne, another important person… TIMER

• meanwhile Louise is walking around and collecting mysterious data from ppl *

SARAH: i started dreaming about working behind the scenes of live arts when I was 14. It was a movie around a rock band which was joined by an underage journalists. And ofc he falls in love with one of the groupies. I saw the whole thing of being backstage — and I was that’s me! [inaudible, sth with tour bus] since then, not much has changed. One of my favorite things in this world was my dad blockbuster tester [??]. and being exposed to [inaudible] which fostered my imagination to go to places. The only social space in my neighborhood was a squat. So i was just hanging out there. You could do anything there, organizing things, Public Enemy were playing there. I remember laying cables etc. we started to organize gigs, I was in the punk / hardcore scene, it was gigs for my friend. We opened „downtown“. This was during high school. Every Thursday night there were three bands playing, very much straight edge, no alcohol, no sex, just punk. [inaudible] nobody has a label, everybody just publishes their own thing. The more you got to know the system, the more you understand like „these two ppl are the key ppl“. And I fell in love with the system, and that aspect of community meetings, and being the one that collected informations from everybody, and creating resources. [inaudible, sth about getting to know someone] he taught me a lot about distribution. At the same time, I was really into music. Then university. I discovered my sexual body. The scene is very straight… TIMER

ANNEGRET: the first lucky thing that happened to me was that my mom was scarred of ppl to force kids into splits, so she didn't let me enter in the gymnastics. So I said ballet, and she let me go. It was the age of 6. It was in a so-called Kneipverein. I continued until I was 12. In the meantime I was allowed to [inaudible], not on the intense level though but more on the community level. For that reason, I had the possibility to stretch a lot. Its a great resource. When I was 12, there is a story of a dance teacher of [inaudible] babies in crucial moments, which turned my path in a different direction. My ballet teacher she got a baby. The new teacher was not accepted by our group. The group dissolved. Me and another friend decided to quit, and everyone followed. I didn't plan to dance, I had the gymnastics group. Then sth lucky happened, I went to a summer camp which was circus oriented. And because I was late when they were distributing people into the workshop groups, I could not do any of the circus groups, and I ended up in the dance group. So we were rehearsing „rocky horror picture show“, and we had a final performance. Afterwards one girl came to me and said „you really have to continue dancing“, and that’s literally why I continued to look for another group. After summer I checked out modern dance. I gave it a try, went to a test class, it was really different to what I expected. I really liked this thing of just [inaudible] the gravity without making any extra preparations, which would be the gymnastics attitude. I was a [inaudible] and then I had this discovery when I was 13 that I understood that what is not beautiful is maybe actually beautiful… TIMER

CLEMENT: it started way before I was born. Looking at my trans-generational path [inaudible]. When I was originated in her body as an egg, and she was the daughter of a working class family, and she went to high school, for the Baccalauréat. And after this she said she felt she had to do sth different, and she went to classical dance class 20y before I was born. And I feel this was the reason why I deeply committed to dance. 20y later I was born, I was in this environment, receiving a lot of artistic input. My father was trained as a sculptor, and there were art books from my father, I was looking at them when I was a kid, I still remember the books of Chagall, it was very important for me. Time passed, and then one day I met a Thai Chi teacher, a friend of my father, and as a way to start the class he introduced ppl to juggle. I learned juggling thanks to him, and this changed a lot [inaudible]. then I become obsessed with juggling, I didn't had computer games, I just juggled. It was an obsessive practice. I juggled, I juggled. In high school, I also met ppl who do similar things, met teenager artists, I became friends with them. I did theatre, dance, I played in a band… TIMER

RONI: i was very lucky to have a mum who is very open, creative and weird. When I was three she sent me to a creative dance class, for one year. [inaudible] then I took a couple years break from dancing, went back in the 3rd grade to dancing, jazz dance. The teacher was Dana, I had a crush. Then I took another break, and two years later I tried to audition for a dance company. I was very lucky to get rejected, so I learned to deal with rejection from an early age. All my friends got taken. They all went to dance, I went to another school. And I remember going to see their show of the year, I think that's already eighth grade. The next moment when I was lucky was when I went to that first class of a new dance department. Every day I traveled to that school. In the same time I joined a youth movement. I learned a lot about community, collectives, organization. And working hard, and a lot, under time pressure, and many things at the same time. In high school I also joined the theatre department, next to dance. I had good grades there. Then I went to the army for one year. In the second year, I could go to ballet and yoga. My army service took me to the north of Israel, where there is an amazing dance school, kibbutz sth, where I could join the morning classes. And that was a moment where I remember telling myself „Either you follow your dream or you quit now“, and this is like was a very strong moment of making the decision to at least try and follow a dream. So what I did was that I enrolled myself to the to the workshop to the dance training, and that was really intense two years, but I was living by myself and in my first alone room after living in a community before, so it was a huge shift basically. From youth movement life to dance life. From there… TIMER

ELENA: my mother was a trained musical actress, who decided she didn’t wanna stay in Chicago. So she run away to Europe where she hoped to feel more comfortable, and then actually worked her way up from Portugal to Germany. She did musicals like „Anatevka“ or „Hair“. And then she met someone who had decided that it's more important to her to become a mom and that wasn't compatible at the time to touring. She was basically a stay home mom. [inaudible] so that became a problem, physically. So i had a lot of disability issues that needed very intense care, like a specific massage program. Without that, I would have been in the wheelchair. That is the baseline. I relapsed around 5/6, and had to do the same thing again. In my teenage years, I also did ballet, jazz, and tap dance, I was really into this whole Frank Sinatra routines. I did a lot of that, five classes four days a week, it was never an option to do it professionally, bc it was deeply ingrained that I was disabled. Fast forward, I decided to learn Japanese as I was bored, it's the most difficult thing I could imagine. Then I went to university. In the university in Berlin I found a photo book about Butoh. So i went to Japan, took classes there with [inaudible] and saw a lot of shows. Then I quickly decided to not research on Heidegger anymore, but just worked to pay for my Butoh classes. Then I came back, my friends studied Kulturwissenschaften, they also did administration, and more organizational stuff. And so I would hang out with them and they also do stuff with them organizationally. And one day there was a poster on the wall which announced this political festival… TIMER

MARIA: there was a crowd looking at me laughing when I was born. I survived an attempted abortion. So I am here bc I wanted to. My birth created radio electric energy that later on would serve me. There was a lot of „forget about it“ etc. an abundance of „no’s“, but at the same time I had amazing feed, I was looking at my foot [inaudible] and then all my friends in school were doing their ballet routines and were like wow, beautiful hands. [inaudible] so shifting and [inaudible] and also dodging. Catholic school taught me to implode and dodge. And we were all girls, so it was a whole girl group thing that formed me. I learned a lot from perverts, cat calling, harassing men, pornography. It made me feel that there was a problem with my body, with gave me a lot of rage fire. My mother had a laundry, I was working with her all day. And I could see all sorts of ppl from all sorts of classes. My sister worked in a community for HIV positive [inaudible] In 1990 there was a scandal with a priest harassing [inaudible] Then rich ppl [inaudible] dropping the laundry. The drunken men wanted me to be this Italian Sicilian woman with the white wine. Like in [inaudible] aristocrats. And then there were the cross dressers, we called it transvestites [inaudible] I was little and scared and observing all those ways. And finally, when I was 16, I joined the dance class. I was lucky to be offered this [inaudible] dance school in a hotel. First I payed, and then after two years I got a scholarship. And I could take all the classes, all the workshops, but I had to assist my teachers. So I was very lucky bc [inaudible] So I learned or developed a passion for teaching as well. And then very soon I got to dance in television shows. And with that came the realization of my hyper-sexualized body… TIMER

SARAH: lets move on to the second stage of the proposal. Its a proposal for a better future. If we feel like each of us can pick a card from the hat. We gonna go to the person that this card belongs to and ask for the PIN code, and live the next 24 hours with this card without knowing how much is on it, how much you can spend. And what the financial plans are of the person this card belongs to. This is a provocation, ofc. But it's a practice that will help us think about how do we frame resources. How do we frame private property? How do we feel the interdependency of one's own financial means with the ones with the community? Where do I end, where does the other begin, and all that. Okay, let's talk a lot so that you stick with it. It's a practice that I did a bunch of times, I can tell you what happens most of the times: nobody spent a dime. Everybody goes home and asks their partner to ^    pay for dinner. Or somebody dares to pay a taxi ride for 12 euros and feels really bad about it and freaks out generally. So this is the first 24 hours. Today we propose to do 24 hours because we see each other again tomorrow. Of course if somebody is not going to be here tomorrow, or doesn't feel like participating for whatever reason, there is no need! We will also do it anonymously. So if someone doesn’t feel like participating, we leave the hat somewhere, and you can just remove your card before the distribution. I've also done it for a month, and I was doing it for two years. And the behavior changes very, very much according to time. It's pretty simple as a proposal. So now we can maybe take 10 minutes to discuss it and to think about it and speculate a little bit. But rather, what we wanted to propose is to explain the game, do the necessary steps to set it up safely and for everybody to be comfortable. Make sure that we agree and consent to the score. The score is „I don't know how much is on the card“. And this is an important part of the game. And I don't have many financial details about the person this card belongs to. This is what we should consent to otherwise the game doesn't work. So if you want to participate, you would need to consent to these two premises. And tomorrow afternoon, we're going to have time dedicated to unpacking what this is an how it felt, what it means, and so on. So, we've done a pact now. Ok. And the thing that will happen in the next 20 minutes is that we will also know how much money we will have all together! We don't know how much money each of us has. So we don't know how much money there is on each card. We don't know how much money everybody has in savings or capital that is available, we will know only how much money we have all together. That’s the info Louise collected. And this should guide ideally the way we use the card. ELENA: there is a fuzziness there. This works for me, if you are, for example, mostly single or an adult without a lot of attachments. And you have a clear account for yourself. But this becomes very fuzzy and ethically more difficult for me when you have chosen to be very interconnected with 10,000 other accounts of other people that you all have access to theoretically. Bc they are not consenting to the game. Like when you are interconnected in extremely complex systems, including kids and whatever other dependencies. So my uncomfortableness is related to the responsibility to people who are not consenting to this game, but are involved.
SARAH: one of the interesting things with this game is that everybody’s experience is different. I personally put in the account that I share with 15 people, which is the SPIN account. It's a publicly funded institution. But I think the question of the radicality of understanding who is consenting to what, and was given permission to use what, is part of the game as well. And I think everybody plays it differently. It's very important as activists to go into those zones of discomfort in order to understand how resources work. And finances are not an easy subject and bring a lot of complexities and a lot of feelings with it. So thank you so much for voicing it, because for many it is possibly the same. And it's totally legit. It's fuzzy, I feel the same. But I decided otherwise.
ALICE: i want to share sth. My account is two ppls income and three ppl living. That makes it hard. And Louise asked me, how much do you estimate is your money? I was like: all of it. For me it was impossible to not put two numbers: One is the actual amount, and the other is if I would do a fair estimate of what I use.
ELENA: I feel like I have access to a lot more money that I don't touch that easily. And at the same time, I don't have any money that I feel it's only mine. So it's a weird paradox.
ALICE: for me its not the reason to not play, but super relevant
LOUISE: i also had conversations with ppl who have project money. You have access to a lot of money, it's yours, it's in your name. And you could take it and run. Theoretically. I think for the next ten minutes if we decide that its not possible its also a wonderful outcome. And I’d be interested to understand it as a low risk experiment, which is also beautiful. Both of those [inaudible] to me are equally beautiful.
ANNEGRET: to me it’s not clear if the proposal is „everyones gonna use it in a reasonable way“, or „and then we don't touch it. And we just feel how it feels that someone else could possibly do it“.
SARAH: The score is „you would use the card as if it was yours“
RONI: you didn't say that.
ANNEGRET: but I have other cards, I would naturally use my other cards and just bring it back tomorrow.
SARAH: to make it clear again: the idea is we live with the card of someone else like we live with our own card.
ANNEGRET: Okay, that also includes that probably I would not buy a car tonight, between now and tomorrow. I just do the things that I would do with my own card.
LOUISE: maybe you have cash on you. you could take out money. The next thing we would do is exchange pin codes.
SARAH: tomorrow we can talk about everything. So those who will take out cash probably, I hope, will give it back.
MANON: you really believe someone will take 500€ from my card…?
SARAH: exactly. That’s what we do as a community right? We do like sharing resources. Someone wants to moderate?
BARBARA: yes
ANNEGRET: would I disqualify if I don't know the pin?
SARAH: you pick a card, check for the name, and ask for the pin.
ANNEGRET: but I cannot give the pin. I can pay contactless when the pin is not asked, but I cannot keep the pin. It's a new card.
RONI: i totally understand that the proposal is only until tomorrow. It feels highly privileged, to just do it to play the game. To agree to play the game means that you're privileged enough to first of all have money, so that if someone tries to pay from your account it doesn't get blocked, or the card doesn't stay in, or you don’t get into trouble.
LOUISE: its important to name that. But also backbone is extremely privileged. And that we're here in Europe is extremely privileged, that we have access to social money in a way that dance artists in the States or in most other places don't have.
RONI: but all the privileges are different.
LOUISE: what do you mean?
ELENA: if I understood you correctly and could pick up here: if I really think this through, what's the worst case that can happen? Worst case is somebody maybe gets 3000€. And that range can be painful to someone. And they don't come back tomorrow. What is this group really going to do? I'm just going to the worst case, because this is my natural mode, because then I can feel how I feel about it. Technically, legally, you gave them their pin. And then that is a moment of privilege to decide., if I’m okay with that risk factor or not.
ALICE: how would we take collective responsibility for such a case?
MARIA: for me, worst case scenario is: someone asks me about my document. And then what? What are the consequences?
ANNEGRET: i wanted to say, no one in this group will run away with 3000€, it won’t happen. Its all ppl that are working in my field, it’s not worth it. But then if you get into trouble bc the bank account is blocked, and there are other unintentional things that could happen…
SARAH: the question of privilege is interesting. I think that we are all super broke, I assume poverty. I would never assume the privilege of playing the game by the privilege of being able to take risks. But in order to be in a position of respecting whatever financial situation is the one of the person that I received the card of, I enter survival mode. Probably I won’t spent anything. Bc its the most common thing.
RONI: if I was asked to play this game in another moment of my life, I would be terrified. But not now. But knowing it could be terrifying, that’s already intense.
ELENA: the worst case is probably that someone is being caught by an official person. And then you can be in positions where you are more or less able to avoid that.
ANNEGRET: is it forbidden?
ALICE: not sure if its forbidden, but its easy to make ppls life complicated
MANON: I was wondering, like are we saying yes or no to the game already? It feels strange. [inaudible]
LOUISE: there's always multiple ways to look at it. Its a very important thing to think about what's going on socially, in this space, as we talk about it. [inaudible] There's an element of peer pressure, but I think is definitely happening.
RONI: is there a moment now for anonymity?
LOUISE: just wanna finish my thought: regarding discrimination — some ppl don’t wanna do it, and I think there's lots of reasons why you want to do it, not just bc of the money. There’s also many big non financial elements in it. What if you are the outlier who didn't do it at all — or went to dinner? Its scary. And regarding the privilege, on the other hand, it could be an opportunity to see how we take care, how we don’t take advantage of each other.
CLEMENT: its also a nice proposal concerning collectivizing. This question of how can we collectivize problems. There's something about the trust that is needed in order to make it together. It raises some fear in me, and that’s why I was interested in it.
ALICE: the function of opacity — that we don’t know. If you have the code you could know it. But you still don’t know how much needed to be paid next week. There will always be opacity. I think it's a very important part of the proposition, the fact that we don't know — that we don't know what are the needs, that we don't know how much is actually there. It would be a completely different discussion if we would play with „open cards“, like how do we evaluate what is enough, what is too much and so on?
ELENA: its an economy privilege, which informations you give where. And I agree with you, if one choose to be in a group, its a very different feeling. If everybody in the collective, whatever that collective is, is there that you've agreed on, and you have no problem with any of them? Or if you are there and you're very happy with some, okay with others, and suspicious with a few?

• Sarah and Louise are writing the amount of money on a huge paper:
  total = 463.465,00€
  liquid = 472.381,00€
  average per person = 33.741,00€
  debt = 8.916,00€
  ppl are in awe! *

ALICE: but you already revealed that the SPIN account is part of that.
SARAH: [inaudible, but it seems that’s not what’s making the difference]
ALICE: oh wow! we’re 14 ppl — I’m surprised!
LOUISE: makes the math this isn’t the total amount of the money on the cards on the hat. This is also family accounts, savings, project money [??] etc.

• everyone is very impressed *
  SARAH: coming to the end, we could now pick our cards if we want, and discuss pin codes, and then meet tomorrow again and discuss. And tomorrow evening we also have dinner together.
  LOUISE: my proposal is: you get the hat and take a random card, or you get your own card.
  SARAH: or first we do a round where ppl can pick their cards if they are not comfortable with it…?
• before everyone leaves, many ppl are actually exchanging credit cards *
• discussion if someone put their project money in — seems like one person did it *

Day Two
10.11.2022

Participants
Alice, Angela, Annegret, Barbara, Camila, Clement, Elena, Julia, Layton, Louise, Maria, Micha, Roni, Sabine, Sarah, Said (?) [+ 2 Dogs]

Structure
14h00 - 14h30 arrival
14h30 - 16h00 block #1
16h00 - 16h30 break
16h30 - 18h00 block #2
18h00 - end Backbone pizza and drinks

—> Arrival

• new faces — dance carpet instead of bean bags *

—> block #1
SARAH: gives an overview of the day
LOUISE: introduces the dogs
CLEMENT: we’ll do a short exercise. It comes from somatic experiencing, I got it from Franziska [Dieterich] that some of you might know. its a four steps exercise, lasts about ten minutes. The first step is: slowing down. We do that by walking ten steps.

• ppl start walking slowly, getting slower with every step, while the dogs are playing super excited until Louise separates them *
  once you’ve done the ten steps you embrace yourself, hold yourself, and slowly come to yourself
• ppl are embracing themselves, heavy joyful breathing, while one dog is exploring the landscape of those calm statues *
  once you’ve done that, you look for a place of tension, and then you switch between tension and ease
• meanwhile, the dog came into a meditative position in front of clement *
  the fourth step: as we are mammals, we connect to ppl — so find a person where you feel supports you, and engage socially with that person
• ppl are coming together in all kinds of cuddle and embracing positions: sitting, laying, standing — the dog is also involved
  thank you very much! If you want this instruction you can get it from me, but also on the website of Somatic Experiencing: https://www.somatic-experiencing.de/ Its a very good exercise if you want to come to yourself. The four steps: slow down — connect to yourself — pendulate — connect to someone else.
  LAYTON: is it more a physical, or an energetic task?
  CLEMENT: its both!
  MARIA: [sth with politics of trauma, human justice and pandemic]. Just before we were doing this workshop, I got an email [inaudible] its a continuous practice. So I thought maybe I should take it [the workshop?]. I took the workshop online. Its a three hour session, it’s sth I can share. Its a bit of a different take than the usual somatics dancers are habituated to. It has a lead way towards mutual empowerment and even to movement, social justice and so on. — So its Sunday, a lot of ppl are sick, so I’ll say my proposal but we can change it. I want to bring this one hour journey. Its rare to have groups of bodies. Its basically about being the soil for each other. One body gets 8’ of unconditional support from the others, by being supported from the under. Its usually on the floor, it doesn't mean lifting each other up, but it could happen. It takes some muscles and attention. The center and the periphery of the support keeps shifting. It really depends on what your body can do at this moment. Its an embodied reflection on what it means to give support. Its both labour and service. It goes in and out of boredom, being fully involved or not. It feels flowy and not flowy. Thats the link to the backbone, the under, in terms of being support for each other. The other one is called „a treatment“. Its a trio, in the legacy of fake healing. It’s four different offerings. Its in the consent framework, you know the four steps. Each person gets 20’ of support. What’s the vibe?
  LOUISE: i’d love to do the first one
  OTHERS: me too
  ALICE: eight ppl for one person?
  MARIA: yes that’s good
  SARAH: i like that not everyone gets soiled
  MARIA: are we going for the first one?
  EVERYONE: yes yes
  MARIA: let’s do a warm up…
  BARBARA: we do two groups?
  MARIA: yes a warm-up in groups of two is happening
  MARIA: explaining the proposal the person that is receiving support is laying down. just feel into your underbody, wherever you feel touch. You can just be there. It depends on the arrangement of ppl. You can always melt and shift. you can yield — meaning reaching into the touch. You can float the legs, the arms, the hip, someone will catch you unconditionally. You can hang out — hanging out is the thing. Can someone come for a second? roni comes * the ppl who support want to go under. Sometimes its ok to lift, but generally you chill. so its the under person, down person, who has the agency. I don’t manipulate. You just go where you feel comfortable. Everything is very sweet. There’s always rearrangement based on what the person down does. And you see how it evolves. Everything should be caught. Someone always has to be under. Lots of shifting. if you don’t want to be touched in certain ares you can whisper it before, or also while doing it.
  CLEMENT: and it has to be moving?
  MARIA: [inaudible] thank you for that question. I’ve done that with ppl who are 70y old, and was a bit scared, but it went always well. You trust your intelligence of just being under, chill, shift. lets start. I’ll play some music.
  https://open.spotify.com/album/4aF5QMWM4mQ0IflAozyUGA
• the big cuddle puddle starts *

—> block #2 (manon joins)
ELENA: introduces a book by Aslan, which is about the queer language they invented. More here: https://queertongue.com/THE-FUTURE and here: https://queertongue.com/WHAT-IS-DAMIA and here: https://oncewewereislands.com/Queer-Tongues it can be ordered for free from Aslan
MANON: how is the project funded?
ELENA: they develop it since they are 10y old, and this one now is funded by NeustartKultur
BARBARA: are we expecting more ppl?
SARAH: the dogs and their owners… announces then what’s happening next in relation to the card exchange yesterday

• ppl debating what happens if the person of the exchange is not here *
• ppl are debating about housing
  MARIA: reflecting about the proposal in the first block * generally for me it brings up grief mixed to longing. First of all, there’s resources, there’s energy, everybody is an energy worker and how this is amazing. I've been in other spaces where it's a lot of discussion and talking about the practices, but with these ppl here we can go from 0-100, into feeling. And this is also part of decolonizing, looking at other cosmologies, and whiteness and so on. I feel the call to whiteness is „feel“. And the discussion is so advanced intellectually, but the practice is more like, you go to HKW etc. The body has such a different timing than the intellect. So i’m appreciating a lot that there is sth available to us about what we do that has to do with being there, or so. that’s what I love about the dance context.
  SARAH: i was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Also bc it took so long. Once my brain got adjusted to it I could have gone forever. And btw as no one needs to leave today at 6, this block is until 6:30
• ppl are exchanging chocolate *
• as the dogs are not coming back, it starts *
  SARAH: in the next 90’, we will first do a ceremony to take on a non-discussion space, in relation to the card exchange. And then, there’s another non-discussion space which is very open, but not debate-based. Also, it would be nice if you can avoid to talk about the future of backbone. We promise we will communicate that to everyone in January.
• dog comes and eats the chocolate
  SARAH: explains the ceremony the ceremony is called the circle of debt, restitution. And it works like this: I have a card with me that doesn't belong to me that I picked yesterday. And I used it for the last 24 hours, and this card belongs to clement. So I’ll stand up, and go to clement, and then make a declaration in front of everyone: first thanking for the trust, and then I'm gonna tell him something that I've been thinking about and connected me to him in the last 24 hours. Which is in my case: I realized I didn’t need anything, so I didn't need your card. I only bought myself a ticket to get here. But thank you for giving me the chance to access your resources. And I keep my card and I go back to my spot. We do it nice and easy and with humor, and as I said make a little declaration to the person we got the card from. That’s as specific as I wanna get.
  LOUISE: sarah — i had your card. I tried to use it yesterday night but it was a cash-only restaurant. So instead I used it this morning to buy two flat whites and two pains au chocolate for me and my lover. it was great, I loved it. I thought a lot about how its your business card and how you gonna do the receipts. So if you will need the receipts I will very much like to help you. If that includes sending the money back I would also be happy to do that. thank you very much for giving it to me for 24 hours.
  MANON: barbara — i have your card since last night. I didn't need much, but I needed to bring sth to the dinner I was invited. It felt weird bc if anything you would have deserved a bottle of wine from me. So I would like to pay you back. Thank you for your trust!
  ELENA: Camila — you gave me your card. I did not use anything bc I was not interested in the game. We made a joke. And the joke was: how would it be if someone paid money into the account? That gave me joy. And it was a chance to cheat on the game, which I liked. So this morning I transferred you money. laughing I actually really cheated bc usually on the card there is the IBAN, but not on yours — but bc I worked in a project with you I have your IBAN. I am happy to share resources with you.
  ALICE: julia — thank you very much for lending the card. I wrote the pin on my hand, but then I washed my hand, and it almost disappeared, but I could see still a little bit. But then I forgot it. laughter I didn't need the card, bc I had cash. But I regretted that, bc I would have liked to get a present from you, in this complicated situation where you're not actually deciding to. But it doesn't change it, I realized, having the chance to receive something from your generous gesture was already joy. So thank you very much.
  CAMILA: alice — thank you for the trust. As the rules were to use it as it were my card, I did that. And I didn’t just use it for me, I also gave your card to someone else laughter * I took some money, but I knew that everything I took I knew I would give you back. Thank you.
  MARIA: elena — after all I was surprised you gave your card. It felt very charged. It was like living like a pulsating alien in the bed in the other room. And I was very aware of your name and Deutsche Bank being in the other room. It was quite emotional to recognize that there was also the topic of family, children, and how I reflect on these topics. You were always in the room. It was energetically vibing, I didn't buy anything. Thank you!
  BARBARA: marga — she is a person I never met before. She was a complete stranger for me. Which was even weirder. And as I didn't go out yesterday I didn't buy anything. But in the morning I bought a croissant and a coffee and got super nervous, bc I couldn’t find my card. And then I switched to cash. So i did not use it in the end.
  ANNEGRET: maria — thank you for the card. What happened to me was having the other card made me think what are the nice things I could do. That’s not what I do with my card. So I went to NK and picked up a lover on the way and said find a nice fancy restaurant. It ended up being a Knödel place. Thank you for the card it made me very happy. And the other person says thank you too. But I will return the money to you ofc. And it gave me the realization that money is there to use it. Thank you for that.
  JULIA: manon — thank you for trusting. I was super tired yesterday and slept super early, and same this morning, so I didn't consume anything. I did not think all the time about it. I did not feel tempted. The only thing was that once I thought that maybe there is more money on this card than on mine. But then this thought shifted. My question was a bit like what for…? Thank you!
  CLEMENT: louise — it was super charged, I was very afraid to lose it, such a responsibility. Yesterday we had a guest and we talked about it. She is doing research about dating apps. And she told us about sth on kink dating apps: ppl who get turned on when they give their cards to other ppl, who enjoy being financially dominated.
  LOUISE: it’s called pay pigs.
  CLEMENT: exactly. I assume its only rich ppl doing this. That was funny. Probably no one here has done it. but I didn't do anything with the card. Thank you!
  SARAH: everyone did it? Yes? Thank you for trusting the game! Anything that needs to be returned, any damage, any discomfort, the backbone structure is here to solve it. Please come to me if you need help! We can now open for 20’ of a general reflection. And can someone give a general summary of what has happened?
  LOUISE: yesterday we started by saying what creature we were. Than we started developing tools: one is a database for bodywork and healthcare practitioners, and we made a signal group. And then a group made a community agreement. Maybe we can share that later.
  ANNEGRET: the signal group exists already?
  LOUISE: yes, its also already sent per email. And generally we also thought about financial resources, but also time, space, spiritual, physical, community, network, resilience resources. And then we had everyone put their cards in the middle without telling why. And then everyone was invited to tell their career from the vantage point of „what resources were available?“ In opposition to the usual precarity stories. And i went around and asked everyone how much money and debt everyone has, and then wrote the total amount on the board. Even though this reveal was not really planned. And then we ended on a talk about the card exchange, touching on topics like privilege and trust.
  SARAH: thank you. The next 20’ should be rather resonance than debate. Like voicing reflection. And then in the second part we can go more into a debate. It would be nice to think about: how do we feel about this? What does that generate for us? Also with a focus on discomfort? What needs to be more explored? Where are more desires? And also, how are these discourses embedded in our daily life? How do we connect those topics? How do you feel about it?
  MANON: yesterday made me feel at the same time joyful and sad. I felt joy about the community that is maybe been born, or whatever it is doing. And I watched a video that you sent in the beginning Sarah, a group who lives with the same account since 10y. It brought them to a more existential shift in their relationship to the world. There are all these relationships between money and emotions and control. I was really touched by it. And at the same time I realized how deep it is, how much of a change it does. I immediately doubted myself if I would be brave enough. So it was overwhelming both in its beauty and its depth. And at the same time I couldn’t imagine myself being so brave like the ppl in the video. I was discouraged. It was like „practicing an open relationship for a day“. It confronted me with my own cowardice.
  ELENA: i had a lot of feelings, so many that I didn't went home to not bring these feelings to my family. So I went in a cafe and wrote. At the end I realized that one word was very important for me: choice. The game changed a lot when I knew who has my card, and whose card I have. I realized if I have choice it changed a lot. And then I had a conversation with clement which was relevant. And then I was wondering: I chose solidarity with ppl I know, but how could I practice solidarity with ppl I don’t know? Ideologically, politically, I would like to be able to do that. And emotionally that feels really wrong, I don't want to do that because it's such a loss of control. So that's a point I reached that I found interesting. At dinner I eventually shared the story with the card with my family: the husband smiled. The 10y old was: why would you do that? And what’s the point? The 13y old was: it will never be dangerous bc everyone knows each other. He immediately understood the situation. And I’m grateful Maria brought up the word intimacy. I enjoyed the intimacy that was created between us, both with you and us not knowing each other. I got this fan-fiction story, like this kind of thing could be the start of some weird relationships.
  ALICE: I’m still trying to digest the informations. It revealed the assumption for me, which is that I tend to think I have a bit more than most ppl in our circle. And sth else — I’ve been thinking a lot about transparency. The fact that we don’t know what’s on the account. And even if we know we have no idea how it got there. There’s sth really scary here, but also beautiful. So the topics were: trust, excitement for radicality… and my relationship with my own money. I always know exactly how much I have. … what can give the sensation of abundance, and what not? Its shaking a lot of my own assumptions.
  CAMILA: i wanted to try to put the finger on what the hypothesis of the game. Like what’s the exact point? Like we should all share a group bank account? What is be put at stake? I played without worry bc the rules were clear. And I know everybody here. But I would be curious about other ppls hypothesizes.
  JULIA: for me it was very interesting to go through the emotions linked to economy. For me, experimenting with this had two places: one, it wasn’t very hard for me to not use the card. But I felt more interested in thinking about the other person — not so much the one whose card I had, but the one who got my card. Trying to imagine what you would do. I also really didn’t intend to spend money. And I was wondering, and we did it with only one person. Imagine there would be so many more. And then the question emerged: what for? It was less about the projection but more about the experience.
  RONI: i really enjoyed the way it made me think about resources. We just spent half a day today supporting each others backbone. I’m also very busy with this topic. It made me think like what are the other resources, and what would they sum to? all the other things apart from money. I enjoyed reflecting on my own resources that are not financial.
  LOUISE: the thing that stayed with me the most was how the conversation went after we explained the game and the rules. The main way how it was facilitated was „lets not have the conversation now“, and then we had it. So it felt like a very unstructured, volatile space that wasn't meant to be happening, but also couldn't not happen because we all kind of had to agree to do it. and then the question was „what for“, and I also didn't really have an answer. I’d like to play the opportunity, and play with that volatility, and how money is really everywhere, and touches on a lot of different topics like family, gender, class, where you come from, immigration, where you were born, all of this stuff, how you work, what your profession is. But then I heard so many different types of fears, different flavors and textures of fear in a space that was not meant to hold them, other than that we all know each other. It was a very powerful moment, not in a good or bad way. And gave me a lot of food for thought. Like what are our concerns with financial precarity, what are our concerns with, things about care, adventurousness, frugality, worst case scenario, best case scenario etc. I really enjoy hearing about that. I also feel very grateful that this space could be held in all its volatility. I’m grateful to be around all of you.
  ANNEGRET: for me it felt like a huge experiment as long as I didn't know whose card I had, and then once I knew it was more like „sure see you tomorrow“, even though I also didn’t know Marga, but I tried to explain her how to use the card without having the pin. we were talking about these cards as if we could empty the whole account, but its actual not possible. I eg have a limit. So what is really the risk? If i think about it in a longterm perspective, like that you could lose everything in a moment bc someone takes a crazy decision, but that there is some sort of regulation, like a check-in of how things are being used. So resources cant evaporate, only to a certain limit.
  LOUISE: now as the timer went off can we go more into debate?
  SARAH: maybe ten more minutes.
  CLEMENT: i am very happy we made this tool. It feels like such a powerful thing. I dreamed about it since so long. We are so tuned into negativity, because of all the lacks, and this felt very exciting. I’m curios if we have time to discuss how to implement it, because there was not much time yesterday. That was my happiness
  MARIA: I also have the two things on my computer with me today. But maybe we need some re-grounding of them, bc they require participation. So there is a further commitment. if you activate it yourself, do you know its really there? will it get programmed? elaborating more on how these two initiatives should come into manifestation I will read the signal group community agreement…
• sarah and barbara also have a technical discussion around the work of the two groups yesterday, about the data base and the agreement, which leads to Maria not reading the agreement
  SARAH: gives an outlook how those things will unfold
  BARBARA: there is one database on health and bodywork, and another on equipment and materials
  CAMILA: in relation to what Julia said: I had the same feeling, it was easy. And then I was wondering why. And recognized I am on minus in my card. And then I was wondering: with 2000€ I would have still given it. But maybe with 20000€, would I have given it at all?
  MANON: very interesting
  ELENA: when I hear that, I feel there’s a sweet spot for me. elaborating on what the difference between 20000€ or 10000€ on her bank account would be * the same I have with budgets in production. I really like them. They're quite large, and I don't have to think about every 20 euros. I like being in that space of knowing I can afford the generosity, and it's actually something I'm most interested in. How does one produce it no matter what the situation?
  SARAH: i was trying to think again about those two days, and what I found interesting. There’s a kind of massage of key muscles that help us being resilient and flexible. That moment where something is scary, that's great, because it's a very strong teaching moment. I'm very happy to be exposed to the fears I can take because then I can feel them, use them and change my behavior. And then there are the fears that I cannot take. I need [inaudible] to the transition from a state of fear into a state of challenge into a state of safety and comfort. Some of these things I can do by myself, some of these things I cannot do by myself, and this is how I understand the world. And with resources, in particular finances, there is such a strong structural capitalist pressure in defining the way we think and feel about these things. Which leads to me having a total obsession and dependency and crave for any level of tool that helps me challenging this default capitalist way of relating to money. My biggest fear is to have one way — and even worse: my own way of thinking about money — that freaks me out. Because it's what they want, right? The card game does two things for me. One: it makes me assess whether [inaudible] so I’m making an assessment of my own living situation, and think, Okay, if somebody lives like I live, they will be okay. So i can make an assessment about needs, whether I can provide for the needs that I think I have. And then, if the person is a rich motherf****r that spent 40,000 euros every Saturday night, I would think [inaudible] for that person. Which is an interesting schema. And when I take the card, I have this imaginary conversations about the needs of the person I took the card of. And then I think about the conversation about needs of the person who’s card I have with the person who’s card they have. And this conversation about needs is very important for me. Because I think capitalism works in a way that teaches you to define, and actually push a lot of work into defining your own needs, right? So you've been taught since very early age that you need to be good at assessing them, you need to be good at naming them. And then you will evaluate yourself according to whether you succeed in fulfilling those needs or not. And this is a tricky thing, because especially in our or activist circles, we're also doing a lot of work that uses that same chart to understand the world in a very different way, which determines boundaries, how do we define identities, breach diversities etc. But the tools, the languages stay. So this calls for even more sophistication, even more refinement. And I think this game makes you do a little step — it doesn't solve the problem, but it makes you understand which muscles you need to train better and play better together. And for me, of course, this means I need to get to know clement better. Can we do an exchange so that we can become interdependent in a way that we can actually support each other? For me this is the conversation. This is what I wanted to see.
  MANON: so you mean: creating more intimacy — with more ppl?
  SARAH: yes. To put it radical: money shouldn’t be a private thing. Or at least not a private topic. The moment it becomes a private topic, you’re playing into all the fears, all the shame that are tools of the machine. So we need to see what we can do in order to overcome the fears and the shame, and in order to make the topic as public as possible, build resistance and strengthen the muscle that allows profit driven behavior to not disturbing the way we live our lives.
  LOUISE: i very much agree. Another reason I like to play with it and talk about it and it shouldn’t be a private topic is that it separates us. And it really shouldn’t. From a marxist perspective we are all being capitalized. And when we are looking for differences, or ingredients of access to wealth, it's important. I get nervous if we are looking for differences there instead of similarities, like how we can support each other, share things, collaborate etc. And another interesting thing about this scene is that it is quite international. There’s a lot to learn from each other, especially when it comes to how to manage our finances. Its important to talk about privilege, and name it, but also see what we can do with it — rather than naming it, and then it feels like there is a problem, a road block, and we rather shouldn’t go further. Money and class are good examples of the privilege of being here, working as dance artists in Europe. And how much can we learn from a situation and then eg share with our colleagues in the state, or elsewhere in the world. I like to be transparent with the differences, name the privilege factors, and then continuing further than that. Does that make sense?
  ALICE: for me it makes sense. We can’t resolve it, but it should stay vibrant. If we allow it to circulate there will be enough. And in the same time, the necessity to resist starting to establish a common ground, and I’m speaking about numbers now. Because when we start to discuss how much do you need, depending on how much your rent is and how many children you have or persons you're sharing economy with, this is gonna choke anything. Just to name the scope. And the two sides of the scope are: full transparency, total distribution vs. total opacity. And i am really curious about the space in between, where is trust etc. but I don’t know.
  MANON: i find it very interesting, the definition of wealth, or the moment of feeling wealthy. Like feeling enough. And what kind of actions are going along with it. And what do we count? Just money? Or family… all the other things? Counting other resources doesn’t have to cancel talking about money.
  ANGELA: to me it was interesting to re-think about the topic. Wenn we first met we talked about the common wallet. And at this point I was financially in a very bad situation. I love the topic, the idea, but I also clearly felt not worthy enough to take part in such a collective. I was so lucky I could participate, and I could invoice immediately. I had been sick for two months. But now, it has changed totally, I am really good, and it changed my whole feeling, my perspective. I feel like „yes lets do it!“ I really want to say thank you for bringing it up twice, and having the chance to develop a feeling towards it, to explore this, to explore the meaning, what it does to you. And the relation between transparency and class is so interesting. Its something I wasn’t aware of when I entered this field. Its really a problem to talk about money. I was not aware of it. This can be a craft of socially lower classes. Not sure if that is true, but I talk to my family about it a lot. I really feel its a craft. And i got trapped in a couple of situations. There was this meeting with a person in a zoom meeting. And i was „Hi I know you I once asked you to work with me but you were too expensive“ And I got red, super embarrassed, I was clearly hurting them, and was not aware. And like you said, its an opportunity, its a muscle, that can be trained to be brave enough to bring it up.
  LAYTON: there’s also sth with experimenting, using the muscle. It needs space, and sometimes it won’t be strong enough. You should be able to participate in it when you're in really a shitty financial situation, or a good financial situation. Otherwise it would be a pyramid scheme, if its sth you only do if you are in a good place. I really think about the existentialism that it brings along. I’m in a poly relationship and we’re kind of doing this. There is the individualism of capitalism and the nuclear family, and sth in between. So i am very interested in those things.
  ELENA: i had a very intense money relationship moment. When I got pregnant with the first child, for the first time me and my now-husband really got the finances clear. Before that we had talked all the time about it, and we had a shared account where we both paid in, but we never felt the need to go full transparency. He knew he was earning a lot more, but he didn't know how much more. Currently he earns 4,5 times more what I earn. Even though I work more hours than him. Which is so weird. We talk about it all the time. When we first got fully transparent about our incomes, it took him two days to really face it. I couldn’t talk to him. I remember that being an important moment for both of us, being fully responsible financially, potentially, for another human being when you know, they might just completely fall apart. He was just facing the reality of choosing to be in a relationship responsibly with the person potentially, is going to fully lean on him. That was a new experience. And I thought about this recently, and I find it interesting, like who do I feel comfortable fully leaning on? I find it harder to fully lean on someone, instead of letting ppl lean on me.
  LAYTON: did you also think about liquid capital resource sharing? Was that part of the discussion? Like cash…
  SARAH: I have an idea. For next year. But its not there yet.
  LOUISE: in some of the planing session we talked about this number as well. I think when we were planning the sessions, we definitely didn't want to talk about planning, or organizing or structuring an actual thing that could happen. I was not there in the collective wallet discussion. One thing that could this number of all our money do is: it shows us what is possible. Just to play with ideas, as a thought experiment.
  ELENA: an additional category that I would suggest: an idea of disposable money that everyone has, per month or year.
  LOUISE: that would be super interesting. I did this exercise first with Keith Hennessy. In the US, there’s ppl have much more debt. Its super common to have like 100.000 dollar debt. So what that does is usually the total number is negative. The last time I did this it was organized differently. There was a group of artists, and I don’t know how I got this information, but the person who earned the most was a successful sex worker, earning like 100k a year. So there’s a lot of data packed in. For example what would have been really interesting is the value on the cards that we were exchanging.
  ALICE: we also need to talk about real estate
  LOUISE: I'm just hearing how we keep circling back towards money. And we also keep mentioning all the other resources that we can talk about. So its satisfying to talk about numbers, because then you make protocols and you make rules, and one can see what are we actually talking about here? In terms of cold hard figures? I would love to spent the remaining time we have not about money.
  RONI: we could also say we don’t talk about money over dinner
  MANON: no, i don’t agree. I would like to be free in that.
  SAID: a couple people mentioned how it's easier to be in a transaction in a group that are closer to you in terms of the earning or spending of the resources. And then I was wondering what kind of group is it? How is the money distributed in the group? Is there one very rich person, or are ppl equally rich? Like where are we in the bell curve? Is this group a representation of the wealth distribution in society? Is it similar, or very different? But this aside, the thing I would love to know is, if it is true, that it would be easier for us all with sharing resources if we would be in such a group of an equilibrium? If we have similar lifestyles, work similarly, earn a similar amount of money etc. Or is it better if you have different types together, like ppl who earn little and like to spend, and ppl who earn a lot but can’t spend eg? Is it easier to be in a group that we all hope is the same so I don't feel unworthy? Is it easier to be in a group where everyone is equally poor? Etc.
  LOUISE: i think its great to be in a group that’s heterogenous.
  PPL: hetero-genious
  LOUISE: …not just because of money, but everything, so we learn more from each other. We haven’t talked about time, for me time is so much about stress. The greatest gifts in my life are ppl who helped me manage my relationship with stress. And seeing ppl having more stress than I or really bad at planning their time, has also led me to have conversations that I feel have been really generative.
  ANGELA: thank you for saying this! I was thinking about why we are so fascinated with the numbers, probably because we can easily generate ideas how to share this, it's a concrete thing. But how to share emotional or mental resources — its so much harder to share stress!
  SAID: but would you share stress with someone who has more stress than you?
• laughter *
  ANGELA: what’s your stress? Because your stress is different than mine.
  SAID: is it fearful to be near to someone who is actually very far from you, or is it actually very interesting?
  ALICE: i would like to return to the support exercise proposed by maria. Some things there were really profound for me. The first was: the more comfy I am, the better I can support ppl. Bc I am supported myself. Because I actually can take whatever weight is there. I can let the weight be there. And it will regulate how much support it needs. Which means that I had the resources all the time to give support. And in the same way, the support is not guided, it is not anticipation. Which is super complicated, technically, because it means you have to check in all the time in order to understand how there could be support on a specific spot, but at the same time not force your support into something that they are not asking for, because then you're already imposing. the other thing is: it was amazing to be supported in different ways. Like: how wonderful that my entire pelvis is held, but also my little finger. If we had stopped and tried to organize, we would have always been too late. But we were all around, we had the ability, and there was no stress because we were so many anyways. I thought it is nice to speak from a very physical place. What do we learn from doing that?
  MARIA: what is interesting for me is the mentioning of present and future. Like the rest of the world is making children and insurances to be safe when they are old. And first in such a situation here I’m like this is abundance! But then I’m like whoa, what are ppl doing with retirement plans, change of career or middle age phase? I remember my friend Peter Pleyer looking at his finances when he was 25, and checking again when he was 55, and was like: „ok, not that different“. And then everyone is „we can change the story“, but no — its a dynamic, agism is still a thing, and its also how the city of berlin works: young young young, new new new. And then you’re like „what you're doing?“ And they sth like „Well my parents died, I have a house, so I can become a chiropractor.“ So there is that one story, its super brutal, and that’s when class really slaps into your face. So there is something about taking over something, and how are people thinking in terms of timelines. And I’m always like wow, ok… And when someone asks about resources, I also think of children as somebody who will take care of you potentially when you are old. And then I wonder what I got, and I don’t know. It's weird how we are thinking assets or resources in this profession, and it's intense for me.
  ALICE: thats a project for the next three years — inventing and setting up a model for a retirement house.
  MARIA: I’m thinking of the present resourcefulness, what is it that [inaudible]. And then I have to catch myself, like „stop sharing everything.“ I’m curious how people reason about this.
  ELENA: the Ehrliche Arbeit kollektive i am working in, we were talking about this for years. The main conflict that we were having was, first of all, it's hard to agree on where to put the money without feeling like a total capitalist, so you need to find something that's acceptable and that's also possible. And then, we’ve been holding the discomfort of being quite different in terms of what people want, from a range of someone who’s single, got a Genossenschaftswohnung and says she doesn’t need a lot per month, and then there’s somebody else who feels she wants to go on two holidays a year and has two kids and she just wants more. So she needs like double the amount of the money of the other person. And we had long discussions about whether to change how much everybody gets, or keep it the same. And in the end, the putting something aside for the pension got put to the side for still raising the monthly amount, because there were still people in the room who felt uncomfortable with how much we were getting. And they didn't feel like it was enough. And then there's the other side, like half the ppl, who feel it's enough, like I would rather work less or do other things. And we are balancing this all the time. And I can just say that I think it's good. We're so different. The one thing I'm happy we do have is the comfort places, that we agree politically. None of us is super conservative or even right wing, we are all kinda Marxist, which is where we hold onto each other when it gets really rough. I've been sitting in this discomfort space for at least five years. But this really difficult discussion only came up once we started to have enough, so that some of us felt comfortable. Because before everybody just didn't have enough, now it's suddenly at this different stage.
  LAYTON: I also have this question how we are recreating — not just financially — a community of privilege. I sometimes find that the most privilege I have is to be part of this [inaudible]. Community always comes with a form of exclusion.
• Micha has to leave, Barbara takes over with note making
  ALICE: Is it privileged? Where do you lean emotionally?
  MANON: Whom do I catch? Where do I get my resources?
  ALICE: I would really question this now. But maybe there is no moment to discuss.
  ELENA: This community is build by excluding others. If you do intersect communities. It is also not a static system. It’s important to me, that all this is fluid. You can give resources one month, and then nothing the next month.
  SAID: You can also leave the community. We went to different communities in our lives. It is not like an investment.
  SARAH: Thank you everybody. I would suggest to close the official discussion. Let’s clean up the space together, to officially close the session. And lets not forget the Signal group. Let’s read out the community statement, but do not discuss it right now. Regarding the database, please do it this week, otherwise it gets lost. Is it ok to stop now, and read the community statement? Evaluation session is in January, there will be a doodle for the initial participants, but not for the guests.
  There is also a Tanztage invitation to do the workshop: A hit list of the formats we did in the sessions. We have lunch together and then bring it together / prepare and then do it.
  MARIA: reads the statement https://cryptpad.fr/pad/#/2/pad/edit/9jF9yI8UbqvNMjujAbjfAIOV/ *

SESSION #3

GOVERNANCE

ON

07.-09. September 2022

HOSTED BY

Tanzfabrik Berlin

PARTICIPANTS (over the whole period)

Alice Chauchat (she), Ana Letunić (she / via Zoom), Barbara Greiner (she), Christina Ciupke (she), Clement Layes (he), Elena Polzer (she), Ixchel Mendoza Hernández (she), Laurie Young (she), Lea Moro (she / via Zoom), Maria F. Scaroni (she), Olympia Bukkakis (she), Sabine Zahn (she), Sarah Parolin (she), Sheena McGrandles (she), Siegmar Zacharias (she), Sophia New (she)
Micha Tsouloukidse (he) - documentation

DAY ONE
07.09.2022

PARTICIPA
NTS (over the whole period)
Alice Chauchat (she), Ana Letunić (she / via Zoom), Barbara Greiner (she), Christina Ciupke (she), Clement Layes (he), Elena Polzer (she), Ixchel Mendoza Hernández (she), Laurie Young (she), Lea Moro (she / via Zoom), Maria F. Scaroni (she), Olympia Bukkakis (she), Sabine Zahn (she), Sarah Parolin (she), Sheena McGrandles (she), Siegmar Zacharias (she), Sophia New (she)
Micha Tsouloukidse (he) - documentation


KEYWORDS
XXX

DAY ONE
07.09.2022

PARTICIPANTS
Barbara, Clement, Ixchel, Laurie, Maria, Micha, Olympia, Sarah, Sheena, Siegmar, Sophia

STRUCTURE AS PLANNED
10h00 — 10h30 ARRIVAL
10h30 — 12h00 DEFINITIONS BLOCK Hosted by all the hosts
12h00 — 13h00 LUNCH
13h00 — 14h30 SHRINKING EXERCISE Hosted by Sarah

ARRIVAL
SARAH: Introduction about Backbone: backbone is a research project that is open for one year that is hosted currently by myself and Barbara. the participants are different practitioners from the dance field in Berlin. And we get it together to investigate the topic of sustainable labor, in dance in Berlin. And through that we address the issues of work conditions, payment, production, exhaustion, and all kinds of different topics that are coming up in this year of research. Thinking about "Safety measures": let's really figure out a safe word or just cough very loudly. This session is about Governance. First session was about Individual Practices, which we addressed not as artistic practices, but individual practices in the sense of I'm a human in the world, I labor and I produce, and I impact on others and on the planet. The second one was about Ethics. Backbone is funded by Tanzpakt Reconnect - the notepad is for the documentation... Let's make sure also the guest get the notepad in the end... If there's anything that someone doesn't want to be published, let Micha know immediately!
OLYMPIA: maybe we can say something like "off the record" if we don't want it to be recorded
SARAH: ok let's go!

DEFINITIONS BLOCK
OLYMPIA: introducing the first block I love to make things very concrete... making space for a diverge understanding of the topic. First, we will do a brainstorming about governance.
SARAH: We will do some time for the actual brainstorming, and then for the resonance. So we will do a list with keywords. When we first talked about in the preparation in was already striking how different the understandings of governance were. I hope this will be the case today too. I remember that probably what provoked the conversation was that I tried to give a scientific kind of economic definition for governances according to organizational science, which is something that I've been busy with a lot. And that, applied to the art context, created turmoil. And so we can try to do that again. but I don't want to put mega stones in the room, and everybody needs to refer to that. gives an overview of all the three days Something about the last day: the idea was to have a case study so that we can host together to solve somebody's problem, basically. so the invitation to everybody from the very beginning, start thinking about something that you can bring up to the group so that the group could work for you in order to solve it.
SARAH: how organizational science defines governance: the way an organization, so, not an individual - governance exist and there is a multiplicity of individuals, that's the first thing. and it generates rules over the way information flows. This is how organizational science thinks about governance. again: governance defines and generates the way information flows in an organization of more than one individual. so the first point is INFORMATION. Eg: Task lists, like I need to check if the reactor is clean or not... Or like telling someone else to clean it. It's economics. Then there's other ways, here we go
OLYMPIA: making notes it's useful to think as broadly as possible. We could think about the actual government. Eg. the thing with Tanzpraxis here in Berlin is something that could have never happened in Melbourne: like artists talking to the government and the government listening and talking to artists like this.
SOPHIA: Because you have a separate arts council?
LAURIE: it is also the ministry of transportation: Ministry of Transport and the arts. So that's quite indicative of how art is valued.
SIEGMAR: Can you write it down?
OLYMPIA: writes it down on the huge paper sheet
CLEMENT: What you just said makes me think about value
LAURIE: I think about governance in relationship to law making
SOPHIE: And from there about power and control
MARIA: I think about access to resources - in a material way.
OLYMPIA: That's interesting, it makes me think about the question if money is also a flow of information?
MARIA: The government as a busy parent... like kids bringing to the attention of their parents what they need
SIEGMAR: I'm thinking of protocol. I've been working on consent, on how to work together. Things came up like what's the legal protocol, what's the institutional protocol, but also what's the protocol of care, of shifting powers? Protocol as a way to institutionalize it, to take it from the shoulder of the individual. another question was how can we change those protocols? Eg. with corona, shows were canceled, normally there's no money, but then this was changed due to new contracts with institutions. we can always make protocols that are creating more possibility than the legal ones. there's also this question of how to develop an attention to change in response to a crack?
OLYMPIA: about the real time adaptability of protocols?
SIEGMAR: Adaptability. I mean, we were working under under the heading of regeneration, but you have the thing that you don't want to change everything, there's some things that you value, but then you realize over time that some things just need to change, and how do you develop ways to do that without one person deciding that or one person having to ask for it all the time, but that there is a collective that will develop collective protocols of self governance, so to speak.
BARBARA: when i researched i ended in this evaluation process, how to evaluate an organization, it's a constant part of it
SARAH: Should we write down also rules?
SIEGMAR: i would like to bring in deprivatisation and deindividualization, and positive collective
BARBARA: i would like to add internal / external in regards to evaluation
CLEMENT: i just thought about efficiency, governances should be efficient, but i would like to include a chaotic emotional experience of myself within the structures of governance. you could access it in a rational manner, but your emotional turmoil makes it difficult
SARAH: Anti-efficiency?
SOPHIE: Bureaucracy?
SIEGMAR: maybe we can collect all the negative and positive things? are there other ways of thinking about governance, like we mean governance but say sth else?
CLEMENT: eg. in the funding structure there's only rationality, but no emotionality
OLYMPIA: it reminds me of the governance of the self, like a super ego. its simultaneously supposed to be a very impulsive, childish form of labor, and at the same time, have the Prussian discipline, like the parent.
MARIA: the government can be also a threat, so in Italy there's a lot of corruption. like the small self, the needy, the fixing the grabbing? how to find a reasonable way to understand who's benefiting from what? there's also sth about honesty?
SARAH: should we put down accountability, honesty? and can i put down corruption?
BARBARA: and the bureaucratic contradictions too
SIEGMAR: i'm wondering how do we know what the system is to which governance applies. in sarahs example it was easy, but in the arts scene, funding, community etc. it's much more complicated. how do we feel governance, how do we transport it? so how do we know when governance applies, that we are part of the system? when does it apply to?
SOPHIE: When does it come into play?
SIEGMAR: eg. when I'm in Italy there's a clear territory, but in the dance community it's different. how do i know if i'm part of it, can shape it, can profit from it?
SARAH: can we put down functionality? and what made a lot of sense to me: when am i part of the system?
BARBARA: as working in Tanzfabrik, it was easy to understand, but as a freelancer it was much harder to match it. an institutional frame helps to... frame it
OLYMPIA: institutional vs. freelance frames
SARAH: then it becomes a personal, a political frame. makes me think the questions i'm asking myself when i'm in contact with an institution - i have to define myself. part of this definition are multiple levels of precarity and the levels of privilege, and then the finance. And I can either be a time bomb walking around the theater corridors, or I can be a resource for the institution, or I can be something that is completely exploited by the institution. And the way I define my behavior inside those walls, conceptual or physical is actually the way I interact with the institutional governance.
BARBARA: the institution has their rules... and how to interact with their rules, how can i interact with them even without being part of it? in production contexts its much more flowing, i don't have a system, a model there
SARAH: two things come to my mind: task devision, and applied accountability / responsibility
MARIA: the freelance thing made a leap to management: what's the difference with management and governance? while we keep talking here a lot of ethics come up
SARAH: Management should be on the board
MARIA: its very shadowy
CLEMENT: we talk a lot about good governance, its an important aspect of institutions, but theres so much more to it for individuals when they go through these frames. we could write good governance with a question mark
OLYMPIA: when you said shadowy, it reminded me of Deliveroo drivers, like freelance work in general, as they don't have some kind of sick pay, which usually the government provides.
MARIA: the root is the mercenary warrior - freelancer. it's the shadow side of my work, because it has to do with money - it comes down a lot to that. we're talking about power here. money is dangerous, and powerful, and liberating. with management and finance, i have a lot of fear, but with governance it feels more like an energetic backbone - it's a whole different vibe like management. management feels like trust, governance feels like scary
OLYMPIA: for me it has super colonial connotations, because it's like the queen in Australia. Like her representative, who's the Governor General. the last time that we had a progressive government was in the 70s. for me it brings to mind the governor figure, an anti-democratic figure. regarding in the shadows, there's sth about opportunity, enterprise - and access to a welfare net. European citizens can get a small amount of money if it doesn't work out. i had that for nine years, the whole idea of freelance art is based on the welfare net that can be accessed if it doesn't work out
SOPHIA: maybe democracy too?
OLYMPIA: under corruption?
SIEGMAR: what are the thresholds?
LAURIE: you can have a non-democratic elected government?
SARAH: i tried to think about the subject in regards to self organized spaces. sth that happened in many contexts is the idea of shifting management into hosting. hosting or facilitating is management in less hierarchical structures. i would put that too. i have a super strong rejection towards protocols, i use it a lot but i would never use it in community spaces, and it made me think about agreement. and then i thought about the juxtaposition again, and it made me think about temporality, how do we regenerate? So what is the root of finding systematic agreements that can be changed? And what do we do then? And that I think also questions the efficiency of a model, right? how do you run the code through? how do you feel it as you go? how do you make sure anybody can at anytime raise their hand and say it doesn't work?
SHEENA joins
SIEGMAR: regarding protocols, i have the same kind of weirdness about that term. And you just said something like, a system of agreement. So it's some kind of systematization, that is not just individual decision, and at the same time, yet, this constant kind of adaptability. if we talk about agreement we need to talk about commitment and consent, also a way to check in. so there's also a commitment to a possibility of systematization. but then what are the tools? can be practices, also as a form - sth we can go back to. feedback could be one. all of these words are a bit weird in our context
MARIA: that resonates a lot. in social pleasure center we tried all this out. we practiced so many things: it is fundamental that we all studied consent, read non violence communication books, or practice mindfulness practice Heart to Heart dialogue. So we can descend, but we trust that that's how we communicate. And I just found myself in a very like minded context, in the arts, but it was interesting how... there's something funny: when I was somebody who tried to say something, the culture of communication was more one of like, criticality and defensiveness. what I got used to in the circles that I cultivated that there is a implied and decided and practice culture of listening, which we change, how we can agree disagree and change protocols and so on.
SIEGMAR: we talked about it as building culture. is it next to governance? can they be the same?
MARIA: about the listening thing... the word listen stuck with me
OLYMPIA: i have a suggestion. there's many ideas in the room already. it could be nice to specifically move onto that. we could draw connections and then everyone explains why they connect it?
SARAH: maybe seven more min, and then open the curtain?
CLEMENT: i want to add that governance in self-organized contexts, it's connected to having an aim, a purpose, its opposed to management which is more day-to-day handling, but then the question of having a collective aim is very complicated. so the question of governance and self-organisation is very difficult - but in our context i don't know how to do it. do you have an idea for a word for this?
OLYMPIA: direction stood out
MARIA: the commitment part... you work on a declaration, so it has to do with commitment. the first thing on my list was happiness, the wellbeing. the boat should go towards the wellbeing of everyone. management feels local, governance bigger
SIEGMAR: the purposefulness could also be a how, not just a what. like how we work and live in relationship towards each other - that's a purpose i could sign up to.
SARAH: in regarding to you clement, sth resonated and it was what is explicit and what is implicit. it relates to the culture of communication, what's explicit and what implicit? practicing explicitness. this summer, I went to a nudist organized campground in Croatia. I've done a lot of FKK, I practice nudism heavily in my life, but I never been to a place that is organized for that purpose. they said, everybody from this line onwards, no clothes, everybody from this line backwards, clothes. so you're driving the car, you need to stop the car before you cross the line. I was bleeding heavily with my bleeding pants, and I had to do it and then go back to the driving, it was a bit disgusting. Going messy, not elegant. And then you live in this environment. Everybody's naked, which is cool. You do a lot of nice things naked, the security's naked etc. So there is a certain level of not only hygiene but safety that I was questioning. so the space has a super highly implicit governance model, that you basically just respond to only because of one element that is very much related to the body. I was really impressed. I didn't like it very much. But when you were speaking, I was thinking about that very transparent model of governance that is highly implicit: nudist campgrounds.
BARBARA: why is it implicit?
SARAH: there was a lot which was not written on the wall... the only thing that was written on the wall was "take of your clothes". but the rest - how to live together - was implicit.
CLEMENT: i have been to a lot of nudist camps, and i made the opposite experience: you never know how to behave, there's a lot of unspoken rules. probably it depends on the camp.
MARIA: what's the value that is carried? if you come to a nudist beach, it's about the freedom to be "natural".
OLYMPIA: there's also the tension with gay spaces. eg. with Vabali - if you go to a gay space, it's completely different. there's a necessary desexualization that happens in straight places, in opposition to gay spaces.
SIEGMAR: another different culture: saunas in russia, turkey or Morocco, where you actually rub each other and wash each other, massage each other. And the grandmothers of the grandchildren wash each other, whatever. So as soon as my German son and I start doing that, people would like... alienated.
SARAH: what could go on the board from this is assumptions? and then let's transition to olympias game

BOARD GAME
SARAH: i propose a connection between building culture and explicit / implicit
MARIA: are we just drawing lines, or also writing things down?
SARAH: just drawing lines
CLEMENT: i propose access of resources and implicit / explicit this knowledge of how to handle a situation
MARIA: because then you know if you are part of the system or not...
BARBARA: that also applies to the governance system - if you know how it works, you can engage
MARIA: I propose consent and assumptions... it's obvious? no? when i interface another entity / person, with consent we wonder what other peoples invisible modes are. consent is a practice of not assuming, or rather asking. when things feel oppressive...
OLYMPIA: this applies on a micro macro level also. on a global level, there's an assumed consent to be governed.
MARIA: how you make room on this global level?
OLYMPIA: i propose agreement - cooperation - real time it relates to consent as well. a mode of governance that could manufacture consent in real time
SIEGMAR: where is efficiency? its actually not true if it takes more time when things are not done efficiently.
OLYMPIA: efficacy
SIEGMAR: i like that - i would like to connect consent and efficacy / affect
OLYMPIA: it brings up that we are not used to being self governing. so everything takes time, to build up a skill.
SIEGMAR: wirksamkeit is cool weil da wirkungsmacht drin steht, which is agency
SARAH: what is missing for me is tools. put it under protocols? i like it much more than rules. and then you get into an apocalyptic landscape of post human culture, there is like a big forest and the dinosaurs walking through and finding the ranch. that state, this idea of materiality that is necessary and useful.
SIEGMAR: i like it with the materiality. and tools are transferable. so that means its not only individual.
BARBARA: a very simple connection is task - division - accountability - responsibility?
SARAH: I have a strange connection to that. the first thing that came to my mind was "know your place" and then i thought about self awareness. it has a cynical nuance.
SOPHIA: it comes back to power. i have this beautiful anecdote of the little campsite. my daughter listening to this older boy in high school, just burped out the most racist, sexist, homophobic nastiness, while she was trying to walk in the corridor. And I said, Why didn't you speak up, she said, Because I'm 16. And he's 19. And there's a hierarchy of your school structure, and I cannot speak to him. this whole understanding of knowing your place, where you can't speak, you just have to come home and go, there's this horrible experience, and you can only talk within certain places to certain people. this kind of hierarchical structure of the oppressive side of governance, potentially, of knowing your place, it could be really liberating, but it can also be super oppressive
OLYMPIA: it has a double meaning. from the government to the governed... as like an affirmation or something like Know thyself. like to know your place to come to a knowledge about your position. that's actually necessary in any sort of democratic environment.
CLEMENT: it's more how the chains of commands are working. i would write more about the structure
OLYMPIA: i like that it is ambiguous. we need to have some understanding of the structure to understand where we go. it can be a threat also
SHEENA: it relates to: Is it someone who puts you there? Or is it somewhere where you choose to be? that's where this kind of ambiguity comes for me, it relates to the kind of power. knowing that you have a skill, a tool set, its a certain kind of self awareness - not only be taken to a place, but also take the place
OLYMPIA: like saying "its not my job"
SARAH: we can call it "your place"
SHEENA: the double side of it
SARAH: the more empowering way is how can i interact with the system, where am i responsible?
OLYMPIA: where to put it?
SARAH: i propose democracy - accountability - know your place
LAURIE: i love the example of the nudist camp. explicit and implicit agreements. how to have a dialogue. so governance creates the possibility of a dialogue towards power.
SARAH: what comes to my mind is antagonism
LAURIE: i'm not sure. its more about disagreement through dialogue
SARAH & MARIA: dissent
LAURIE: yes
SIEGMAR: almost every thing that we'll talk about is like, if we talk about good governance feels like this, bad feels like this. which are the ways in which sth gets experienced as oppressive, or generative? what are the ways that everybody has the agency to revise?
LAURIE: is that what you're saying with chain of commands clement?
SARAH: i link agency and tools
LAURIE: there's something very evocative when you mentioned system. Don't know what that is. government as a system, and I don't really know how to talk about that. But that feels useful.
OLYMPIA: anything that you feel doesn't belong there anymore?
LAURIE: what i meant about systems is that it takes it away from good and bad, more of a structure
SHEENA: good governance?
OLYMPIA: ...good governance being something that we actually are involved in, like something that happened. I think there's an implication when we're talking about good governance, sth like democratic or self or responsive.
CLEMENT: good governance was also transparency
MARIA: can we evolve the good governance to a transparent system?
SARAH: it made me think about expanding good into a transparent system. good and bad are really reductive terms. governance is a transitional space in which things can flow in one direction or the other to achieve health - or stagnation, death of the ecosystem. and how to get there.
OLYMPIA: its an important impulse to replace the word good.
SARAH: crosses the good in good governance and replaces it by transparency
SHEENA: i also liked that you brought up health
SIEGMAR: or wellbeing
SARAH: or stagnation
SIEGMAR: or oppression, if we go to the bad side. oppression came up a couple times, or harmfulness
CLEMENT: governance also hides sth hypocritical - but when you say healthy its more thinking from the perspective of the people working
OLYMPIA: i'm suspicious of the healthy thing
SARAH: why?
OLYMPIA: talking from the health history of this country, it is... well... laughter transparency feels more neutral, whereas health feels super loaded
SARAH: governance is anyhow an abstract concept. we declare sth, and we work around it. the moment we assume we declare that we want to build sth that is transparent... or healthy. Or corporations assume things, like you want to build an efficiently, and product oriented, and profit oriented governance model. But I think there's not one...
MARIA: i feel the orientation towards well being is much better than health
OLYMPIA: I think coming up with a bunch of problematic attempts at replacing good is far more generative than just sitting with the assumption of good. there are so many good ideas or terms, that can be useful, and then fascism ruins them.
SIEGMAR: they just need more explanation. in theaters its declared that nobody should be harmed. but this is only meant in a physical way. but it has to be explained to the mental / emotional level, we need to think about that. what responsibility can everybody take? how much are we gonna tolerate certain practices on my watch? what are ways of intervening, changing it?
SARAH: I added aim, and linked it with direction
OLYMPIA: are we satisfied?
SARAH: should we launch this challenge?
OLYMPIA: It needs more time. everyone will write a definition of governance. and then from there we will try to build something coherent.
SARAH: let's do it now. everybody takes five minutes to write.
CLEMENT: it should be a personal definition?
OLYMPIA: yes - potentially influenced (or not) by our discussion

everyone takes some minutes to write down a definition
SARAH: you can also do a puzzle of keywords
IXCHEL: there is no care on the board?
OTHERS: there is...


LUNCH

back in the space, ppl are talking about covid and theater and how it seems that it doesn't exist, and how to deal with it while making a show


COLLECTING THE SENTENCES
OLYMPIA: let's go around and people can then share their sentences, or what was frustrating in the attempt to write them
SHEENA: governance has at its core the aim for well being and transparency among and through a group or network of individuals that share an aim of building and practicing ways of doing through [...] it works with processes of consent and accountability to build aims that are shared and multi directional
SIEGMAR: governance are the ways in which a group of people committed to develop and adapt instruments and practices towards creating agency of the participants of a system which is orientated towards the physical, mental and spiritual well being of its participants. Governance is also the ways in which each and every one is responsible and accountable for this shared goal.
SOPHIA: Governance is the attempt to create a transparent system that citizens can engage with and orient themselves in relation to.
BARBARA: governance models give tools / practices to create agency and access through shared knowledge and consent and can be regenerated through external and internal evaluation.
CLEMENT: governance: love, information and its meander. we don't really want to govern, we want to care.
LAURIE: governance: a system comprised of one or more individuals responsible for the parameters of agreement and consent regarding bodily interdependency.
IXCHEL: governance: a set of practices of care within a collective interest that aim to organize the way a group is functioning within the system.
MARIA: there is a we in a context of resources that is able to communicate and individuate the desire to belong together, the needs that define that togetherness, and the aim as individual to maintain a dimension of productivity. it relies on mechanisms that can change or can be in an evolution - protocols tools rules - to allow for both the preservation and transformation such collectivity. governance depends on kindness, conflict resolution, accountability, consent.
OLYMPIA: governance: the making of decisions, norms and tools to facilitate, regulate and enforce (?) the collective existence of a group of people.
SARAH: it's a set of tools, practices and agreements that define agency in a system or an environment. Governance can be named in different scopes: transparency, wellbeing, sustainability, etc.
everyone claps and yays
SARAH: now we can leave behind our notebooks and go to the vast space, and we play a game called the shrinking game

SHRINKING EXERCISE
SARAH: explains the shrinking game
the shrinking game is the adaptation of a practice that I encountered through another artist Michele Rizzo, so we were kind of playing around with his shrinking practice, and my passion for video games. we gonna build little landscapes and give each other a tour on how governance works on our islands. its 20', the invitation is to build a landscape that describes the system you are part of. we imagine ourselves shrinking into these little landscapes
she gives an example about her system, explains it and builds it: money is a chair, people are hangers, administration is a hand sweeper and a shovel, hierarchy is a bottle, knowledge is a base cap, and then explains how to navigate this landscape of things
while i tell you about my journey, don't look at me, but try to imagine yourself in this landscape, see what resonates, orient yourself there. And feel it in your feet, how it feels under your feet, try to really look at it from this perspective, how vast it is how gravity works, if you have superpowers, apply them to the landscape. so eg. if you're curious about hierarchy, how things look like when you're on top of this, just get up there and look back. And then I take 5', and I give you the story of my experience of this governance, the environment I inhabit.
talks about her experience as a producer 
as a producer, I feel a lot of responsibility. my people are a very diverse group of folks, who are not well organized. it takes a lot of time to map it out. i usually never understand who's on my side, in my team, if i have a team. i'm def not alone, but i feel alone, i don't feel someone taking care of me. i don't have a boss, but I also don't have anybody responsible for my well being and my experience of self. it's blurry. systemically i am in a position of antagonism, a mercenary warrior, hierarchies are outside of me, but i confront a hierarchic space every day, sometimes with others, sometimes alone. after the hierarchies comes the administration, which is a place of darkness, but also a place that can create clarity and resources, and unfortunately its an opportunity to get to money. which is the end of my landscape. - this is the game. there's no right way to do it.
SIEGMAR: are we doing it for ourselves, or for each other?
SARAH: everyone gets 20' for their landscapes, and then we see how many tours we can get
people start into the process... some continue laying on the floor, looking at the ceiling, others start to collect stuff: olympia gets her backpack, sophia a chair and a fan, siegmar gets her backpack too... seems like everyone goes for their backpacks now... ixchel gets a yoga mat and some hangers, sheena collects some things like her shoes, a bike helmet and a stone on a yoga blanket... everybody seems like very immersed in their tiny landscapes already, its happening in pensive silence, just some gusts of singing from another studio here and there, looks like people are almost meditating in front of their landscapes, sitting or laying down
SARAH: let's gather
SIEGMAR: let's do all of them!
SHEENA: i'll give you little round. this points to the stone is heteronormativity and patriarchy. the blanket is love, family, solid ground. the golden eggs are self doubt and anxiety, they appear. the brown chocolate is my kid that appears everywhere. the things are my projects, some of them are clearer, others not. And the tampons are money, not very connected. It exists, has a function. and this is my collective work that I wish was more connected to my project work, it's touching but it's not quite touching. It's kind of stringy and very electric. It gives me a lot of Spark in my life. These tags here represent concrete spaces in my life. This is my home, this is the Heizhaus, this health insurance card is the place in the countryside that is very healthy right now. the bar represents joy, desire, as a parent and an artist, it falls in and out between love and the rest of the world.
OLYMPIA: these are two, one, which you can only get lost in, and one which is directional. two texts And they're linked, obscuring the capacity for time management. the stäbchen are there to eat, and the necessity to remember to eat. the empty anti antidepressant package is mental health, it rests on the possession of money. in order to sustain that, there is a focus required. And that focus is also ignoring the fact that that's true, in order to make sure that it continues to happen. this is an obstacle course of focus, which is tangled up in the process of bureaucracy, and bookkeeping. Which is necessarily the only way that you can actually get through to here points to sunglasses which would be focusing more by extracting more the outside surroundings, in order to be able to do creative labor. but while this one notebook and paper has no way out, this one earphones actually is possible.
BARBARA: its on a blanket as a fundament of shared knowledge, its neatly but its actually not. these are different projects, people, it has different aims, different colors, they can't be defined clearly, the blanket is the frame we are in, in could be fundings, institutions, the keys are not the same: some are easier, smaller, some are super big, more complicated. the laptop is something solid. the connections between are unclear.
SIEGMAR: the landscape is determined by seeming borders. someone decided its borders, even between live and death points to a dead wasp there's value system and evaluations. and hierarchy points to sth linear a lot of my work is the attempt to replace the linear with the other side of the landscape. there's humans, but also non-humans, that are dead. a lot of this is very messy, and it thrives towards love. and this thing the bag, a little outside happens to be there, its repressed admin work that might create a bit more clarity the hierarchy falls down ah and actually, part of what I feel governed by is to react to material conditions a lot.
CLEMENT: off the record
IXCHEL: how does it work... maybe its a way to surf within the existing systems, through practices of care in the micro level? its parallel the two yoga mats it gets twisted through the practices of care, and there's the hope it transforms into sth a yoga blanket maybe there's a different way to get into the same aim. But then with the hope that this transforms into something else. and the hangers are the complexity of the system.
SOPHIA: off the record
some people are saying what they liked about this tour, there's a longer discussion about it because it described a different kind of system
MARIA: its a ball, it bounces around. the landscape is not walkable, its a gambling situation. its a body that makes bodies. there's no babies, but dance is in the center of it, its a technology, it is a beacon, it is like a labor that attracts a lot of resources. it relies on healing, listening coming down, time is non-linear, it circles around, so there is the same shit that comes along, but also make a time there is no time, so you can think about death or take care of dying parents or get completely shit faced and celebrate pleasure and find access to eventually other places that end up in linear time, where you can build a place where there are different points of view that can look at each other. and over here is a spillage where nurturance creates abundance.
SIEGMAR: it looks like a spider
MARIA: the two layers are making time, and gather resources. its another dance where we can play. its all dancing. dance means a lot.
OLYMPIA: it looks like a nice place
MARIA: it's amazing
LAURIE: this is my rather dry landscape. I'm a little bit like a ball, like a ping pong ball that settles in different holes in and out. very conscious to often be the only BIPoC in the room. going between these different institutions - theater, or academic - enveloped and meshed in the freelance community. and this is the dance community that i'm kinda part of, but also not, and I kind of bounce in and out and so trying to navigate these different spaces. But then this points at... is reproduced three times, because I have Germany where I live. And then I have Canada where I still do a lot of work and am very emotionally connected to and Australia, which is where half of my family is and we spend a lot of time. so it gets mapped out across three different geographical locations, and i'm trying to find myself within these different spaces in this constellation spread out throughout different parts of the world.
time is over
SARAH: know we have 20' to have a chat, maybe in relation to what we saw, experienced, what we talked about in the morning. i really hope you did the shrinking game, i totally tripped for example during marias proposal. - today we talked about many applications of governance, and the levels of dependency. i think this will inform the next days for me. it didn't feel like many of us are busy with bigger organizations, until sophia brought in the example of the off the record
MARIA: its all quite entangled.
OLYMPIA: i focused more on my own thing, because I feel the systems of governance that I'm implicated in, are not entirely visible to me. And I think that is, if I'm really cynical about it, an intentional effect of freelance work. And so when I tried to think more broadly about stuff, I actually just went to super internal, like, how do I arrange things so that I can work? But I wonder if that's an effective, particular structure of work that we work with? i would pose the question if people found it difficult to think on a larger scale? maybe because it is harder to think on a bigger scale?
SOPHIA: my question would be, is it obscured because you can't know all the things that you are necessarily implicated in? Or those systems don't allow you to know that they exist? i mean, you think it's purposefully obscure? like for instance with art funding...
OLYMPIA: theres a paranoid aspect, but also just being so busy being your own company. when i worked on a callcenter it was different: I knew what my relationship was to the manager, and to the person who was paying money into my account. This was made very clear to me. But this is not clear at all with freelance.
MARIA: my impression is that in Berlin there is this very emancipated individual. its very different then that what you just described to me, but it comes already with a lot of sense of interdependence. its more emancipated in my impression, how this context operates is very advanced.
OLYMPIA: it could be true, but also one of the clearest systems we saw, with a clear battleground, was the off the record. educators should be more empowered. i often feel empowered by my work, which is cool. its better than call center, which made me sick. But I think it's also one of the functions of freelance, that it obscures the actual systems of governments that are governing our lives.
SIEGMAR: i'm interested in the system which is not very defined in its functions. how do different systems overlap? the emancipated performer - in which ways are they emancipated, in which ways not? what ways of governance are we replicating, co-creating? what i also found difficult - how many systems am i opposing? i'm always invited in a system as a wildcard. what does that ask from me? its weird. the other side of that is the impostor syndrome. you can only have these feelings of wildcard or impostor if there are clear structures.
CLEMENT: to connect to that, as soon i thought about the governance of a threater its so disconnected to my daily life, i come only back to it once a year, its very abstract, so thats why i kept it very small and concrete for me... it would be interesting to see whats beyond this
SIEGMAR: i wonder what are the sensations of pushing against, or energizing. when is the movement with resistance, and when is it accelerating? when my energy moves...
MARIA: i'm really interested in topics like class, race, positionality, so it brings up certain aspects that are more in the shadow for others. i wouldn't mind to revisit the stations in smaller groups of three to check what's under it, describe the structures... picking up the thread and go smaller
SARAH: one step that is interesting is going to the now today, and then we place someone in our landscape. eg. i take maria as a co-warrior in my landscape, and barbara as a backup in my system, etc. and we could do that with everyone. instead of going more higher or below. But first it could be about connecting it with the reality of the community, so that you inhabit your own space with others. and from there you go below or higher... but no time
SHEENA: i'm wondering if we can include that in the case studies on Friday
SARAH: sure. we were during the designing relating a lot to the wheel of social change and its different roles, this could be elaborated here too. you have the weavers, you have the storytellers... its something parallel, you have one or multiple roles
OLYMPIA: maybe its a too big question, but around scale, in relation to capacity for self governance. in lots of trade unions struggle, there is this idea that there's certain hard lines that are drawn in the sand, and everyone has to fall in line. or with Social Democratic parties. and i sense no desire for these hard lines.
SIEGMAR: for me, there were some very clear no's. what are the no's that we don't wanna tolerate? for me its about behavior, what do we not wanna tolerate? there are some very clear no's, like the ism's. its healthy that there are no's in a community
SARAH: can you finish your thought olympia?
OLYMPIA: i want more red lines. I want there to be aesthetic decisions that just cannot be made, because they are unethical. i want more people to be able to do that, in my life, it's part of becoming an adult, it's accepting limitations, like the end of the sandbox. So it would be nice, but people might get hurt in my case... like you can't have certain things, otherwise work and the world is worse. that people shouldn't be outright racist in the studio is something that I think we can collectively sign up to. But then if someone brings up an instance of homophobia that happens somewhere in the scene, then all of a sudden becomes a little bit more complicated. I just have an open question, because I feel very much empowered by this, its the first work that I've had, where I wasn't getting yelled at for some decisions that a CEO made. but at the same time, the capacity to form discipline, forms of self governance, it seems harder. And I'm just curious about what this connection is because I don't know. I usually like to think structurally but I could only really think about the obstacles in my brain this time.
timer rings
SHEENA: tomorrow we start with the talk? its another pool of information
BARBARA: its a 40' input and then a workshop
LAURIE: maybe this can be recorded?
BARBARA: we can ask
SARAH: we can still use the space for longer, if someone needs it...
SHEENA: so we'll just check in after the talk tomorrow...
everyone thank you's

DAY TWO
08.08.2022

PARTICIPANTS
Ana (via Zoom), Barbara, Clement, Elena, Ixchel, Lea (via Zoom), Maria, Olympia, Sarah, Sheena, Siegmar

STRUCTURE AS PLANNED
10h00 — 10h30 ARRIVAL
10h30 — 12h00 PRESENTATION BY ANA LETUNIĆ ON PARTICIPATORY GOVERNANCE Hosted by Lea
12h00 — 13h00 LUNCH
13h00 — 14h30 POSITIONING GAME Hosted by Olympia

ARRIVAL

• ana and lea are present absent via zoom, everyone introduces themselves to her, checking in with the tech *

PRESENTATION BY ANA LETUNIĆ ON PARTICIPATORY GOVERNANCE
LEA: introduces ana i thought i needed to talk to ana when the topic governance for backbone came up. she's a cultural policy researcher and performing arts curator, based between Zagreb and Berlin, involved in different publications. we already collaborated several times, eg. in Croatia. ana is that enough of an intro? she is also involved in many networks, like lifelong burning. ana, i hand over to you
some tech difficulties with zoom and recording are occurring. finally it works out
ANA: i'm doing a phd in Hildesheim in participatory governance. i'm not an expert, but i'm very invested in the topic, like i wrote articles, and its a very relevant topic in the cultural field, also in my home country, Croatia. i can sent the paper. let's start the presentation:
SLIDE 1 "participation is not simply about joining in the game, it is also about having the possibility to question the rules of the game" (nora sternfeld 2013)
SLIDE 2 key concepts: participatory (activities in which ppl take part) - governance (government and authority, a management system of organization, government, authority and management [all of which terms are related to power] shared with ppl the citizens, synergy of actors from public institutions and civil society initiatives and organizations) "participation without redistribution of power is an empty and frustrating process for the powerless" (arnstein 2004) participatory democratic processes are only possible in the context of political maturity. otherwise, participation stays on a declaratory level
SLIDE 3 context: increasing inequality in the cultural policy structures and the treatment of the cultural sector - the crisis of the representative democracy, deficits in the democratic traits in cultural policy decision-making processes - large inequality between the decision makers and the artists / the scene, raised insecurity and the precariousness of the cultural and artistic work
SLIDE 4 participation: stemming from the idea of de-etatization and decentralization of power structures - establishing higher democratized models based on sharing responsibility and common decision making - reconstructing the existing policy provisions or providing alternative ones - contributing to the improvement of democracy. there should be caution regarding what the policies can do - its not a fast track, but providing an alternative
SLIDE 5 elements: constituting - statute of organization, and formulation of governing process where modifications are influencing strategies and operational elements; strategic - referring to the creation of policy and resource usage rules and directly influencing the operating group of elements; operational - a set of elements that are carried out on an everyday basis and help in the implementation of defined rules in groups of constitutive and strategic elements
it starts raining!!!
SLIDE 6 possible models: extended co-operation or delegated responsibility: public and civil sector cooperate, but solely at the level of providing public resources to the civil sector - co-governance or collaborative governance: main responsibility is in the public institution - joint governance: joint public property governance body, here it's more representative - hybridization model: partnership between public and civic models. this implies a completely new institution that takes the role of governing resources
SLIDE 7 recommendations: all this call for a reconfiguration of current models. the words for a new language for cultural policy: trust and understanding (very important ingredient) - support - knowledge - visibility - regulations - research - fluidity and change; the cultural policy frameworks are usually not adequate to whats going on in the scene
SLIDE 8 how do we imagine a participatory governed dance center?
any questions, ideas? how does it correspond to what you talked about yesterday?
BARBARA: thank you very much for the lecture ana! should we change the sitting situation?

• ppl change to sit in front of the computer camera
  SARAH: i have a question... thank you ana. my question is if you could tell us about some examples you encountered during your research, groups, ppl, institutions?
  ANA: i made this research in the context of post-yugoslavia, i can tell you about those. there are also socio cultural centers in Germany, but i cant remember their names. i can show you some websites, but some of them are not in english. after the second war there was this movement of founding cultural centers, this wave of democratization. we inherited some of that infrastructure. some of them have very diverse programming. then we had the privatization, and a lot of the public infrastructure has gone to decay. and recently there have been some new incentives, also from the EU, for socio cultural centers. so most of the cases have either industrial heritage or have a history of sociocultural centers. ana is about to show some websites Pogon (Zagreb) it is an old factory tells the story of Pogon* the city is even investing more in the space
  LEA: was the participatory governance model present from the beginning? where are the challenges and the risks in creating such a space? when has the model been applied?
  ANA: very important is the level of consent of the members of the scene, regarding whats needed. it's about solidarity, about overcoming differences between the members. neglecting differences in order to get a better position with the cultural policy makers, the city. this level of consent is very important. there are risks, but this is democracy, thats what commons are: putting the private interests aside and having the common interests in mind. the space before was used by individual organizations. there were many issues with the government and the scene, but the scene managed to go through that. now a left-green coalition is in power, and the ppl who advocated for the space are now in political power. so things happen quite fast. the scene in Croatia is not very big, but quite rich aesthetically. the scene was not so happy how the center was programmed, and changes are about to be implemented. let's see how this develops. the resources should be equally accessible to all the scene members. i hope this helped?
• sarah raises thumb *
  BARBARA: can you name the downfalls, the most difficult moments?
  ANA: I was part of the talks when the center was established. the talks with the city were really difficult, bc there were so many different ideas. the biggest problem was how the city politicians were looking at contemporary dance, as sth really redundant. this was the biggest struggle. now it has changed, but back then the dependance on the public authorities was really challenging. - I know in Berlin there is this discussion at runder tisch tanz about the tanzhaus. how is this going? is there an idea about participatory governance in the structure? or will it be a purely public institution?
  BARBARA: there was a group working on a concept, with a diverse background, and most ppl didn't know each other before, so they needed a lot of time to get to know each other. and they developed this catalogue, a strong collective model how this could be governed, with lots of attempts to include everybody. now the report is there, but nobody knows how it will continue.
  ELENA: someone told me that there's a lot moving, but it's not transparent. we have the difficulty that the Berlin scene is so gigantic, also bc of the advantages. 2001 when i started it was quite small, and these days i feel we don't know each other anymore bc we are so many, we are rather diverged in different bubbles. i feel we're missing the solidarity aspect
  BARBARA: ...and the consensus aspect
  ELENA: ...which is why ppl lose patience and just start to do sth, which is also fine i think.
  ANA: that sounds like a big obstacle. again the question is who represents who, the scene is so big, how can members of the scene feel represented. maybe we can discuss this further? i prepared a list with questions. we could divide into groups and think about the ideal governance of a dance center. but there is a question?
  CLEMENT: i want to feedback your presentation. yesterday we talked about the aims of governance, and that it could be the wellbeing of the participants. in your presentation i felt this is a very important aspect. and how is this important in your study?
  ANA: i also feel that's the primary goal. the public infrastructure that belongs to the citizens, to use it in the best interest of the thing. another model of governance could really contribute to the wellbeing to the scene: it could help to plan easier, not worry so much, having a stable infrastructure etc. the scene deserves this kind of infrastructure! shifting the idea towards that the institutions actually belong to the scene, that would be a more just system. commons comes from the pastures in early ages where ppl let other animals eat... public is sth else than common - public is what we have now, common is more like direct democracy. and contemporary dance actually has this background, bc so much is shared! so the scene can organize according to their needs.
  MARIA: when elena talked, the topic of numbers came up. in Berlin i feel even if there would be a center it wouldn't be enough. so here we have the history of Jugendzentren, spread in every Bezirk. my question is, even is this is very unlikely, i wonder if you have a notion - is there a public institution that governs and is governed mostly with the aim of production and circulation of cultural products? I wonder if you know of any policymaking that has been able to convert in hybridized places of production, into partly places on production and partly Cultural Center. here we have a lot of theater and places, and a lot of space - how to enter in a dialogue to enter and change the nature of the public space? do you know any examples here, of any hybrids, conversions?
  ANA: in Austria, Salzburg, each artistic director can leave the space to the local scene to program them themselves...
  LEA: ...and this was decided by the ppl leading the space, it was kind of an obligation...?
  ANA: in terms of policy, it never comes from the politicians. there's always a space for residencies, research... but it mostly emerges bottom-up. i don't know of any examples of production houses.
  SIEGMAR: i wanted to share sth. unfortunately laurie is not here. because actually Laurie Michaela, myself and Sheena as an appendix applied for the leadership of the Sophiensaele, with exactly this concept. And to change it into a cultural center. we said very clearly to reduce the premieres to 60%, and have more resources to support the artists. but also ppl not from the scene, but more cultural publics. we stopped talking about audiences, but talked about cultural publics. the problem in Berlin is the Freie Häuser which are modeled after state theaters, and had to prove themselves as equivalent for 40 years. and we wanted to go away from that, establish sth else which actually has been practiced in the scene since long. But we don't have the infrastructures, and how can we instead of inventing new ones actually get the existing ones to shift? the biggest challenge is to speak to the politicians, to change the requirements of what a Freies Haus is. all of these things were part of our plan, but we weren't selected - but curious who got it. how on the one hand advocate for new spaces like Heizhaus, but also on the other hand take existing structures and shift them - not completely dismantle them, some things were really good, but build coalitions. we need more coalitions between the spokes ppl, bc in Berlin there's so many different scenes and institutions, that actually what we need is the solidarity also amongst the spokes people to not make a differentiation between the artist-run and the curator-run spaces.
  BARBARA: i have the feeling that one of the rejections towards such a model would be an outcry in the scene...
  SIEGMAR: ...no, it's not reducing the programming, it's shifting the idea from premier-based visibility to other ways of working, and which is creating enough public and actually allows artists to work in different ways not towards the premier constantly, which we are doing anyway. And the funding has actually shifted in the last three years, that is finally acknowledging those processes of work. So that actually things that are process funded, research funded, collaborative funded, could been showcased or shared in different ways with a cultural public, rather than thinking that the engagement, the interface with the cultural public is only the Vorstellung.
  BARBARA: still i feel the amount of ppl who want to present is so high, it would be a problem
  SIEGMAR: but it doesn't match now either
  SARAH: i want to throw in sth else. when things become obsolete... its always so clear how to start, but never how to end. its a thing of our times, we are so comfortable with the apocalypse. its so interesting in our scene also, because all the analysis of what is actually obsolete and what is actually not is so subjective. which is great, and then you can repurpose things: coal mining to sauna with beautiful lakes with filtered water. So the different stages of the same infrastructure can be reapplied, redefined, according to multiple variables. and I think the variable that we're all mentioning now, especially in Berlin, is that the diversity variable is becoming the dominant variable and therefore, it is extremely obsolete to even think about a dance center. my question to you is: what are the practices of the moment that we step into these processes of imagination? How do we also imagine our own absoluteness? when you set into the work of imagining something, how do you also imagine the end of it? a lot of people before us did beautiful work and gave us beautiful things that were happily using, but what they were really bad at imagining the end of things.
  ELENA: and the ppl back in the days also didn't leave
• laughter
  LEA: but if you would have taken over Sophiensaele like this, sth would have come to an end... Heizhaus is not a comparison to it
  SIEGMAR: the way how i understand sarah: how can we build in our exit in the infrastructures? and how to let go, so the idea can be taken over by someone else, because after a while, you might not actually see what needs to regenerate
  ELENA: for example, there is the festival of the independent scene in hamburg. and the people who invented that one built into it, when they invented it, that they would have to leave the curation position after three or four years. So they were building their own exit.
  SHEENA: i think thats really important, but then the question is also what about sustainability, how to get out of the project temporality - how to live and die with sth?
  ELENA: maybe it's a question, sustainable for who? shifting the cycle of curators is very sustainable for the institution, but maybe not for the curator as a person. So, what's the perspective?
  SHEENA: in HZT, my experience was you are on a semester by semester contract. and in opposition to that, i see what's possible, for example, with Nina with this professorship for life, also how it does allow individual growth. and with Heizhaus, it wasn't involved in the original pact, and then Barbara instigated the inclusion of that, and the we came together to curate it around the idea of social choreography, and this year the collective has regenerated itself, olympia and Angela Alves are also with us, and what we are trying is that is has a social model, it should be accessible, it should include the communities around it, and for the first time we are trying the idea of a cultural community center, next year there will be also residencies. whats it asking is being there under different [...] how i have seen operating ppl in the scene is that we are so much connected through premieres, but what can be other modes to be connected? thats sth we gonna try. less about making it for these communities, but actually bringing people in who are part of these communities in curatorial and leadership position.
  SARAH: there was sth else we need to do with ana right?
  BARBARA: let's keep the questions for the next session. do you want to share them?
  ANA: sure! the examples that you shared were really amazing... and the thought sarah shared: institutions have their life cycles. when i think about capitalism, and the practices that we are making in the field of contemporary dance, i feel institutions should become safe spaces for us. because those are spaces where the contemporary dance practitioners are developing and sustaining practices that wouldn't survive otherwise in capitalism in the market. the way to continue: to see what is already there, and proceed it. and that institutions can better respond to apocalypse. now the questions
opens up a sheet with many questions and reads them*
Who are the involved actors?
How are responsibilities delegated between the actors?
What is the governing structure?
Who has the authority of decision-making?
How are decision-making processes defined and regulated?
In what way is communication between different actors ensures and sustained?
Who are the owners of the infrastructure?
Who is using the infrastructure?
What are the contractual conditions and relationships between the owners and users of the infrastructure?
What are the modes of using the infrastructure?
How many actors are directly and indirectly involved in using the infrastructure?
What are the internal rules and regulations on the usage of the infrastructure?
What is the main purpose behind the use of the infrastructure?
What are the modes of engaging the cultural and wider social community in the activities of the space?
What are the planning methods for developing the infrastructure towards enabling further program development?
what the scene needs is multiple dance centers, with some sense of community between them! i can share some more materials if you want to do some further reading.
  EVERYONE: thank youuuuu

LUNCH

ppl talk about touring, and the pressure that emerges when that question is open right from the start of the creation process. sarah gives workshops about touring, and everyone wants her to do it again

POSITIONING GAME
SARAH: let's start
OLYMPIA: i want to look on our individual definitions of governance again. the proposal is that we read the proposals of other ppl and only write down things from others. we write down what resonates with us. let's take 15'
group 1: maria, ixchel, clement, sarah
ixchel: a set of practices of care within a collective interest that aim to organize the way a group is functioning within the system.
sarah: a set of tools, practices and agreements that define agency in a system or an environment
maria: there is a we in a context of resources that is able to communicate and individuate (1) the desire to belong together, (2) the needs that define that togetherness, (3) the naming, aim or reasoning for individuals to maintain that collectivity. it relies on mechanisms that can change or can be in an evolution - protocols tools rules - to allow for both the preservation and transformation such collectivity. governance depends on kindness, conflict resolution, accountability, consent.
clement: love, information and its meanders. we don't really want to govern, we want to care.
group 2: siegmar, sheena, olympia
siegmar: governance are the ways in which a group of people committed to develop and adapt instruments and practices towards creating agency of the participants of a system which is orientated towards the physical, mental and spiritual well being of its participants. Governance is also the ways in which each and every one is responsible and accountable for this shared goal.
sheena: governance has at its core the aim for well being and transparency among and through a group or network of individuals that share an aim of building and practicing ways of doing through [...] it works with processes of consent and accountability to build aims that are shared and multi directional
olympia: the making of decisions, norms and tools to facilitate, regulate and enforce (?) the collective existence of a group of people.
group 3: barbara, elena
barbara: governance models give tools / practices to create agency and access through shared knowledge and consent and can be regenerated through external and internal evaluation.
OLYMPIA: i recommend to write the definitions down on a paper so you can move them around
group 1
CLEMENT: i find the thing of the desire to belong together very interesting. and the question of why do you come together.
MARIA: and if there is no party, no coming together, where does the power go? like if we stop voting and caring about politics, what happens?
SARAH: governance exists when there is a government, when there is a body to be governed. so there is a we
MARIA: exactly - citizenships
CLEMENT: but to bring it to our context: whats the desire to come together? thats a very crucial question for me.
MARIA: for me, I'm always more on the social side... so if you come together, you have to advocate: whats the basic income, what are your rights as a worker, how the public funding then gets distributed. you need to gather, you need to have this voice to talk to the policy makers.
IXCHEL: maybe the important part is transformation?

• the group moves on to collect some terms on a big sheet of paper and discusses the terms *
  SARAH: i would say sth about environments / systems of togetherness
  [...]
  group 2
• talking about the Berlin dance house and community projects *
  [...]
  group 3
  [...]
  ELENA: was ich mit dem utopischen meinte: mehrmals machen, auch wenn's am anfang nicht so gut wird... 
BARBARA: wo kommt die mature activation her? weil wenn du das drin hast, setzt das schon was voraus... die assumptions...
ELENA: aber leute sind ja in unterschiedlichen phasen. mich interessiert das cross-generational, also knowledge - aims - ethics muss nicht nur von jungen leuten kommen, sondern auch von älteren. die älteren haben das einfach schon länger gemacht. da bin ich ja gerade. es ist halt was anderes, wenn jemand seit 20 jahren zu etwas arbeitet, als wenn jemand mit 18 gerade ein buch gelesen hat und ein bisschen aufgeregt ist.
BARBARA: und aber auf der anderen seite müssen die möglichkeiten geschaffen werden, dass auch junge leute mit ihren erfahrungen mit rein können.
ELENA: genau, wie finden wir es gemeinsam? es muss parallel existieren.
  [...]

COLLECTING THE EXCHANGES
OLYMPIA: so... i see the first stage from yesterday as thinking like cats. Like a group of cats. And then here we're thinking a little bit more like dogs. we're more like pack animals. We're trying to understand what we're thinking about through each other's words rather than through our own. this is pure, like everyone just says everything and everything that everyone says goes up on the board. now i wanna try thinking like bees. we try to come up with a sentence what governance is. i'm interested to do it simultaneously as a group. and our resource is this paper. what occurs to me is this tension that siegmar wrote down: what governance is vs. what governance could be. so that was my first thought.
BARBARA: we reworked mine, bc elena was not there yesterday.
MARIA: a management system of an organization
OLYMPIA: do we agree that it's a system? any dissent?
SARAH: multiplicity of items and actors
SIEGMAR: territory and agencies... i hear it more as a systematics.
SARAH: system in the sense of a set of organized elements.
MARIA: an organization of territory and agency?
OLYMPIA: i like system bc its so broad.

--> the final collective sentence
governance is a system of tools, practices, and resources, that organizes agency in a group of people. We desire a governance that is redistributive, adaptive, and practice-based by committing to consent, accountability, and kindness. this necessarily involves protocols of external and internal evaluation in order to achieve a long term collective interest of this group of people.

SARAH: ...of tools, practices, and resources?
MARIA: ...of longterm care?
OLYMPIA: is care really in it?
MARIA: if you don't idealize care!
OLYMPIA: i see
MARIA: care just came up a lot
ELENA: what about access? it comes up in the disability context a lot
OLYMPIA: thats why i think care is problematic
SHEENA are we going utopic? Are we saying what it is now? Are we saying what we want it to be?
OLYMPIA: we could go with what it is, and then add an appendix
SHEENA: let's just keep going
OLYMPIA: so...
MARIA: something to the collective existence of [inaudible]
IXCHEL: maybe its a system that aims to organize?
BARBARA: no it doesn't aim
SIEGMAR: there's too many assumptions
SARAH: i also think that aim should come later. now its about what it does: organize agency in the sense of how things can, and should, and would interact with one another.
SIEGMAR: there is different agencies, with different degrees. what we want is agency and access. i want to have a conversation about access.
OLYMPIA: i'd like to announce we successfully made one sentence. i'm really surprised! we've intentionally put in a bunch of ambiguous terms, like agency, organize... any clarifications here?
SIEGMAR: i would like to talk about tools and instruments. everything uses tools and instruments, but some are super harmful
SARAH: now we make the mega mix, what it should do
OLYMPIA: we desire a governance that...
SARAH: ...aims at...
BARBARA: ...aims at wellbeing...
MARIA: it ties to power, distribution, redistribution of power
OLYMPIA: we desire governance that is redistributive of power and resources. that was a great thing in anas lecture: the topic of participation without a say. the amount of times that I've been invited into processes where they're like, and we can all get a say, and then I will decide at the end - there's no point in that. its like I'm just being smart for you. Which is just like going to work.
ELENA: its about continuous redistribution
MARIA: also information
CLEMENT: i have to add, redistribution is great, but its not enough. what is beyond? that was the thing with communism... what's the desire behind?
SIEGMAR: but we are still with the desire towards
SARAH: together with redistribution goes the idea of change, transformation
OLYMPIA: adaptable
SIEGMAR: with adaptation you need reevaluation
OLYMPIA: self-reflection?
SIEGMAR: its not just cognitive... but its all in adaptive
SARAH: transformative?
OLYMPIA: its contained in redistributive
CLEMENT: adaptive is nice, bc its not the neoliberal adaptable
SARAH: can we say practice based?
ELENA: ana said sth about the maturity of ethics.
SIEGMAR: I'm missing the accountability and consent part. practices are so vague
OLYMPIA: abuse is also a practice
SIEGMAR: ...by developing, enforcing... i like enforcing!
MARIA: by committing to practicing nonviolent communication laughs
OLYMPIA: i had a therapist who was into non-violent communication. I'm not putting nonviolent communication here laughs I would love to violently communicate with that therapist who sucked.
SIEGMAR: committing to...
MARIA: AND YOGA laughs
SIEGMAR: ...practices of consent
MARIA: its about the actual practices, in opposition to values, which are more empty words, practices that need to be practiced
SARAH: responsibility, love, care, trust... let's leave them on the side
SIEGMAR: what about practices of trust? you really have to practice them. one example is conflict resolution. what counts for you?
OLYMPIA: what do we specifically feel as a group this needs in order to move on? whats the real burning problem here?
ELENA: for me, it just shouldn't be a monolith, this aspect of evaluation should be in it, or what sarah said, things need to die
OLYMPIA: is that not in adaptive?
BARBARA: but how to reach that?
SIEGMAR: let's bring that to the practices we are specifying here.
OLYMPIA: we want ongoing practices...
SHEENA: we have so many practices - rather protocols
SARAH: wow, we're putting protocols in

• everyone laughs
  OLYMPIA: does anyone feel violently misrepresented by this?
  SARAH: it's super vague
  OLYMPIA: a bunch of artists tries to write one sentence... what did you think was gonna happen?
  SARAH: We spent a few hours saying that what is very relevant is this thing of well being, the idea of long term care, there is a day of preservation of a collective interest. but you don't apply that same thing to multi directional aims.
  SIEGMAR: multidirectional formations
  MARIA: survival? dying better?
  CLEMENT: it shouldn't be part of an extractivist, neoliberal thing.
  OLYMPIA: thats what i want us to try to do, its uncomfortable
  ELENA: staying with the trouble
  SARAH: long term collective interest. it's built on a collectivity, and the collectivity has decided what they want to do. and it can be many things, but the thing is that you together do something long term. so there is this idea of temporality. and then towards a collective interest.
  SIEGMAR: to be sarcastic, the longterm collective interest could be the 1000y reich of NS. so the idea of the nazis was to build an empire for the ayrian empire
  OLYMPIA: consent, accountability and kindness don't really scream third reich to me laughter* but at the same time its important! because of this thing with the collective interest - like the same reason that I had a problem with health... when you're talking about collective interests being in the dance context - like with Ausdruckstanz - this idea of collectivity very easily segwayed into these Nazi marches so actually, this emancipatory dance that we do now could actually start to serve the next fascist dictatorship. So it is good to be careful.
  MARIA: its interesting... because there is something about the group that people come together. [inaudible]
  SARAH: i just need to logically analyze this sentence... it doesn't sound like fascism and policing to me
  OLYMPIA: Great! The definition is done, sounds like it could be in the Grundgesetz!
  CLEMENT: but then it relies a lot on the practices...?
  OLYMPIA: i'm not so interested in the sentence, but more that it was an attempt, that was about to fail, and now i have a better feeling of what governance is.
  SARAH: thanks for guiding us through this!
  SIEGMAR: how do ppl feel when we're defining governance, maybe not in the definition, but in the practice of it, setting up borders, limitations, no's? what are those processes? What experience do you have with that? And what would be your desire for a real governance, to set out limits and limitations? how do we have these conversations? I find that really hard, but I'm very interested in it, because I do think there are ethical limitations in there.
  OLYMPIA: i have planed a game for the second half, but we can also talk. its an interesting question. do we agree on speaking? cool! one of the reasons that I have a strong desire to do this is I've been in this Arbeitsgruppe for work cultures, through the ZTB, for the last one year. the idea is that we make guidelines and then we publish those guidelines, people sign up to them. and then the next time you're in a project where someone, like a nice person, pushes a boundary, you say, I can't do that because I'm committed to this. its best practice. the part that I wrote and provided was about work times and studio practices or fees. one of the things that i said was: studio days: no longer than eight hours, six hours is considered best practice. I feel like people resist this - also inside myself. and for a working week: five days max, best practice would be four. after writing that when I'm planning my next thing I'm like, I don't actually dare to do a four day working week, but i am doing a four and a half day one to see if I can do it. by having things there that you can say yes or no to, I think it's really useful. But in the group, there has been a lot of resistance to making any sort of clear recommendations. one of the things was that we don't work on Sundays. But then one of the people was talking to a production where they were all mothers, and it was that they could only work on the Sundays. but it was still generative to say, this is a recommendation. and then there can be exceptions such as this, but to be concrete about them.
  BARBARA: i stepped out bc it was so concrete
  SHEENA: i think it's really good, because it also reflects on how you do it yourself, or how you want to participate. And then what's possible within the kind of structures that also come at you as well, whether that's financial, whether that's institutional
  BARBARA: if you have three weeks and everyone is fine?
  ELENA: how do you get the feedback that everyone is really fine?
  BARBARA: but thats another discussion, its about being transparent about your conditions, and not so much guidelines
  IXCHEL: it helps to say im not ok
  SIEGMAR: in Belgium i heard it really helped ppl to stand up for this, even though its not done ideally, but it helped to say no
  SARAH: it changes the way you work. in Belgium, everything is hyper institutionalized. you become a machine of institution yourself. it changes the way you make plans. for example, you make a contract for a dancer, and you have to put in one full day, which is only for the intake meeting, and the debrief meeting and the dancers [inaudible] to attend to this, because if the dancer doesn't have the chance to be presented with the work and the chance to evaluate the work, the contract doesn't exist. so when you plan budget, rehearsals, you have to plan that in
  SIEGMAR: do the things take place, or are they fictional?
  SARAH: they take place. t's very expensive.
  SIEGMAR: great. the very expensive thing is money that is not our money. it just needs to be budgeted. that's what has already happened, even in Berlin with minimal wage is that all of a sudden budgets are 80.000€. That used to be 40.000€. but it's not our fucking money. We're just putting numbers on the paper. why should people not be paid properly? Just because we've done it for the last 200 years?
  BARBARA: No, I'm not saying that. It's about setting transparent working condition. but of course, the responsibility has to be there for everyone and how to motivate this.
  MARIA: from the workers point of view, I found myself in a situation where having a guideline especially for other people that generally speaking are quiet and quietly suffering, as all dancers, it was useful to be able to advocate. especially with a non German institution and be like this is a reference point. otherwise, i feel that I don't get paid right. so there is something not just about basic rights, but also to quantify a kind of labor...
  BARBARA: but we are referring to a system, a very old established working system
  OLYMPIA: i was in a project where i worked 9h a day for two weeks, and afterwards i was really ruined. it sucked. I'd never have done, what nine hours in other work, but like nine hours of listening to a choreographer tell you what to do. It sucks. especially if that choreographer doesn't have a nice voice, it matters. Australia is one of the first places that won... the stonemasons put down their tools, and marched for the eight hour day, and then they died. people died to get us eight hour days. when we have the power to set our working hours, which our ancestors, most of whom are workers, literally died for that, then why not? the fluidity of our of our working conditions - in other industries that always serves the boss, like casualization, or like zero hour contracts... this is why, again, my suspicion comes back. we take on so much responsibility to reflect if we make guidelines that are in some way wrong. We don't put that much pressure on our Liberal government. We just expect them to make mistakes, and actually to not work in our interest all the time. I wouldn't do it because if I don't have a weekend, I get really emotional. And so I'm just not very good at working for longer than five days in a row. but if someone can only do it that way, and maybe it's their first project or something like that, then I still think it's better that they do it quietly than loudly saying, it's good that we were able to be so flexible. a little bit of shame can be healthy in a community.
  ELENA: theres also the reminder to ourselves, that eg. if we do shows on the weekend, take Monday and Tuesday off. we need to take some days off. the other thing i want to say is about transparency: I think there's just several steps to the process because you can be transparent and say, Here, come take my workshop for free. And then if I like the way you work as a dancer, you're allowed to be part of my production and learn from me. And I've heard this. This is how some people do their work. And that's being very transparent and still, it's shitty.
  OLYMPIA: should i start a speaking list?
  SARAH: i consent to moderation
  SHEENA: all i'm hearing is the idea of a union. the call for regulations, or a place where you can go with problems, like central, like PAF, LAFT, etc. a union would be a good conversation!
  SIEGMAR: the other thing i am interested is the relationship between organizing and things that are measurable, and things that are not: abuse, bullying. there are ways of setting up spaces where they don't happen. but when they happen, how to make them public? if they are not measurable. like catalogues with names. like each production has a nominated contact. sth that is build in as a form, not just an idea
  SARAH: i personally hate guidelines. i'm such a fan of practice based tools, initiatives. we always go back to the example of a dancer that is maybe unaware of their rights and coming out of university and feeling a lot of pressure from the system that is presented to them as a work environment, and very often is not empowered enough to step up for themselves and understand how to use the rights. the moment that we do that exercise of realizing our own governance system - it's something that we need to practice and constantly evaluate and constantly take into account that the system that we built for ourselves are in constant transmission to others. So the moment that me and barbara initiated backbone, we asked ourselves: how is backbone respond to those questions? we do it intuitively, or we set up a governance invitation that we explain to everybody, that is more or less clear for everybody. And that there would be five steps for evaluation and then there will be a final evaluation. So there are things that we are actively practicing in order to meet problems that we think are very relevant. And I really have this impression that if everybody in every work context would do that, things would be very, very different. But we don't sometimes, it's not because we have no time, i think it can be safe to say this, that we've been very lazy with this stuff.
  ELENA: can you explain it more?
  SARAH: when we started the with Backbone, we had the reflection about how do you bring an invitation to artists in the scene, and we decided to use the practice of individual meetings. so we said, okay, it's gonna take a long time for 25 people, but we want to sit one on one with everybody, we want to avoid the big gathering. And we want to give everybody the chance to talk to us, and then step out [inaudible] even before meeting with everybody in the room. And this is a decision that we made, it's a proposal that we made according to parameters that we found were responding to the values of the project. And so we actively practice that. And some people were very grateful for it, because it empowered them to do stuff that otherwise would have been very shameful for them to do. so then we will have an evaluation about these things collectively after we experienced it together. And then maybe next time when you initiate the process yourself, you might remember that of this experience. And you would think, for this project that I'm initiating, this is the practice I choose. And I'm going to communicate it intentionally. So I'm going to tell everybody, I intentionally set up the structure of invitation this way, because I intentionally want to stress that it's important for me to create a safe environment for everybody to speak up. And I believe it's better if you do it one on one, if you do not agree, these are the parameters for which you can change this arrangement. And this is the timeline for which you can change. So you include in the way you work, this idea of evaluation, transparency, giving agency, practicing consent, and you do it not through the artistic work, but you do it through the governance structuring work. tells about Peaches you initiate these type of conversations that answers those questions.
  CLEMENT: it made me think about recommendations. in France i had rights as a dancer. Sunday break is a right, not a privilege. this was very comfortable.
  SHEENA: if its so controlled in France, then obviously the institutions are also part of that as well. So if it's Sundays off then there's no premieres on Mondays for example?
  CLEMENT: its actually less about the Sunday, but about not having to work more than six days in a row.
  MARIA: i have a question, can you share the thing that you mentioned that you are working on?
  ppl talking about the LAFT-recommendations
  OLYMPIA: I think what was useful about the guidelines is that if you establish a norm that enough people publicly put their names to, maybe even some institutions can be convinced to support it, which actually works in terms of shame. I find it personally really useful, because now that I get funding, I suddenly have become an employer. And I come from drag, where I'm used to everyone works for free. and then to let go of that self exploiting mindset, when I'm not in drag spaces, but then still have when I'm doing. it's really helpful for me to have LAFT, for example, and then just be like, I'm not going to work for free, and therefore no one else will. but I'm a communist. so I don't want other people to work for free, so that I become famous. But how does your model deal with people who are not interested in that - in justice? because of my politics, i'm particularly interested in finding more ethical practices for working. Not everyone has those politics, or more often people have those politics, but don't apply them to themselves. the reason I think the guidelines are strong is because they help someone like me who needs an orientation and what other people think. But they can also potentially coerce people who don't have those politics. And I'm curious if you know of an example where it can work on people who don't want to pick up those practices.
  SARAH: i don't use guidelines, whats interesting for me is to create a space for negotiation. the self determination of the worker is the most important thing for me. as an employer i need to create a safe space for self determination. And then from there, you empower negotiation and you make it possible. So the moment when we come down to a negotiation, we will compare it with some guidelines that we will use as reference. And then we go from there. So guidelines for me are the ground zero. But the interesting space for me is to achieve the tools for self determination. Because only like that we can really take into account how diverse we are. the choreographer in a wheelchair that is running Italian National contract for orchestra member [...] We live in a system that is exceptional. And so we need to practice the exception. And that's what we need to get very good at. And looking for guidelines, and have people keep working on them. And let's keep doing the work. But we need to go the extra mile. - And I come from a socialist country. the theater is one of the most advanced in Europe. Belgium, France and Italy have a national contract for stage workers since the late 50s. No other country in Europe has that. And they're extremely useful documents. They're also a curse, in a way, because they fostered only one kind of politics.
  OLYMPIA: that brings us to the end of the day!
• short chatter about tomorrow's reading practice... and if anyone has a case study... the desire for a union... what's going on in ZTB... *

DAY THREE
09.08.2022

PARTICIPANTS
Alice, Barbara, Christina, Clement, Olympia, Sabine, Sarah, Sheena

STRUCTURE AS PLANNED
10h00 — 10h30 ARRIVAL
10h30 — 12h00 READING SESSION Hosted by Sheena, Olympia maybe Lea
12h00 — 13h00 LUNCH
13h00 — 14h30 CASE STUDY! FIXING SESSION Hosted by all the hosts but introduced by Sheena

ARRIVAL

• new ppl have joined. it's finally sunny again
  OLYMPIA: tells about yesterday's activities, the lecture from ana, and introduces the reading session
  SARAH: gives an overview about the day, introduces "off the record"*

POSITIONING GAME
OLYMPIA: there was a conversation we had about scale. And about self governance and getting your shit together. and i thought of an exercise that could be useful. it is a positioning game where we take turns and someone picks an object in the room and places it or just points to it. And then everyone positions themselves into relation to that object.

• ppl are looking for the collective definition of governance *
  OLYMPIA: it works like this: one person picks something in a room, says what it is, everyone positions themselves and the person who picked the object asks one person why you are where you are. that person answers and then they picks another object in the room, says what it is, people move, then they ask another person...
  SHEENA: in the framework of governance?
  OLYMPIA: yes, governance is also arranging where things are.
  SARAH: so the closer I go to the object, it doesn't mean how much i...
  OLYMPIA: ...it's not about agreeing. It's just about positioning. And that can be as broad as possible.
  SARAH: So I can say for example, the pipe is a bureaucracy...
  OLYMPIA: ...yes, and you can also hug it and say because you're chained to it. you can say "the floor is money"
  SABINE: so you name things
  OLYMPIA: exactly
• ppl go over to the sheet with the collected terms about governance, reading them again
  OLYMPIA: anyone has the desire to start?
  SARAH: got it. shall i name it? points at the ramp* efficiency!
• everyone else positions themselves towards sarah on the ramp
  OLYMPIA: so now you ask one person why they are where they are
  SARAH: sabine
  SABINE: I'm sitting on my knees because I want to be sustained by efficiency but I don't want to feed into efficiency - and that's why I'm also not very close to it but also not totally far away
  OLYMPIA: now your turn!
  SABINE: chooses the fire extinguisher* its an always available help for emergency situations. a supportive tool.
• everyone else positions themselves towards sabine next to the fire extinguisher
  SABINE: olympia?
  OLYMPIA: I'm here because I really hope that it's there, and I suspect that it might be there, but I haven't seen it yet. being younger and coming into the dance scene more recently I very often find out, i'm like: oh it'd be good if that existed, and then it does, I just didn't know about it.
  OLYMPIA: points at the tape hanging from the ceiling its Neustadt Kulturförderung.
  SARAH: i need a dynamic position
  SHEENA: gets on a chair, trying to reach it
  OLYMPIA: alice?
  ALICE: she's really far away i know it exists, but i don't know what it is. it is on the horizon
  ALICE: chooses the wall, lays in front of it its the distribution of resources.
  ALICE: sheena?
  SHEENA: touches the wall with her back i'm also touching the wall and I'm also having some distance and my back is towards the wall because I feel it's something I do it's something I'm involved in and something I believe in, but its not always something that [inaudible]
  SHEENA: chooses the table, knees next to it it's listening.
  SHEENA: sarah?
  SARAH: inspects the table what are the components? how does it work?
  SARAH: christina, you wanna go on?
  CHRISTINA: chooses a chair this is assumption. clement?
  CLEMENT: not really looking at the chair i'm trying to look away, not sure how to handle it.
  CLEMENT: puts keys on the radiator this is magic. barbara?
  BARBARA: stands quite far away i love when it happens, but i'm too far away from it with my work. but it does happen.
  BARBARA: chooses the fan, gets kinda close but not too close* this is evaluation. sarah?
• ppl choose very different positions, from very close to very far
  SARAH: is super close its a one directional practice that can be fucked around with. So you can turn it into other things, you can leave traces, and i like to experiment with it.
  SHEENA: with the plug in her hands* i find it very useful, but don't manage often to plug it in.
  ALICE: everything i do is trying to make evaluation impossible. but then sometimes i recognize maybe we speak about different things, if its about the artistic practice.
  CLEMENT: can i ask sth? why is it an interesting tool?
  SARAH: for me its a butch approach: you build something, and then you switch it on and see if it works. And then it works. And you go like, okay, but I want it to be like, consume less energy, be more efficient, make less noise, occupy less space. So you switch off, build down, build up again. So evaluation, in a sense of gathering more information about the status of something, can be an experience, an operation, can be a project itself. And then it processes informations in order to grow. I would say it's a bit like when you have a new collaborator, and you ask, how's it going for you?
  OLYMPIA: thats what i was thinking. when i'm doing Künstlerische Leitung, because a lot of the time I collaborate with my friends, I want them to still be my friends afterwards. so i'm evaluating during the process. like, are you working too much? is everyone working well together? that was why I was on my knees, because I feel like I have to be a bit of a servant to it. Because it stops me from thinking about actually making the work. Because it's two jobs actually, all of that relationship management, and then actually being the solo body on stage. It's impossible.
  SHEENA: how many of us do evaluations after they do a show? like sitting with all the involved persons?
  CLEMENT: i wouldn't call it evaluation. i would call it meeting...
  OLYMPIA: very unbureaucratic
  BARBARA: fair enough
  CHRISTINA: evaluation is something we always do constantly. And as long as it's just with us, it's more self evaluation. but in order to make it productive you really must go for it, almost externalize it - then it becomes productive.
  ALICE: its striking me, sheena - i've never done it.
  SABINE: for me, the word evaluation refers clearly - its an articulate structure. thats what i associate with it. so that made me hesitant about it. but i had lately moments when i started to refuse this kind of check-in questions, bc theres always a logic behind those systems.
  ALICE: but its interesting to think what parameters we can consider as constant. so on the one hand, there is the specificity of each project. and on the other hand there are values. to make new ppl feel well.
  OLYMPIA: i have some collaborators that i work with every time - with them i always talk before the next piece starts, like we sit down. but i make a conscious decision to not do it with ppl i only work once, to save energy. bc i feel the feedback we would have for each other wouldn't be very useful. but i tell everyone in the beginning that the involved ppl need to tell me if sth is not working, so i hand the responsibility to the other person.
  SARAH: i do the same thing. yesterday it came down to something I never put on the board. But for me its super relevant in regards to governance, which is self determination. it's the idea that anyhow, as individuals, elements or clients, there is the ability to determine your own self and your own needs. in the moment when there are hierarchies... for example, a choreographer dancer relationship, that is clearly the responsibility of the choreographer over the time of the dancer. this idea of empowering self determination is always the way I approach evaluation. for example, with my collaborator, I do a lot of training - long term training of new producers. like 1-2-3 years, together with somebody who just came out of university and has no idea of the work environment that they're jumping into. And we use a lot of BDSM practices - a lot of safe words, like going over time, not understanding, feeling shame - feeling threatened, feeling too much competition and being uncomfortable, or wanting more competition. So we set up a bunch of parameters with time, so that people can evaluate themselves, why giving me information. and in a collaborative way, I do the same if I can, or if I'm in the position to set up those parameters. It's something that you can expand and find a lot of joy in.
  CLEMENT: i just realized i almost never do evaluations with venues
  OLYMPIA: Mateusz (Sophiensaele) asked me to do that
  SHEENA: i sometimes do it with festivals
  CLEMENT: it could be really interesting, to even make it part of the contract
  SHEENA: regarding olympia, its about if you wanna build a relationship
  ALICE: i wrote to ppl afterwards, to offer a reflection. recently i got good feedback after a piece for HZT
  CLEMENT: it's very hard to be critical. Because you always feel like you're going to have problems.
• person comes in a asks for the workshop of the feminist school *
  SABINE: maybe a protocol helps.
  OLYMPIA: i do it actually all the time, with check ins with a disabled collaborator. otherwise i can become like my mom. if i know there's different access needs i am much more proactive. And it often involves constant reassurance. like reassurance that it's okay to raise stuff. Because people from different perspectives feel more or less able to exercise self determination.
  SHEENA: sth else i realize, in the making of the process i am constantly feeding back, and then how to give that awareness to all areas.
  BARBARA: i find it interesting how different evaluations are. usually in a production its about the bad things, but its so rarely about the good things, strengthening them. and then with venues, I'm not writing back, just if things go well, i thank them. maybe changing also this practice...
  ALICE: for this you need to be very brave, i never do it.
  BARBARA: it would be so important to do it
  OLYMPIA: if a situation is really bad... Maybe it's not true. But I would suspect that they're not going to listen to it anyway. if it's really bad, then it's clear what their motive is. and then i ask myself, am I more happy to never see this venue again? Or am I more happy to be the bigger person who actually tries to give constructive feedback.
  BARBARA: i had this situation with HAU, we wrote an application, and we didn't hear back for a very long time, and then we feedbacked that to them, and in this case it felt really good. And I had the feeling it had a bit of an effect and i got an answer on it.
  SABINE: but this is also a very concrete situation. usually when things go not way its an entanglement of problems, which takes a lot of energy to unpack. but the problem is that there is no real culture for that, its super individualized.
  CLEMENT: thats sth that could be added to the definition
  OLYMPIA: what's the time? wow only 40'?
  SHEENA: let's do the reading? did you cut the things olympia?

READING SESSION

• some sheets of paper are spread in the middle, it's two different kinds of texts, ppl sitting around it
  --> its two parts from the essay "AESTHETICS OF EXPLOITATION: THE ARTIST AS EMPLOYER" by Vika Kirchenbauer from 2017. it can be found here: http://www.vk0ms.com/aesthetics_of_exploitation.html
  OLYMPIA: introduces the session* we have two texts, and have the possibility to look through them. And then using them as kind of a prop to have a conversation in the same way that the game was a way for us to have a conversation. as you read something and you find it interesting you can read it out.
  SHEENA: clement you wanna start?
  BARBARA: we do it together?
  OLYMPIA: let's have a quiet moment to read it.
• everyone grabs a piece of paper and reads. turns out that the text is cut in a way that not everything can be read. discussion how to do it. some read in silence, some discuss whispering
  ALICE: reads from the essay* "Surely no one is surprised that mostly young professionals from more comfortable backgrounds establish themselves in circles that demand un(der)paid performance in order just to get in. These un(der)paid positions also lead art school graduates—those without the convenience of a security net—to abandon their own work, succumbing to exhaustion working for more established Artists under precarious working conditions.
The question of how an artist structures the circumstances and condition of her own art production also becomes an aesthetic one. Is it, for instance, worth producing a film about in/visible un(der)paid labour and communist utopias in conditions of production where none of those involved earns a living wage—including the producers? Is that which is being expressed more valuable than the material reality created as part of the endeavour? Will its artistic contribution to political debate naturally outlive and outweigh the pains inflicted for its becoming?"
...is that enough? - immediately, it brings me to to my own situation. I'm not an artist with a big aid in the sense of having big money. And because the work has small money... I make work with the money that I have. So on an hour basis, I pay people very well, but I hire them extremely limited, and that is also a form of precarization of everybody, because it means you need to do many, many different projects, because each of them will give you not enough to live from. it's a bit different from saying it doesn't matter, the work is so great, let's work for free. But I think there's different models of self exploitation and exploitation of others that are happening.
  SHEENA: just to understand, you mean you hire them for a very short time, so they need more gigs then? but i also found out that some ppl i work with really desire this.
  ALICE: and they are young ppl?
  SHEENA: no
  ALICE: interesting!
  SHEENA: they think 10 weeks is too long
  ALICE: interesting, because it's really the discussion between freedom and precarity.
  SARAH: I'm a fan of precarity. i mean not for others, but its something that I choose, and I'm very aware of my choice. it's something that i really look for. but maybe my position is a bit different. Because as a producer, you always have the big split, whether you work in an institutional framework or not. And I never wanted to have a full time salary, but because I had many times the opportunity to do so. But I would have hated myself and reach levels of alienation that I cannot imagine, and pay the price for that. which is precarity, in that sense: the freedom of doing the things I want to do. Which comes with a lot of privilege. when you were reading, the first thing that came to my mind is, i am an economic migrant, bc in Italy, if you can not rent a house, and have to pay rent, you cant make art, its impossible. Every artist that you see around that is Italian and is not living in Berlin, or Brussels, or Paris, owns a house. they have passive income from generational wealth. its the only way in Italy. if you own a house you stay - you don't, you leave. so you have this kind of class struggle with your peers. bc of that, the system is getting even more precarious.
  OLYMPIA: and it really affects the art ppl make! if you go to NYC, the art is really embarrassing, bc its just rich kids.
  SHEENA: Or it's the opposite, where everyone is working five jobs, and then it's something they can do two hours every evening.
  CHRISTINA: so what do you do when ppl come with this requests to you?
  SHEENA: sth that came up was, ppl desiring company structures, but that also means you can be booked out for two years, and you can't say yes to other jobs... so its always a negotiation. but i'm always a believer in making other working situations work.
  ALICE: it means to give them time.
  SHEENA: yes
  OLYMPIA: what you said about the tension between security, or precarity and freedom, alice - i'm not sure if i agree. if the funding situation is we have 10.000€, and the decision is whether to employ people for a longer time, but pay them less or employ them for less time, then... I don't think that tension is necessarily there as present in that decision.
  ALICE: no true, in that case its clear, but with a bit more distance the result is crumbs.
  SHEENA: like gig economy?
  ALICE: yeah exactly. like basic income, or collaborative models. i don't see any other way around that problem. i want to go back to sarah, and precarity. precarity is the dependance on someone else, etymologically.
  SARAH: ah, thats how you use it.
  ALICE: its the contrary to autonomy. which is an illusion. so the question is, what kind of dependance do we choose. for me, I would say at the moment, my precarity is on invitations. Because it might look like I'm very free to manage my time and my energy. But in reality, I'm obliged to all the time compose, in order to maintain some sense... you're laughing. i'm 45y old.
  SARAH: maybe one more word is needed here: i totally agree with what liberates you from precarization. i use it more as an entrepreneurial term. i mean choosing my own risk. So it's not even about choosing the dependency but choosing the risk that I want to take. it can mean i have a family i support, it can mean i don't mind if things go bad, like i'm happy to live for some years on the edge. i know i can get a lot of pleasure from service work, which i did a lot. how i am emotionally build allows me to take these risks. So this idea of risk, which has to do with entrepreneurship, and then on the other side, the idea of precarity, that has to do with dependency. I think these four variables mixed together have a lot to do with the way our environment works.
  OLYMPIA: the reason why i was laughing is bc i find both things very terrifying. i am very scared to go back to service work, because i hated it. it made me feel dumb. this is my first job where i feel i like it, and i am good at it. and i don't need to look at institutions like my parents. and i know this is very childish, this emotional response. and then... like having auditioned, or having been on juries - It's never personal. I never feel like I have the right to decide that someone's good at something else. I just have to make a decision. And I'm sure a lot of people in juries also feel that way. But still, if I get rejected, then it's because they HATE trans people. this childishness is still there with me. is that true for anyone else?
  SABINE: i also take myself very serious, like can the other person not be educated?
  CLEMENT: some ppl also behave like parents...
• laughter *
  OLYMPIA: like being parented in the 19th century.
  CHRISTINA: i am also devastated by rejection. but its also the most productive moment for evaluation for me. thats a strategy to get out of these emotions, and to gain more knowledge. i really have an urgency for evaluations.
  SABINE: for me at this moment the assumptions come in. things that may have nothing to do with what is actually going on. thats the 19th century parents. this process takes a long time, like to learn. bc i don't know how the system works. and it takes too much time to find sth out. i like deviations.
  OLYMPIA: thats interesting. when i'm at my best i try this, but i'm not always there. HAU did this call for the queer manifesto. in drag i am a capital A artist. I'm able to employ people from drag when I get funding. And it's really significant, it makes a difference over a period of six months, like make someone's life much easier, because people are living on 800€ or 900€ a month, particularly after Corona. And so when there's an Ausschreibung like that, that's a really big deal, because it was 1.500€. So that makes someone's life livable for a long time. but it was also for a lot of queer artists who had never gotten funding. it was before i had gotten funding. so i payed myself 400€. Ricardo was disappointed in the applications. but how should ppl learn about it? but then he also said he would be willing to give feedback, but no one had really asked for it. but so many ppl are so discouraged from rejection, and the more distance ppl have to power the less likely it is that they dare to ask
  SHEENA: but i also don't have this desire of overanalyze. and then also class comes in. i sometimes don't know how i am sitting here, from this little village in Ireland with no culture, and I'm managing to be in this context. and i think there's sth about who you can anchor on to, maybe less institutions? elena is a huge resource for me.
  ALICE: do you pay her? like she is a huge research as long as you can pay her?
  SHEENA: no, thats not true. I've been paying elena for the last years through if I've gotten funding, but her work has extended 365 days a year. And now it's only the first time through Reconnect that I have some extra money to pay a structure. i'm trying to shift my sense of dependency, moving away from institutions and rather place it in ppl. its more generative, emotional, trust and liability also comes in.
  SABINE: still, it means the thing has to continue rolling.
  SHEENA: a lot is on me. i am responsible for many ppl to keep getting applications.
  SABINE: exactly. so there's this pressure of not getting rejected, but then the pressure is actually even bigger if i recognize other ppl depend on me, so they have to get other jobs if it doesn't work out. and then, there's always this moment that I feel like, shit: It's so close to going down the pipe, not because we don't want to continue researching together, but because there's no other way, because there's no energy.
  SHEENA: if its about desire, i wouldn't push it if it's not what I would want to do.
  OLYMPIA: its about momentum here. i was writing my own applications, which I can do. I'd write them in English and translate them to German. I can do most of it myself. And I got vaguely good with budgets. But then once I started working with a producer, now she just does the budget, and then checks my German etc. And it's only one day's work. So it would theoretically be possible for me to finance that outside of an application. i could finance the producer from a drag gig. but i didn't have to, bc we got regularly funding since we started working together. But then, if that momentum were to drop off, then it would be harder to start up again. And if I didn't speak German properly, then that would be more difficult for me... People spend over 500 euro on a team to write applications. and that makes me thing particularly of ppl with children - parents.
  BARBARA: i thought about what you, sarah, said about SPIN. its clearly that you, the producers, are bringing in the money. this memory just came up. this can change the pressure towards the people you work with.
  SHEENA: in Berlin, producers don't have pressure of securing funds.
  ALICE: how do you mean?
  SHEENA: its usually on the artists
  OLYMPIA: its different on the UK no? that could also be because it's disability arts.
  SARAH: I think we there's many different ways of doing the same thing. in backbone, there were many different questions from different artists. many were like: how do I have an overview? How do I not enter a crisis mode every three months? backbone comes from an assumption that both Barbara and I make, that in order to make work sustainable, we need to expand the timeline of our scope. if I'm able to think over a trajectory of 5 to 7 to 10 years, I have much higher chances to [inaudible] mechanism of exploitation, precarization, and short term constant crisis management, which seems to be the thing that we're all talking about. So then the moment that you're in that orientation, of course, you want to maintain momentum, because the moment the momentum drops, then you enter in a crisis management system. but for me, if we were to have a conversation about how you structure your practice, I would never advise anybody to rely on momentum. diversify momentum! if you feel that you're in that position, the first counter act you do is to find a way to diversify that. So, you use the momentum you have not to exploit it, but to build another pillar, so that they can be another momentum. all of these decisions are very strategic decisions, are very business like decisions - or even guided by this very beautiful human drive towards growth and organic harmony, which I think humans have. capitalism uses it for profit and accumulation, but I think growth, efficiency and productivity can also be very fruitful elements of spiritual growth and community commitment. So this is to say that it seems that there's many variables in place and not one right way to do things, but: I think it is necessary to understand that we operate in a system that requires craft, and this crafts are diverse and very often artists cannot have that craft. so that what needs to be implemented is how do we create networks of dependency between each other that foster skill sets, that take us further that where we can go by ourselves. so in that sense, cooperative structures are interesting, but there is something that I have to say: whenever an artist says "I feel very responsible for this" there is something wrong with that. There is something unhealthy about it. It's something that I will never put my money on it. If I made a risk assessment, I would be like, that's a fragile thing. if you give me the example you gave, I am like, okay, I want to see you in three years, I hope you don't exhaust yourself. I'm also playing around a lot with this idea of nursing, rather than supporting, working for. i've been very much of a nurse to the arts. Truly, and I love it. And I would really like people to share the passion, which is not easy to share. very often, what I see is that it's very easy for an artist to nurse a fellow artist, because it's super hard to nurse yourself. i stop here.
  OLYMPIA: i have a question specifically about this idea of, like feeling responsible for other people. Vika who wrote this text, she is very busy with class. she made a work about how uncomfortable she was with the attention she got from an art institution. I also feel this sense of guilt, whenever I ask my producer to do something without knowing that there's already money in my bank to pay her despite the fact that we will probably get that. and then i always wonder, shouldn't i be doing that? maybe this comes from the working class background. i resonated with your idea, but also it feels like...
  SHEENA: maybe responsible is not the right word. elena doesn't need my money. its more that i desire the relationships that i build on. And I want to keep working with those and keep working for those structures. And I think it's more in that level of things rather than its connected to certain kinds of financial economy. And through getting money in, it allows that, it makes that possible. i know that with other ppl its also possible without money, but i feel better with money. i am really learning how to give over responsibility. recognizing that i am actually not a control freak but love if other people take over work. otherwise i would have a burnout, like this year. i also thought of northern Ireland, where you can only get 5.000€ max. for a project. Berlin allows you to be more airy fairy.
  CHRISTINA: i can connect. i feel very guilty, which is even worse when i am an employer, which is maybe also bc coming from working class. - but as I'm not working with groups, I'm always working with collaborations, the first thing I want to establish is: Okay, maybe I wrote the application, and I got the money. But so what. it flows from me to the other people. And maybe I because I'm longer in the field, I got it. but that's not the point. It's not my money. It's just the money, which is there for art.
  OLYMPIA: so you make collective decisions?
  CHRISTINA: yes. i always try to share responsibility.
  ALICE: its always a work of christina ciupke and Boris Hauf.
  CHRISTINA: this is very productive for me.
  SHEENA: but who is doing the production for you? do you share that too?
  CHRISTINA: yes
  SHEENA: wow, amazing
  BARBARA: it does work differently with different people. its about how the invitation is taken from that person, and how much this person also feels that invitation. even so the invitation was always the same, it was taken differently.
  CHRISTINA: i was pulling myself to the margins... and then it goes, even though maybe in a different direction.
  SABINE: maybe thats a different thing, but yes - it goes. and that could be more important than that it needs to be that thing - that it goes. i also thought more about this thing of momentum you mentioned sarah. That's not a very wise decision, to put all on the momentum. But I'm interested, what would that diversification at that moment actually mean?
  SARAH: what i can say is - i didn't get back to barbaras question regarding SPIN introduces SPIN: SPIN is a cooperative that I'm part of in Belgium. it's now composed of nine artists. we do not work together, we do not make work together at all. So everybody has their own teams, their own work, their own trajectory, their own network, but we radically share financial risk. And this is, for example, the level of diversification that we experience to be super efficient. in my personal life this is something that I love: to start businesses with people that are not my family, or friends, or direct collaborators. it is something that brings a lot of air in my way of thinking about money. me and Barbara, we knew each other, but we were not super close friends. And we said, let's start a project together. let's share the risk of that. And I think this is for me, a very fruitful way of distributing weight differently. And also stimulating solidarity differently. one thing for me which is super important is that when the artistic work carries the solidarity, the commitment, there's something wrong with that.
  SABINE: what do you mean by solidarity?
  SARAH: for example, if a group is making work, and the way that the risk is shared among the group depends on the artistic work - thats a short circuit, it's an unhealthy environment. Because it puts too much pressure on the work and too much pressure on the collaborators. it's actually linked by an artistic commitment, which has nothing to do with risk management. playing with these elements, for me, it's very important. we've been doing it for many years, its working quite well, we have conversations with institutions as a group of nine artists. we are one big company. So we're like Meg. But Meg is Meg. It's been it's like nine different artists. we go to the same government thats funding Damaged Goods and say, we're like Damaged Goods, but we have nine directors, but they don't get it. they want a face of the company. And then we go like, no, that's not the point, 1-2-3 times, and then we get less and less money. So they're clearly winning. But we're still happy with it. But yeah, this idea of sharing risk - what does that do? - my recent discovery is that we should share risk on other conditions, like ground work. administration, for example, bureaucracy, rental of storage spaces. alternative email hosting, anti Google servers, we have a loooooot of stuff in common that each of us is paying for by themselves.
  SHEENA: one question: bc there IS an entanglement with the quality of the artistic work. depending on how my work goes, my next work will do like this or that. i'm just trying to understand how to detach all those things. how to detach the economy from the quality of the artistic work.
  SARAH: maybe the assumption is that the market works like this. that the market is full of good work. but thats not true: its full of ppl who are good networkers.
  SHEENA: no, its not, that's very true. but we've seen maybe an artist who like burnt their network because they made one bad show in the wrong place.
  SARAH: the question is: what kind of artist you wanna be? what kind of what kind of trajectories you want to have? You want to build a company, you want to be in a rotation system of one piece a year? then you build a certain structure. do you want to allow yourself to work for others? And make one piece every four years? That's a completely different structure. Are you a total touring animal, and you want to be on the road 300 days a year, and make suit back shows, like UK style? if that's what your practice is called, you start from there. And I think the moment that you define that, you understand which system you're applying. your examples were all examples of certain kinds of artists, that have certain ways of operating, and their desire and fulfillment depends on their signature. and then we can add the historic context, the fact that we all inheriting the big capital A Artist model - like Jerome Bel, Xavier LeRoy. that's one way of doing things. If you want that there is a way to do that. But do you? And that's the first thing, because those people that did those works and build that system, they really like it. And then they pay for it. It's not easy. It's a shitshow. It's a horrible life. They're deeply unhappy.
  ALICE: depends on ppl
  SARAH: its a toxic, mega ego place.
  ALICE: i'm taking a side now. until now i was really with you, and then just to say "it's fine, if this is what somebody wants" - no.
  SARAH: But it's true. If we look at the history, Xavier stopped that kind of system, Jerome as well. there is a reason - because it's unsustainable. Meg split the company, put young artists inside, makes one big piece every five years, shifted her production cycle completely. and then, you don't have any more the big touring names, you have a big established company that do not tour anymore. Outside of Germany, nobody knows who Sasha Waltz is anymore. young dancers studying in Spain, they don't go and see Sasha Waltz anymore. So if you look at the market and the history of the market and the cultural policies and institutions, you make a matrix, you understand what the trends are. and then you position yourself: in a competitive competitive way, if you have a competitive profile, or in a non competitive way, if you don't.
  OLYMPIA: we're 10' into lunch! I wondered, actually, whether this text - because it's a little bit more into ethics, or individual practices - would serve a conversation of governance, but we actually very much ended up there. So kudos.


LUNCH

CASE STUDY! FIXING SESSION

• ppl have a hard time coming back bc its finally SUNNY outside again *
• sheena announces she needs to leave at 2pm
  SARAH: this last block is the one which we left mostly open. sheena had this idea to work on sth together, on a case study, sth to fix. on Wednesday we asked everyone to think about it. anyone has a case study?
  SHEENA: yesterday, the topic of a union came up, which also resonates to which we talked about today. sth i would be interested in.
  SARAH: i personally would be only excited 6/10 regarding the union topic.
  OLYMPIA: it seemed yesterday a lot of ppl where interested in it
  ALICE: can you say why?
  OLYMPIA: i worked for a trade union, and i apply that to the way how i do governance in my work. i would find it interesting to find out what ppl feel what we would be doing in such a union. but today is also a different group than yesterday.
  SHEENA: clement?
  CLEMENT: yes, the change of leadership in an institution, and how this is handled. it concerns many ppl. when a director in a theater changes many ppl are preoccupied. but when siegmar is not here its less interesting, bc she applied
  BARBARA: i don't have a case study, but what i'm missing with the union topic is the payment aspect, bc we don't have the money, and if its about sth longterm we needed to think about finances. thats an obstacle for me
  SHEENA: regarding the support system: finding out what am i asking for help for in the scene. how do i feel i can reach out beyond the idea of presence ideology? there can be that individual leaning on / leaning in thing... but i'm interested in how to understand the potential of the bodies in this room
  SARAH: maybe we can bring all this together. When we talk about solidarity, we address it like where do I go to ask for help? And very rarely we articulate it as how do I tell people what they can ask me - how can I define myself as a resource? and of course this are two different things because probably things you ask are different from the things that you can give. But I think the moment that we think about it as a network or as a system, it's necessary analysis to make. Maybe what we could do together is to actually design a network of solidarity.
  ALICE: yeah!
  SARAH: theres a bunch of things we want to keep for ourselves, things we want to share, etc. we could draw that, and maybe that idea sparkles some phantasy?
  ALICE: for me it connects to sth you said earlier, a network of skills or capacities, as resources. so we could start by putting things down by ourselves, and then maybe others could help us and say "what about this?", and then maybe i say "no i wanna keep this to myself", and then we map out needs, and then we see in the end what is missing
  SARAH: social muscle club?
  ALICE: exactly! what do i want to give, what do i want to receive? and then we see what is just in this little constellation not available?
  SARAH: i would like to add that i don't want to do it under the umbrella of "lameness". what i mean by that: when I talk about solidarity and need, I think about the things I don't have. But for example, being an artist and making work is something that I would put on the things i can do. so: without putting aside the core of what we do.
  SHEENA: can you say it again?
  SABINE: the actual things you do you take usually out of the map?
  SARAH: put ALL OF IT in. don't just think of the things that you can offer ON TOP of what you're doing as an artist. thats when it becomes interesting
  SHEENA: whats also interesting is: my offers to you as a group are different to another group or person, and same with my needs, what i am asking for... i think we need a bigger piece of paper?
  ALICE: let's start with little lists?
  SARAH: does it sound like a nice idea? olympia?
  OLYMPIA: let's try! what you said about the union thing - let's try and see where we go
  ALICE: for me its just very vague what a union would be
  OLYMPIA: i'm a bit confused, because I always thought that solidarity was something that you gave. I always felt like asking is for charity. And then like, giving is for solidarity. solidarity means that there has to be something offered first
  CLEMENT: i was wondering as well, in which kind of economy that would work? eg i would give a massage, but not to everyone... like "everything i could give", but to whom?
  OLYMPIA: queens against borders is this solidarity project i am doing, building solidarity for queer and trans refugees. the way that it worked for the first three years was that everyone who wasn't a refugee worked for free. And then people who were refugees, who was the other half of the organizing and performance, got a solidarity rate for what they were doing. the whole principle of doing that was: we never expected to get anything back from the people that we're doing it for, but if no one does, if no one extends solidarity without expecting anything back, then solidarity doesn't work. the reason that it's different to charity, or being nice, is that it's it's always a first step in a process of building something that's bigger.
  SARAH: maybe the shift is: the social state is a very active, immediate help. But also the way a social state works is that you pay a pension contribution for somebody that's actually getting their pension today. there is the assumption of solidarity at the base of societies that have care as one of their welfare elements of what a government should provide for its citizens. An assumption of solidarity is the acknowledgement of dependency and interdependency.
  OLYMPIA: no. whats fundamentally lacking in capitalist society is solidarity. we have a shared respect for capital, but not for the sociality of a human being. so solidarity as a means of building the potential for a different way of doing it. in Australia, you'd never, even in the social welfare state, use the word solidarity. It sounds too communist.
  ALICE: in a way, this description is really radical, but doesn't it exclude the union?
  OLYMPIA: how so?
  ALICE: bc everyone needs to pay the union, no?
  OLYMPIA: it has many aspects what it would do. It could also be a vehicle to take state power.
  ALICE: i would like to hear that
  SARAH: we are having two discussions: one, making arguments around how to think about solidarity as a proposal. And then there is this idea of defining what is the interest in talking about unions? maybe we should clarify? we're doing two things at the same time.
  BARBARA: i was wondering about solidarity and resources... maybe first collecting the resources? i didn't get the jump to solidarity
  SARAH: i meant we can take a picture of a solidarity network
  OLYMPIA: the reason i am interested in this is: why do we make this map? do we make it in order to have the more social democratic, redistributive model of a dance scene that is more livable? Or do we do it to make a model that would actually be transformative. and I don't think we need to actually make that decision. But this is why I was particularly interested in that question.
  SARAH: ... and then the score is the map ... and then we build a system with us inside.
  SHEENA: who is it serving? i thought of artists in Mexico, where they cut funding, where they did sth similar. it wasn't then only for self serving the scene, but it became an economy in itself. they even started an export import business with Cuba. so, is this just about serving this economy, or sth more?
  SARAH: we are the circle of humans that would be a base for this definition. we would first build a system for us.
  BARBARA: reads the common definition of governance again*
governance is a system of tools, practices, and resources, that organizes agency in a group of people. We desire a governance that is redistributive, adaptive, and practice-based by committing to consent, accountability, and kindness. this necessarily involves protocols of external and internal evaluation in order to achieve a long term collective interest of this group of people.
  SARAH: we're still stuck on what the collective interest is
  OLYMPIA: but we can find that out during that process
  SARAH: one paper for each of us
  SHEENA: we define now both levels: what we offer - and what we need.
• everyone gets a pen and a paper, and starts to write *
  BARBARA: hard exercise! i thought it was easier
  ALICE: did you start with what you give, or need?
  BARBARA: i didn't write anything yet
• ppl are sighing, staring at the ceiling *
  ALICE: start from what you do, and how that can be a resource
  BARBARA: that makes it a lot easier
  OLYMPIA: today was very relaxed
  BARBARA: all days were
  CLEMENT: feels this is only a beginning
  ALICE: one more minute?
  OLYMPIA: did everyone find it more difficult to write the things they need, than that what the can offer?
• "yes!" "no!"
  OLYMPIA: for me it was all about age. [sth with older and younger ppl, inaudible]
  SHEENA: should we do a round?
  OLYMPIA:
offers: advise, feedback and workshops to as yet unfunded artists ... experience of trade union and Student Union politics ... critical opinions from a marginalized / outsider perspective
needs: mentoring - unexpected offers of solidarity - the audience - political work of elders
  ALICE:
offer: dance knowledge: technical, historical and aesthetic - support of group processes, creative or else - support of individual artistic processes - teaching - conceptual advise - support for conceptual development of art projects or structures - performing - editing / support ppl find their own writing voice - cook - dance - keep ppl company
need: guidance for production work - space and people to practice with - money to pay regular collaborators - internet literacy and web programming skills - massages and bodywork
  SABINE:
offers: begeisterungsfähigkeit - potential new ideas & formats at the combination of field, and work fields and work ways [?] - thinking them through, connect them to different supportive tools that I have access to or that I developed - different spaces and spatial thinking - contexts, in terms of social, discoursive etc. - ppl, their crafts, motivations, and occupations - an intuition of how things could make sense together - to make things combined and reconnect - finden & erfinden of formats of communication
needs: knowledge transfer - a continuous relationship to someone who is not my collaborator - structures or models that can help me to nourish my network
  SHEENA:
offers: dramaturgical structures, like organizing bodily material - being a co-dreamer, being a co-organizer, being a co-collaborator (in the theater, behind the scenes), being a co-project thinker or listener - spaces (i love them, working in them, for them, offering studio spaces, possibilities of making stuff happen) - working collectively and sharing how - making transitions in pieces - playground body or babysitting
needs: a you-can-do-it partner - art strategy, future planing (how to how to know what I want and how to make that happen) - playground buddy - massage, body love - spontaneity - gatherings - more connections to curators and programers - more co-thinkers and projects
  SARAH:
offers: specific knowledge (production, driving, sailing, traveling, DIY, service work, organization & coordination, financial management) - unpaid time
needs: housing - healthcare - good food - free, unorganized time - autonomy - money / resources / offerings that allow me to travel / further my education / access culture and arts - party - healthy sex live
  CLEMENT:
offers: choreographic expertise, especially with object-oriented choreography - Feldenkrais - space for rehearsals and events - mentorship - performing - stage design - boat tours
needs: mentorship esp. with governance - babysitting - grandparents for my children - french library - somatic treatment - bike maintenance - organization and production management for the company - and finally, the dream of a fantastic institution: a space for conviviality and spontaneity
  BARBARA:
offers: administrative experience - getting things done - application writing - accounting - budgeting - 1-2 ears to listen - garden with a place to sleep - some network connections
needs: more knowledge with better strategic planning - good work life balance
  CHRISTINA
offers: movement practice - experience of longterm artistic practice - time to listen - time in general - building working relationships - creating environments of commitment and trust
needs: getting faster - building structures of friendships - expertise from others which i don't have myself - develop more longterm thinking - time for productive daydreaming
  SHEENA: wow, theres a lot of bodies / buddies [?] in the space
  OLYMPIA: there is this book from Nancy Fraser and Rahel Jaeggi, which is called "capitalism" explaining the book they take this idea of the foreground and the background in every understanding of how society works. So you have production and reproduction. That's the most classical one. and they extend it to a whole bunch of different things like humans, and non humans, and nature etc. And I think this process has made really clear the enmeshed nature of the formal and non formal, like interdependencies or economies etc. that actually make the formal, more visible work that we do, actually possible.
  SARAH: the first thing that came to my mind was, we assume scarcity all the time, but then when we go through all these skills we recognize all the abundance! usually the offerings are bigger than the needs, so it creates a surplus of offerings. and thats always a good place to start, thinking: what do we have extra? and its interesting, very often the offerings were bigger than it needs, right? So then it creates a profit of offerings. It should at least, if that's true; but of course it's not, because the need have roots that are deeper...
  SABINE: listening to what you all said, it shifts certain logics what the different ways are how things could be combined... how to say? it produces a different landscape of what i initially thought. even art making shifts things.
  SARAH: one more thing that I was thinking is: to hear all of the list creates this idea of reciprocity. i heard things that I could plug in, in order to facilitate Olympia giving free workshops to young folks. so then the aim is that the plugins are always oriented in a non-reciprocal sense, and very often to the outside of this environment. Which makes total sense. And it's one of the reasons to do things together.
  SHEENA: has to leave - and announces her upcoming piece*
• "ciaoooo"
  ALICE: now what we've been doing was to look at the tools, practices and resources. What we didn't discuss is the system.
  OLYMPIA: thats interesting. because as soon as you start to frame something in terms of a union, then you're thinking about it in the context of a particular lineage of organizing. and that it couldn't plug different things in, in the same way. an interesting question is what kind of body / system / form of governance could hold more of these things?
  ALICE: i thought of "nebenan", this website. elaborates on it* it's super local, just for each neighborhood, and you can write eg: I have a bike to give away, I need babysitting etc. - so exactly what we're speaking about. i've never used it. the problem is... actually no, there is no problem. but how to make it available so it goes beyond what i know. like an index? imagine there is only a signal group, where you get overwhelmed by messages?
  CLEMENT: there was this experiment, this system of local exchanges, where they were replacing money by [inaudible] and then you create a kind of fictional money, and its functioning only within this environment, and so, in a local way, you avoid the regular money...
  ALICE: but, sorry to interrupt, it starts from the idea that ppl are going to abuse the system.
  CLEMENT: just to finish, the quality of it was that it was avoiding that there is only trades. So this was not like, I give you Feldenkrais you give me books, but i give you Feldenkrais, and then you can also benefit from your resources. i agree, it's not what we do, but it was a way of tricking the system, avoiding to pay taxes on this interactions.
  ALICE: why you would create a currency, its to engage that ppl engage not only in taking, but also giving
  OLYMPIA: i notice what you, alice, described happens a lot in Berlin, more than in Melbourne. sth about conviviality. ppl don't throw away their stuff that easily. what is it that makes these neighborhood, Kiez organizing things more likely to happen?
  ALICE: my assumption is it might come from the squatters movement, i grew up in that culture
  SABINE: i couldn't say for sure if this is true or not. but its also non-elitist. eg. in other places you simply wouldn't take a t-shirt from the streets. it also has its other sides. i think its rooted in the last 40y. before it became the housing problem, a non-growth oriented production way.
  CHRISTINA: i think its also because Berlin was poor. after the war, there was absolutely no future. And so everything was cheap, like renting was cheap. nobody had the need to own anything. you just rent, and then you go to a new flat. it was less about owning, more about renting, and not needing the security. where i come from - south of Germany: whole different story. its all about money, mine, property.
  SABINE: there is some kind of generosity here, yes, a sloppy generosity.
  SARAH: i was thinking sth unrelated. sth that the union does is reminding the ppl of their working rights. the big mission that the union has is to be a reminder, to be an active reminder, so its educational. its almost romantic for me. my dad is a taxi driver, he hates uber, so the union fights uber with him, they hate uber together, uber wins, they become uber together. i was thinking about the fragmentation of the world that we live in, and in the field we have a strong individual position, and we suffer from the lack of clarity of how to come together. so i was wondering if an institution that clarifies that interdependence is rather educational, that works as a reminder. it could be a place or something that we all feed in, and build together in order to help ourselves, in order be reminded of doing the work of what do you need. And what can you offer? And redistribute the offerings and direct them to the needs to those who can offer? I think the qualities of our being an entity is very different from the union. so maybe we don't need so much somebody that defends our rights, but somebody that reminds us of how we function, in order to be empowered.
  ALICE: it can be to value the underlying structures?
  SABINE: but isn't the union more an entity that reacts? aren't they more of a Vermittler-Rolle? it feels blurry for me, whats the inside and the outside
  CLEMENT: it's very hard to speak up for yourself, but the union helps you to do that.
  SABINE: whom are we reminding? ourselves? is the reminder really valuable for ourselves?
  OLYMPIA: the answer is: ourselves, but also the government. bc we are freelance workers, paid by public money, so it means we work for the government.
  SABINE: so it's like we take your stakes...?
  OLYMPIA: when i worked in a union, there was a policy that the union will help a manager against their manager, but... like, if there are three members, they will help the cleaner against the manager, and then the manager against the CEO. so it can also be a way of intervening in disputes inside us. in terms of reminding us of our position, I think that can be super useful. and unions also started schools, at a time when workers didn't have access to education. I think a lot of us actually could really use a bit of education about that - or at least a forum for discussion: that is run democratically by us, about who we are, where we stand and what our interests are. it's also a reminder to people that their interests are different from their bosses. I think that's something that people can get really lost in, especially in smaller workplaces, which are harder to unionize, which is also our workplace. But it could be a reminder that our interests are not the same as someone in a position of power, even if we might have a feeling of common humanity or conviviality. it can stop us from gaslighting ourselves into thinking that we're more powerful, or more powerless than them.
  SARAH: for me, the union is a solution of an unevenness of power. even though i am not sure how well it applies to our context. it can also be called a fictional institution. but our problem is not conflict resolution, but distribution of resources, and transparent connection. with conflict resolution, it's true, but as entities that have their own self governance, then the mandate for conflict resolution should anyhow be sitting in the self governing body, otherwise we would overcome the autonomy of the self governing body.
  SABINE: thats what i was wondering about
  SARAH: but its fine, conflict resolution should be everywhere. or also passing on intergenerational issues. this group was very willingly composed by people that have experience in the field, people that have been running projects, and that at least employed people for a certain amount of years. That's how we made the invitation. we didn't want to invite young artists, bc we wanted to have different kinds of conversations. sth like a practice-based institution, across the field, that could keep track of these issues. so that not every generation has to go through it again and figure it out by themselves. this is one of the things that I hate and love about Berlin: I arrived in Berlin 12 years ago, and people told me, Berlin is over. And I don't even know who was before me, and then I meet people that have been here for 25 years, and they're actually my peers.
  ALICE: i heard this when i moved here in 2012, and i still hear it now. that Berlin is over
  SARAH: there is something about leaving no traces in Berlin. but you actually live on top of the work that somebody else has done before us constantly. but somehow, everyone who comes to this city has to start from the scratch. this is such a violent thing, it is such a failure of the left wing culture in the city, overcoming that would be so important.
  CHRISTINA: i was wondering, does it always have to be an exchange? maybe getting away from the need and offer thing, but go to a different thing: negotiating interests. needs could also be offers.
  OLYMPIA: we are talking a lot about it: this capacity, the need for something that would be an information, an exchange, like the operator on the phone? so often the stuff that is around ... like with Tanzbüro and their workshops for applications, and everyone's always saying that they have so much trouble with it, and then I did it. And I didn't know anyone in it. But also I don't really know anyone who's done that workshop. and people just don't know that it's there, even though they went to university next to it for two years. there is a big gap. People don't really know where to go for information.
  SARAH: sth nice to do could be to question the existing things, and why do they somehow not function? And the community outreach. Community-wise is very hard. You don't meet them around. You don't know who they are. There will be many other ways to make it work better.
  BARBARA: sometimes i also feel that laziness is involved. you also need to arrive. and of course you have to start knowing, but then also engaging.
  CLEMENT: the question of the union was very present when i came in 2008. there was a union in France, and here wasn't, so we discussed it a lot. and it always comes back, like sth that would be nice to have. but also i hear from ZTB that its hard for them to make artists commit. it feels to me like a place where I stopped going because of these endless discussion about what could be. so i stay away from it. i have another desire, for smaller things that fit better in the bigger system.
  ALICE: what makes it really nice for me here is that we are talking together as peers from different perspectives. thats different than going to an office where ppl have super specific knowledge. like i am sure i could profit from that workshop of Tanzbüro, but i also don't want ppl who have no idea from art creation to tell me stuff. maybe i'm wrong with this, but... I want to make the scene together, more in a collegial mode, and i'm still figuring out whatever concrete model would work for me. eg. a salon - if we could have a nice bar once a week and and just hang out there, have a happy hour.
  CLEMENT: we tried sth like this: we had for each application round, like a week or two before, there was a space open for people to come together to write application, even people to advice for the writing. some people used it. but not so many, and at the end, you don't have time to go etc. what would be amazing is what you were suggesting before actually: you go to Fortuna to really have an office space. And then you will just meet people and you will work, that would be so amazing. That would be such a resource for everyone. I think it will be used a lot.
  OLYMPIA: i need to leave... thank you and bye!
• "thank you olympia" *
  ALICE: i was thinking about this with sheena: with all the ideas that have been mentioned, wouldn't it be nice to have a workshop moment, in the sense of working in little groups, in an open space format, and we could have all the all the ideas that were proposed there. and then people can come and say, this is one thing that I would like to figure out and just make it! just one day or two of actually getting a bit concrete.
  SARAH: maybe we can close like this. as you know, backbone goes until December. every Wednesday, barbara and me are in fortuna, from 2pm-8pm. so everyone who wants to come to fortuna to think about the future, is invited.
  CLEMENT: can it be a bit more concrete?
  SARAH: we will write an email with some more infos next week. ppl can book themselves in.
  SABINE: which future is it about?
  ALICE: the future of backbone, but also individual support.
  SARAH: the calendar is shared, you can book yourself in, and the one who is the first starts the session. and then we have another session in the beginning of December: 10.-11.12. in Sophiensaele, topic: research. we will have the Kantine, and there will be a party. and we want to try to continue it for some more months in 2023, and write applications for the next round. we want to go for Kulturstiftung des Bundes.
  ALICE: its also an interesting frame. bc the Berlin scene is internationally so invisible, which could be an argument for the application, to make it more visible.
  CLEMENT: there could be backbone in Croatia, in Brazil...
  SARAH: ... backbone on the beach!

SESSION #2

ETHICS

ON

23, 24, 25 May 2022

HOSTED BY

Tanzfabrik Berlin 

PARTICIPANTX (over the whole period)

Alice Chauchat (she), Barbara Greiner (she), Clement Layes (he), Elena Polzer (she), Elena Rose Light (they), Gretchen Blegen (all pronouns), Julia Rodriguez (she), Laurie Young (they/she), Manon Parent (she), Maria F. Scaroni (she), Roni Katz (she), Sabine Zahn (she), Sheena McGrandles (she), Siegmar Zacharias (they/she), Tiphaine Carrère (she), Xenia Taniko (they/she)
Micha Tsouloukidse (he) - documentation

DAY 1

23.05.2022

PARTICIPANTS

Alice, Barbara, Clement, Elena-P, Elena-RL, Gretchen, Julia, Laurie, Manon, Micha, Roni, Sabine, Sheena, Siegmar, Tiphaine, Xenia

STRUCTURE AS PLANNED

10h00 - 10h30 coffee + arrival
10h30 - 12:00 Between us (Roni) 
Emphasize: Questions Problem, Case Studies
During the interview everyone chooses three questions 
Bringing them into the group
12h00 - 13h00 lunch break
13h00 - 13:15 Touch and Consent (or lack thereof) practice (Siegmar)
13:20 - 14:30 Working in smaller groups / Getting Concrete - Case studies from the morning - expanding on questions of the morning (Alice)

COFFEE + ARRIVAL

ppl arriving slowly, in the beginning a bit of stress in the air bc the breakfast caterer had to cancel due to covid, but after some minutes of ppl getting stuff from the kitchen it gets relaxed and chatty

BARBARA

gives a review on the last session in radialsystem on individual practices; this time less structure, less input

ALICE: these three days are a preparation session.

BARBARA: we want to get concrete in this session. so we're gonna try to really collect concrete problems and questions, burning issues, we want to touch and go into case studies. the topic of ethics is very broad, so we don't want to just touch it on the surface.

ALICE: we want to go deeper with this issue.

BARBARA: you want to add something here?

ALICE: the idea is that in order to go beyond general notions, what is ethically good, actually open ethics as a place of problem. if we look at a concrete situation, we can unpack it and see why there's an ethical issue at stake. to separate it a bit from the making, that could be maybe more in governance, the making of rules, but also, what is the space for hesitation? how do we deal with the situation without refusing to take responsibility? this is why through everything, whenever concrete cases come to mind, note them down, so we can see what we feel is appropriate or useful, to bring forth and to work.

SIEGMAR

gives an overview of the day

on Wednesday morning, we can we can gather again and see what is needed, because last time we found we were left with so much and didn't have time to chew on it a bit more. But also this is a preparation for the whole year, and the preparation for something to hopefully build together. so it's just a way of how to get to know each other, because one of the things that came up is trust and trust building, so I guess all of this is contributing to getting to know each other in our differences.

BARBARA

on some practicalities, and suggests an introduction round

INTRODUCTION ROUND

everyone says their name and pronoun

SIEGMAR: my pronoun is she/her, and I'm trying to build up the courage for they/them.

laughter

BETWEEN US

facilitated by roni

RONI: this is a performative format that I've been using to facilitate conversations in many different situations. i think it might be useful for us for generating content for the coming three days. So we're basically playing a game where we're having a collective conversation as a group, but it's happening by two people sitting on the couch talking to each other. And these two people switch. The other thing that is important is that the conversation is happening only via questions. it's a ping pong of questions. we're trying not to give answers by formulating questions. We're trying to stick with the idea of questions. how do we switch? if I wanted at some point to not not be here anymore, I want to go back to the audience, or when someone is asking me a question that I don't want to respond to, or I don't feel comfortable, or just I had enough, then I can just get off and come back to sit in the audience. then there's an empty space here. And whoever feels inclined, comes up. And it's nice if you're inclined to respond to the question that was just asked. So we're continuing the conversation. that's how to get on and off the stage. And if one feels, this is something I really want to go on talking about, then you can say hold, and then I'll hear the hold, I'll come down, and you'll come up. it's a bit about being attuned to when is the right moment for you to to join the conversation. and it's also a performative format. So I want to share with you the performative strategies: allow time for contemplation and silence. converse as if you'll be doing this forever, make yourself comfortable. oscillate between extremes, political, confessional, practical, philosophical, personal, social. Allow your response to the question to manifest in your body and your face. No need to hide anything or stay composed. Let these questions have texture through the voice. Let the sensuality spread in the space between us. Keep saying yes, follow the flow rather than diverting elsewhere. If you do direct somewhere, do it softly. Talk about things you care about. Put yourself on the line. allow doubt, self doubt and uncertainty. Use eye contact with each other in the audience. We are not looking for answers. Don't use a question to give answers. This is not about your opinion. Once in a while, allow yourself not to be concise to get lost in formulating the question, to think out loud to thread a few questions together. And there's an underscore to the performance: we're already friends, we want to get to know each other better. We allow ourselves to be intimate and to be seen that way. We assume intimacy, we constantly open up to each other and to the audience through the gaze, the physical posture, the content of the questions. So it's like a conversation among friends.

so there will be a lot of questions in the space for the coming 60 minutes. we want to ask you to note down the questions that resonate with you very strongly. You can collect as many as you want. It can be your own it can be other people's it can be questions that come up when you sit and watch and not necessarily something that has been said but something that comes up to you while you watch. we'll share them afterwards.

ELENA-RL+ELENA-P

ELENA-P: do you know we share the same name?

ELENA-RL: can you pronounce yours?

ELENA-P: do you know the background of your name?

ELENA-RL: do names need to have some kind of meaning or ancestral linkage to have power in our lives?

ELENA-P: does magical thinking have a place in your practice - artistic, daily life, etc.?

ELENA-RL: when you say magical thinking, what do you mean?

ELENA-P: is there more to existence than can be explained by the current state of scientific analysis?

ELENA-RL: is this orange a planet?

ELENA-P: can you sit on it?

ELENA-RL: does your body determine its existence? how do you consider your body in relation to objects?

ELENA-P: If I'm in relation to the world, is it relevant that I always fully understand what my body is doing?

ELENA-RL: how can i stop thinking?

MANON: hold

ELENA-RL+MANON

MANON: how can i see the right thing?

ELENA-RL: what is right in your spiritual world view?

MANON: what do you mean by spiritual?

ELENA-RL: what framework do you use to guide your decision?

MANON: how is the world organized?

ELENA-RL: do you organize the world?

MANON: do you think my world is as beautiful as this orange?

ELENA-RL: is beauty a guiding principle in your world view?

MANON: is beauty not a guiding principle in your world view?

ELENA-RL: when we say beauty, do we mean beauty in a western sense? is it possible to define it in an intuitive, personal way?

MANON: do you think beauty is connected to racism?

ELENA-RL

leaves

SIEGMAR

enters

MANON+SIEGMAR

manon eats oranges and shares them with siegmar

MANON: would you like to have more than one?

SIEGMAR: how do you shift from scarcity to abundance?

MANON: when is the point when you feel full?

SIEGMAR: what could it be not to be full physically, but have the pleasure of higher distribution?

XENIA: hold

SIEGMAR+XENIA

XENIA: what is enough for you? when is enough for you?

SIEGMAR: how do you determine limits - in your work, in relation to love, in relation to desire, in relation to future & past?

XENIA: are all of these things you mentioned connected - and how?

SIEGMAR: what would it mean to sense, perceive and act upon those limits?

XENIA: on a scale from 1-10: how much have you become aware of internalized ableism in your life in the last 3 years?

SIEGMAR: what is the last thing you didn't do you don't regret?

XENIA: how do you communicate your boundaries and needs with people you're not intimate with?

SIEGMAR: how do you build intimacy as a way to interact with the world, like in your work and with people that you don't have personal desires for or close connections?

ALICE: hold

XENIA: i go right?

leaves

SIEGMAR+ALICE

ALICE: is action on the base of an assumed trust a trespassing of the others, does it make possible the actual building of trust?

SIEGMAR: if trust is not assumed, but earned, does it mean it comes from a place of scarcity? 

ALICE: what is it that trust does not make possible?

SIEGMAR

leaves

alice starts eating an orange

RONI

enters

ALICE+RONI

RONI: what has not been made possible for you recently, in the last two weeks?

long silence

ALICE: if we don't build institutions, what can we build that can nourish and sustain a future?

RONI: are you asking that question from a place which is the same place where you said the other day there's no such thing as an institution?

alice makes gesture "its complicated"

ALICE: it's really hard to not answer sometimes

RONI: because you want to answer? maybe you can just tell me?

ALICE: how do you build sth that can sustain beyond your own person and relationships without an institution, whereas an institution lives from the people who carry it? sth that reaches beyond yourselves and your personal networks?

RONI: when does a structure become an institution?

ALICE: how do you call something that has enough stability and resilience to persist beyond individual commitments and relationships, so that it can be accessed by more people than the immediate ones?

SIEGMAR: hold

RONI

leaves

ALICE

leaves too

laughter

SIEGMAR+ELENA-P

SIEGMAR: how do you build these resilient structures without reproducing racism?

ELENA-P: why aren't we allowed to use the word institutions?

SIEGMAR: isn't it sometimes more interesting how things work than how they are called?

ELENA-P: Why was the word resilience and racism in the same question?

SIEGMAR: how would you call a bouncing back of the nervous system other than resilience and how would you call a bouncing back of a violent structure to itself other than resilience?

people are aaaaahhhhhing

LAURIE: hold

SIEGMAR+LAURIE

LAURIE: how does vibrational thinking feel like for you?

SIEGMAR: sometimes i wonder how to sense the vibrations of, for example, the humming of the bees on the same level as the tension in the room, as the internal shaking of my nervous system, that then sounds in my voice and to ask, how can I be with that, and sense how that can actually make the conversation go in a different order. Or how can all of that be on the same level that enables something that is shaking - you know how in German there is a thing: when two joints are not fixed, one says it has "Spiel", so this thing of actually being clunky and having "Spiel" - how do we live like that?

LAURIE: how can a vibrational force that is a repetition of a movement back and forth can be a way to regulate nervous systems?

SIEGMAR: do you know that our nervous systems are completely interwebbed? how can I then not co-regulate you? and how can that be anti-racist work?

SIEGMAR

leaves

RONI: you can't leave

SIEGMAR

comes back

LAURIE

leaves

ELENA-P

enters

SIEGMAR+ELENA-P

ELENA-P: would you like to leave?

SIEGMAR

leaves

ELENA-P: was i contributing care work?

SABINE

enters

ELENA-P+SABINE

SABINE: how would you describe care work?

ELENA-P

leaves

MANON

enters

SABINE+MANON

MANON: how are you today?

SABINE: i'm still pondering about things on the last question... its really about words i stumble upon... what is the dimension between terms like boundaries and limits, what is it that they emit?

MANON: when was the last time your boundaries were crossed?

SABINE: how do you place this crossing / being crossed within your further action?

MANON: if i was taking your hand, would i cross your boundary?

SABINE: how can crossing boundaries open a door?

MANON: if you were to open a door to a new dimension, how would you enter?

SABINE: fly?

MANON: are your dreams ethical?

SABINE: in which dimensions do dreams appear?

MANON: do you think setting up a fertile ground for dreaming could be revolutionary?

SABINE: through which situations or incidents does the way you want to set up XXX for dreaming change?

MANON: does feeling the wind on your skin change your minds?

SABINE: does working in certain situations change your worth?

MANON: do you think caring so much about work rather than life is ethical?

SABINE: how and where is it possible to distinguish the two?

MANON: are you your work?

SABINE: how much does work carry life?

ELENA-RL: hold

SABINE+ELENA-RL

ELENA-RL: what if we substitute the work practice for work?

SABINE: do we have to name them different forms of practice?

ELENA-RL: How can we do things in our everyday lives that push forward our value systems without transforming them into a codified system or mode of practice that can be commodified by the arts economy or the economy at large?

ALICE: hold

ELENA-RL+ALICE

ALICE: would you like to exit the art economy?

ELENA-RL: How come every time the question of my personal relationship to the creative economy emerges, I imagine some kind of dichotomy between city life as entrenched in the economy and a rural communist lifestyle as outside of.

XENIA: hold

ELENA-RL+XENIA

XENIA: do you think that the artistic economy and working in the arts is a gift economy in relation to the capitalist market?

ELENA-RL: who is giving the gift, and who is receiving it?

XENIA: when you go to the studio, are you giving sth or receiving sth?

ELENA-RL: is it valuable to imagine ourselves as self-sustaining givers and receivers within ourselves, or is it more valuable to imagine a collectivity beyond ourselves?

RONI: hold

ELENA-RL+RONI

RONI: how do you choose the ppl you work with?

ELENA-RL: do you feel that there's a certain destiny/alchemy that bring ppl in your life?

RONI: have you ever gone through an artistic breakup?

ELENA-P: hold

RONI+ELENA-P

ELENA-P: In terms of your question about collaboration, can we learn how to productively use the word masturbation in artistic practice in terms of satisfying our own desires?

RONI: do you know that this practice was originally about masturbation?

ELENA-P: it is wonderful to realize.

RONI: how do you feel about open calls with note about identity?

ELENA-P: do other ppl owe us their current word for their own identity? can we trust they are simply as they are? without privileging certain groups?

ALICE: hold

ELENA-P+ALICE

ALICE: are rules meant to be an economy on time and attention?

XENIA: hold

ALICE+XENIA

XENIA: did you just get up because you're getting upset and you felt your nervous system on an overdrive because speaking about racism in a round of predominantly white people feels like masturbation?

laughter

ALICE: do you think that your main motor of intervention is the feeling of being upset?

XENIA: has covid changed this pattern for you?

ALICE: which pattern?

XENIA: the pattern of attention.

long pause

ALICE: does having time help you to make better decisions?

XENIA

leaves

ELENA-P: is it necessary to sit on that sofa in order to ask another question?

ALICE: how do we decide if breaking the rule is gonna bring improvement?

SIEGMAR

enters

ALICE+SIEGMAR

SIEGMAR: what would it be for rules to become an ecology rather than an economy?

ALICE: can we think politics rather than ecology?

SIEGMAR: can we think ecology beyond metaphor?

ALICE: how much do you repeat things that you have learned bc you know that they will function, and how much do you experiment bc you're interested in the unexpected?

SIEGMAR: Why is there an assumption that the unexpected is the unknown? And how can the unexpected be something that we know and how can the unknown be expected and how do we build community with that?

ALICE: in your garden, would you say that it's more about making the known common? [...] where is the knowledge? what is my question?

BARBARA: hold

ALICE+BARBARA

BARBARA: is there knowledge in the seed?

ALICE: is this a metaphor?

BARBARA: can a metaphor help you imagine a reality?

ALICE: How can we talk about something specific without allowing it to immediately represent something general?

BARBARA: can we go from the very general to the very specific?

ALICE: what did you had in mind about ethics when you came here today?

BARBARA: is ethics connected to values?

ALICE: are there some values that you claim as guiding in your life, and that sometimes tremble?

BARBARA: can trust be a value that can shake?

ALICE

leaves

BARBARA

peals orange

ALICE

comes back in

ALICE: is trust a value?

BARBARA: can we build intimate relations without trust?

roni's phone rings - time is up

BURNING QUESTIONS ON THE WALL

RONI: each person can have four questions - the most burning ones

ALICE: also the ones that were not asked on the couch

manon writes the burning questions on the wall

ALICE: what was the last thing you did not do and what you regret?

BARBARA: when does structure become an institution?

SHEENA: what does trust not make possible?

RONI: are there values that guide your life, but sometimes tremble?

JULIA: how can we speak about something specific without making it general?

CLEMENT: how do we decide if breaking the rules brings improvement?

ELENA-P: do others owe you an explanation of their current identity?

XENIA: if we don't build institutions, what can we build to nourish and sustain the future?

MANON: does your body determine its existence?

BARBARA: how do you choose the people you work with?

CLEMENT: is assuming trust a gesture of abundance?

ALICE: how can a structure gain resilience, without becoming rigid, especially in its exclusionary mechanisms?

XENIA: is it possible to talk about ethics, without engaging judgement and disembodied discourse?

CLEMENT: how do you shift from scarcity to abundance?

RONI: can we think ecology beyond metaphor?

ELENA-RL: what are our motors for intervention, other than nervous system activation?

SIEGMAR: how do we build structures - how do we build institutions - how do we build cultures?

ELENA-P: is being in abundance a place of privilege?

XENIA: what is my question?

ELENA-RL: what is enough for you - me - us - them?

BARBARA: what does trust not make possible? - "it's there already"

MANON: how can the unexpected be something that we know?

ALICE: are boundaries and limits the same? are boundaries limits?

SABINE: how are boundaries connected to pleasure?

ELENA-P: why did the words "safe" and "security" not come up today?

RONI: let's have a look at the list and see if sth is missing.

ELENA-P: are your dreams ethical?

SABINE: how to build something sustainable beyond personal relationships?

RONI: shall we lunch?

LUNCH BREAK

super tasty food from Ana Conda in the sun and talks about community projects in the countryside

TOUCH AND CONSENT (OR LACK THEREOF)

facilitated by Siegmar

NEW PEOPLE: Gretchen, Tiphaine

SIEGMAR: the format basically developed within sex positive work and how to give and receive touch. we're not going to go into the whole history as a whole background, because a lot of that is actually discussable. Also on ethical grounds. but what is really nice and easily accessible, are the four formulations that divide the positions of giving and receiving. what is really beautiful in doing that is that it separates the idea of doing from the position of desiring. normally we think the person that does desires what they do. these two are linked, but in this situation, they can actually be two different motors. the formulations are: may I touch you on your knee? And then the person who receives the touch says, Yes, you may, or no, you may not. And the other active role is asking for a touch, would you touch me on my knee? And then again, the person who gives can say, Yes, I will, or No, I will not. So basically, those are the four formulations that we're proposing to practice. And the idea is to go into pairs. And first, please, let's do a round of No. So that we really sense in the body, how that feels, when somebody says no. the idea is to really take some time and think of what you really sense, or if you can find a desire so to say something that you actually mean. So that when you know you're going to receive a no but still trying to really ask for something that you would like. we just do that a couple of times. And then let's have have a quick check in how that felt and then we go to the next round. So hopefully the whole thing won't take longer than 15 minutes.

people are going to wash their hands - then find a partner

COUPLES

Gretchen + Tiphaine

Julia + Manon + Siegmar

Elena-RL + Alice

Sabine + Roni

Laurie + Sheena

Elena-P + Clement

Barbara + Xenia

FIRST ROUND

always no
ppl are murmuring, laughing

SECOND ROUND

always yes

SIEGMAR: the aim is to come to the state that i can say yes. if that doesn't work, say no. it's about doing: say yes, and then feel it.

what people are doing: kisses on cheek, stroking arm, stroking neck, massaging back, touching knee, touching the face, hugging, tousling hair, putting legs on each other, laying on other peoples leg, tapping the back, laying on top of each other, hugging from behind, putting head on shoulder, laying next to each other, stroke hair

THIRD ROUND

negotiation

SIEGMAR: if people suggest sth, and you don't agree, you can suggest sth else - no, but...

what people are doing: seeing and touching tattoo, laying on the stomach of the other, massaging with elbow, generally a lot of MASSAGING, squeezing the chest, the arms, brushing the upper body, sitting on the lap, touching the head

FOURTH ROUND

no again

SIEGMAR: let's try another round with no and see how it feels?

ELENA-P: no?

SIEGMAR: so then, how was it?

RONI: what I liked about the last round is how nice it feels to be so precise.

ALICE: it was sometimes complicated, i had to figure things out, but it was very interesting.

XENIA: it was interesting to start with the no, what was nice was receive a no with the same feeling like usually receiving a yes - it felt like the beginning of a cultural shift.

SIEGMAR: in the beginning I was getting nervous with the no. Like, what does that mean, for me? What does it mean for the other person? And then indeed, in the end, it was an option. And it felt comfortable to say no.

ELENA-RL: the hardest part was saying no, when i actually felt a yes - felt like a betrayal of myself.

MANON: it was very similar for me - it brings me back to circumstances with social pressure, where it's expected to say yes or no.

ELENA-P: not so much here in this situation, but usually, i don't really know if its yes or no - because i don't have the time. often i recognize it three hours later. How do you make that space in yourself? Or learn to make that space?

ALICE: We can also practice asking questions with signifying and meaning that we don't need an answer immediately.

SIEGMAR: another option - i really want to give an answer, but at the moment i can't. Yes i want to answer, but i really don't know. But but can you ask again?

XENIA: i can relate to that. when I said no, I felt more like I'm saying no to it now. And that felt really liberating. It did almost sth like decompress time. And so even if I say no to this now, it doesn't mean that I won't get it in the future.

LAURIE: there was something for me about saying no, but always having a smile on my face. I don't know if it's like a typical PoC response or this sort of oppression? No, actually no, but I present this as Yes. I felt that very strongly.

BARBARA: i liked saying no, but in a in a comforting way.

RONI: the more you say no, the easier it gets.

SIEGMAR:...and the more real it gets.

ELENA-RL: I also found when the other person's no's were genuine, or real, I felt better about it. I felt great. Now I really know. I felt agency and a sense of everything's out on the table. It felt like healthy transparency.

ALICE: It's easier to take a clear no because […]

ELENA-RL: exactly. I felt liberated by the clarity.

SIEGMAR: another thing that I find really great about this is that i say no just to practice, to not have to argue for it or have to prove a point.

ELENA-P: The harder part is when someone says no. To accept that. When you realize you formulated a question that wasn't a question. Would you do this for me? Well, that instead of saying I want you to do this, and then they go, No, but that was the question. Actually, I just assumed this is part of your job. [...] Both saying no to the question, and no to the statement. And then also, what does that mean, and how we are together? i have a friend who's constantly asking for things by asking, Would you like to do this? No. But if you need me to do this, I would. So then how do you formulate instead of do that, there's tons of rhetorical propositions, like, can you please, or I need you to do this? Or, you know, what are the escalations here, I am dependent on you doing this, or I would like you to do that.

SIEGMAR: would you like to do that vs. i need you to do this is such a difference.

RONI: It's so interesting to reflect on that in the work context, with calls, emails etc.

ELENA-P: I write emails where I either say, I need this - from you - until - because - if I don't get it by then this will happen.

SHEENA

nods

ELENA-P: it's about giving back agency to both sides. I think what's important is can we find strategies how do we deal with this in unequal power relations? That's fine among each other, even fine among what's called the artists-producer relationship, which can also hold power imbalances, maybe less. How do i say: Impuls-Festival, no, you do not get your press text tomorrow. because you did not tell me so that you need it by tomorrow. I can do it by Friday. and not even asking it. I can do it till Friday. Period. this in such a power imbalance - what strategies do we all have with this?

MANON: This is bringing in the subject of threat. Threat. It's a huge thing.

SIEGMAR: But there is a difference between threat and consequence. And I think that's really important to make that difference that not every consequence is a threat. There will be consequences. Threat it would be if he talked to me that way: "I will never program you again."

XENIA: But there is an underlying invisible thread behind sometimes with those institutions, and sometimes it's hard to tell.

SIEGMAR: And some of them we bring in. [...] And I think that's really also a culture of how to speak with each other, and how to also peel off the layers of fear that all of us bring in.

ELENA-P: Also think of assumptions. what is an assumption? What is a fact - like somebody says, I need this by then otherwise, this deadline won't be met. That's a fact. It's there. We're just assuming they're not going to program us ever again, because people are not fulfilling their deadlines. That's an assumption. So I try to make myself ask more questions. And I also have tried to practice a compassionate curiosity. I have compassion for the other colleague, that there's a reason why they have that tone of voice, which is really getting me super pissed off. That has nothing to do with me. from a compassionate state, I'm also kind of curious why they are in that state. And that takes out the fear and the anger. To stay solid, in yourself, because compassion, like opens up a different state of being for yourself. And then you can say yes, and no, in a different way. You're not stuck in this emotional world.

SIEGMAR: And then where it becomes even more complicated when we're in a room like this, where there is differences in power relationships, but then there might be shifting from day to day or moment to moment. how to really cultivate a way of talking with each other and building something together? Where do we actually rehearse these openings? to avoid falling into patterns, these formalistic approaches help. we wanted to do this as an intro for the next session with smaller groups.

WORKING IN SMALLER GROUPS / GETTING MORE CONCRETE

SIEGMAR: get into smaller groups, select three of these questions and elaborate them with concrete examples.

RONI: also think about practices, or situations from your work.

SIEGMAR: let's do it!

SHEENA: three questions with three situations?

RONI: could be as many as you want.

ALICE: it could be also one situation.

SIEGMAR: it's about the conversation.

ALICE

proposes counting to three to create groups
group starts counting to three

SCENES FROM THE SMALLER GROUP

FIRST GROUP: Laurie, Alice, Gretchen, Elena-RL, Xenia

QUESTION: what does trust not make possible?

ELENA-RL: I did a collaboration in nyc with a latinx colleague. i facilitated this exercise on desire. but my collaborator refused: this is your white privilege. so this game can't be played by all people at all times.

XENIA: when i'm not assuming trust, i am really comfortable with boundaries. whereas when i'm in a relationship, or with friends, i easily tend to say "i trust you".

ALICE: rules. what are the structures to set up to not wait for the crisis to happen? there's a lot of entitlement in relation to trust.

LAURIE: elenas case is a really interesting one. also thinking about this in relation with the wheel of consent...

ELENA-RL: i could add that in that moment, i asked them how to help, to support in that white-led theatre. i was like "fake it til you make it". and they were "i can't do that. and fuck you for assuming that i could do that". i felt like "shit, you're right, you can't do that". we talked very concretely about why my work had been curated, but theirs not. and it came really down to that affect. it's sth they didn't wanna feel. it came down to: until there's a different person in power, nothing's gonna change.

XENIA: the concept of trust isn't work. there's this "spiritual whiteness" - if just i come into the space and bring in trust, then there will be trust. but this is just wrong. it's not available to everyone.

LAURIE: what does trust imply? what does it actually mean? i have trust in people, but do i / can i have trust in institutions? is there a negotiation that i can participate in with agency? it's about an embodied lived experience of trust.

ALICE: i want to stay on this but bring in a concrete strategy, regarding this "we can't do anything until another person is in power". its developed by a group of artists in Zagreb. "whenever we meet ppl from the scene, we never speak about our own work, but just about other peoples work". in production meetings, after a theatre show etc. - to make the scene stronger! maybe that strategy can be remodeled in the sense that amplifies these discourses.

ELENA-RL: i really like that. but i've seen ppl overperforming it.

ALICE: minding the references! not making it about MY work, but work in general!

[...]

XENIA: trusting that it's not trustable.

ELENA-RL: that feels like a feminist killjoy vibe.

ALICE: what would it mean to collectively build radical distrust?

XENIA: in a way, that means just assuming that the system is super problematic. maybe not distrust...

ELENA-RL: ...but scepticism?

SECOND GROUP: Manon, Sheena, Elena-P, Siegmar, Roni

QUESTION: social justice practices

[...]

MANON: we are not a family, but a community.

SIEGMAR: culture vs. structure. how to build a structure that is build upon cultivating structure. what would it mean? once a month checking the temperature? who are the people who check on you, who remind you to do certain things? but also appreciating the people who are doing it! how can an individual practice become a collective culture?

SHEENA: it also depends so much on the intention behind it, the accountability. 

ELENA-P: for me, there's two things. One is also, how do we build communities that people want to be part of without feeling like they have to? that's part of the accountability. the other thing is, I get this very weird sensation that we and ultimately more younger generations have this obligation to care, or obligation to take responsibility. And I find it really important that we honor it if we don't have the energy, like people don't keep feeling they have to pour from empty cups all the time, because that's the right thing to do. If you're not abundant, you're actually going to be not helpful.

RONI: these kind of conversations we're having now refill my cup, and that's sth I'm willing to do them.

MANON: ignorance is the most violent thing to do. for me to answer to somebody saying you did something wrong is still a way to engage. anger is a gesture of care.

SIEGMAR: conflicts always arises in moments of dependency. love is one of the strongest moments of dependency. i want to be here bc i value you for that, for this. Conflicts are so nourishing bc they don't have to be harmful, but they make me grow.

RONI: its a bit like the no-practice. And then it gets easier to do these kind of conversations.

ELENA-P: i try to learn how to value things that i don't value usually. its difficult to be "useless" for months, but i try to do that.

MANON: I want to talk about a situation, it was one of my main jobs. The production person was abusive, and it's nothing obviously threatening, but it's underlined. I observed that for many years. because there was this financial dependency on this project. very often I sucked it up, thinking if I say something i could lose the job, because she has a lot of power in the companies today. Half of the company didn't say anything.

SIEGMAR

asking sth about subjugation

MANON: there was no checking in there was nothing around these practices.

ELENA-P: by going to break open those terms, we can learn sth from the formal social justice processes. if both parties are part of the community, how do we bring both back in? So it's asking the so called victim, what would make you feel that this entity is whole again, and what would you need for that?

[...]

SIEGMAR: what structures can help in abusive situations? checking in, speaking up for others? what are the different situations were we can help others?

THIRD GROUP: Barbara, Julia, Sabine, Clement, Tiphaine

QUESTION: How to build something sustainable beyond personal relationships?

BARBARA: responsibility is a big word for me at the moment. i really rely on other peoples responsibility.

CLEMENT: in this question of trust, if you count on people who you don't trust, how to maintain the connection? how can we maintain the connection also when it's not going well? eg. with theaters? eg. in cases of crisis?

BARBARA: a very concrete example: in that moment where money came into the whole system which was so based on sharing and and trust the system collapsed, because then suddenly there were many different responsibilities entering the space. I had the feeling the whole base the project was built on was gone. so when structures change or situations change you have to adjust your structure or your values.

SABINE: i try to trust in concrete things - we have these agreements. friendship and personal relationship - they are sustainable in a longer term to facilitate things. that also touches the question why i don't put my artistic work in a university. not everyone can have good relationships with everyone. i am still putting a lot of work in space making. i decided that i don't want to fight for putting my work into a place. i'm organizing other things, but i don't put my precious, fragile things into spaces. what i trust is personal relationships. i don't trust other spaces. that's my question, are there ways where you don't burn your trust?

BARBARA: do you have good or bad examples?

TIPHAINE: i don't have clear examples, but more grey ones. its sth around being clear, allowing the ethics of relationship to be negotiated...

BARBARA:...making it a practice.

TIPHAINE: exactly. it can be based on many things like transparence, self-care, and listening to that. i don't think that there's one way. it's an intention. and knowing that it's compromised when you compromise. knowing that it can fail. its such a process and a practice, there's not one solution.

BARBARA: going away from assumptions to evaluations. Don't assume things are just happening. having a regular practice of evaluation. because in person relationships of trust, assumptions are usually right. but not with other ppl, where it needs to be practiced. So if you don't have this level of relation, another tool needs to come in, which is maybe evaluation.

TIPHAINE: For me they are good experiences that navigate around those topics. it's never 100% sustainable, but at least when there is room for that, it doesn't feel harming somehow, but when there is no room for that, then there is room for anything else that can be really... And I see, looking backwards there are experiences that fall in those two umbrellas somehow.

CLEMENT: if there's pressure, it can't be sustainable. and you can't create always a safe space for ppl. inside an institution, you see the work frame, you understand what ppl want, but outside, it's much harder to recognize.

DAY 2

24.05.2022

PARTICIPANTS

Alice, Barbara, Clement, Elena-P, Gretchen, Julia, Laurie, Maria, Micha, Roni, Sabine, Sheena, Siegmar, Tiphaine

STRUCTURE AS PLANNED

10h00 - 10h30 coffee + arrival
10:30 - 12:00 Fake Political Therapy (Alice/ Siegmar) (big paper!)
12h00 - 13h00 lunch break
13:00 - 14:30 read together Anarchist Relationship manifesto + We Will Not Cancel us then cross-read them (all together or in smaller groups)

COFFEE + ARRIVAL

ppl sitting outside, drinking coffee, having cigarettes

BARBARA: Should we start?

SIEGMAR

gives an overview of the day
we're going to do political therapy today. And then we're going to gather what we did yesterday in the small groups. And then we were thinking to read the texts together and then discuss them, the texts are the "anarchist manifesto", and "we will not cancel us".

RONI: It's just a skeleton for the day, we can modify it.

SIEGMAR: Let's also collect things for tomorrow.

ALICE: I thought we gonna do a little report from yesterday? that could be useful for the therapy.

PRESENTING THE OUTCOMES FROM THE GROUP WORK YESTERDAY

SECOND GROUP presents: Manon, Sheena, Elena, Siegmar, Roni

RONI: we talked about how to bring in the question of social class into our conversations. How to make it possible to share resources, if that's even a possibility, what are the things we never talk about? In regards to money and financial situation and all the complexity that has to do with that? Because even if you have money from your parents, you don't necessarily have a good connection with your parents. its the complexities that come in with social class. And in relation to public funding. So how much do you apply for? How much do you take from what's there? How do you make it available for others? If you do? We talked about why we don't have a dancer's union. And how do you address conditions and how difficult it is to address it to your employee. And we were also talking about the assumptions that if you address it, then you'll maybe get fired. But also we don't know these things, but we are stuck in a fear mentality of bringing things up and... how to be outspoken without feeling that this will have a huge impact on your entire career.

SIEGMAR: also we spoke about how to interact with abusive relationships, working relationships, and what structures could be rebuild, or what cultures could we build around? Speaking from every position, so even if you're not the predator, or the so called victim, how can the other witness become an active role? And could there be a kind of culture of checking in, so that it would be something repetitive like once a month or there's a forum where these things are brought up and where we collectively can build structures of calling out and calling in.

RONI: we were talking about the emotional labor that it takes to do all of that and when is it something that also fills your cup or just empties it.

SHEENA: and there was the question of scarcity...

RONI:...yes, how to move from scarcity to abundance...

SIEGMAR: ...so that these are at the same time critical and building practices.

RONI: the point about it is some of these are individual practices, and some of it are collective practices. how do we do both and encourage each other also? as we keep on doing the individual practices, we also try to create a structure for ourselves that can encourage that and even if we just do it individually, how do we support each other with that? because even just like speaking up in a circle about something is already an action, it can be controversial, and you can have impact. so how do we hold that?

SIEGMAR: there was also an interesting point that came up about how to build critical mass not in numbers but in gravity. so if you would speak as a representative of Backbone, how to gather that gravity with regards to fair practices and with regards to a kind don't fuck with Backbone kind of thing. it's not a speaking for but it's speaking as Backbone or any other structure that we call Backbone right now.

RONI: i think that's it.

ALICE: that's a lot.

THIRD GROUP presents: Barbara, Julia, Sabine, Clement, Tiphaine

SABINE: we mostly spoke about the last question.

CLEMENT: ...the shift from scarcity to abundance, but we couldn't address it, so we moved to the last one.

SABINE: the relationship with friendship and trust, are these different things, how can relationships be sustainable? i wrote down: clarity. how can we build trust by being clear and build decisions? how can we be clear in our motivations in decisions? what's at stake and what not? maybe you want something else in the work, when you work with friends, and then it gets sometimes complicated, or there's this feeling of betrayal.

BARBARA: we also spoke about different contexts - art world, curators, friendships, not friendships, what we need in order to build relationships, uncertainty, fear, how are decisions made in this kind of relationships, not being always the nice artist who serves, and how this is connected with power.

CLEMENT: We were talking about how trust can be built somehow within the personal relationships. it's something sustainable, actually, because it happens that you have personal relationship, and there is also this insecurity, because it's not based on a clear contract, it's more something floating. and if it's with a friend, or if it's with a curator that you are close to, then this can change also.

BARBARA: we tried to find concrete examples...

CLEMENT: ...but its always a bit painful.

SABINE: it takes more time, in order to be truthful there would be a lot to unpack.

MARIA: For example, you've been doing (names big international festival). Everybody knows that (name of festival director) is an alcoholic abuser. On the other hand, everybody knows that he also mobilized miraculously this crazy amount of money to create a contemporary dance festival, which is a minor art extravaganza. So there is this paradox, you know, and I have it every year when I'm invited to teach, and I know the team and all these people who work there they're very kind and very passionate about what they do. And a lot of people get so much out of it. But there is this thing. Does anybody have a story about how to deal with them? how do you think it's this paradox of holding grief? how do you feel about it, because I feel weird. But on the other hand, I also need to work, I need to be paid, I love to do what I do. 

ALICE: I want to make it even more complicated. everybody who works in that team, all these people suffered from the behavior in relation to power of (name of festival director), so he's mistreating his entire team. i had the discussion with (name of team member) every year. Why are you still here? And then it's exactly these things that you were speaking about before - it's still an extraordinary thing that is being achieved here. i always stay away from (name of festival director), except if I want to be drunk because then i meet him on his level. But it has nothing to do with working, also because I don't need to sell him pieces, because I don't try to show my pieces. that's where he has a handle.

RONI: I don't understand the last part you said.

ALICE: I think if you're an artist who is trying to tour works in (name of festival), and who is not in the attention row anymore, then you have to get to (name of festival director) and recite that you did show work at (name of festival). Yeah, well, that was a long time ago. maybe now it's happening a bit by chance. I have another story in relation to this.

MARIA: it's also the topic of accountability. that happened. it was a call out, it was around harassment and around racism, it's pretty big stuff. And he systematically refused to do the accountability. then what do you do with people who refuse accountability? You boycott. Yeah, but you cannot boycott because this is so powerful. so I feel like that went through, there was like this kind of situation...

SIEGMAR: there was an uprising. so then you can either take yourself out of the relationship, or you try to get them out of the relationship. And then you have to live with both consequences. And if not, it means how can you build alternative relationship situations with it? So if he is the mega umbrella, then how can you build the pockets underneath? But basically, I think if somebody completely refuses, eventually you have to do self care.

RONI: there's also the other possibility of really rising up and getting together a huge group of people and getting them fucking fired.

ALICE: close (name of festival).

MARIA: It's the same thing with Amazon - you have to find other shops, then you find other relationships.

ALICE: With (name of festival director) and (name of festival) - it's his private money every year, he gets himself from that. it is his festival, that's the joke. It's not just his fantasy about power, it's the structure.

CLEMENT: I was there, four times in different situations. And what's very strange for the students is, it creates something in the scene, which is very weird, you feel you have to mingle in a certain way, I always felt it's very difficult to be there in a quiet manner. this is sth we could discuss, how to encounter these kind of spaces, because there are a lot actually, without being so damaged by it. Because I was always like, either I try to engage and actually slowly get disgusted by the situation, or I'm separating. But then I also want to belong to that scene. could we find ways, by talking about it, how to engage in a way that is satisfying for us? to open up about how it feels to be there, how it could change a bit, a feeling that I will not be alone, more supported, maybe that's one way to also improve, without having to make the big gesture of calling out.

ALICE: oh, it's done, every year, part of the thing is also to accept that it's important to keep on calling him out, he will always say "Go fuck yourself", but he will still not close shop, but there is no way to go there and not have your feet really deep in the mud. But it's interesting, because when I was listening to you, I was thinking of counter cases, like positive examples. And they also exist and I think we need to... in order to speak about the same thing.

SIEGMAR: but that's always the case in abusive relationships, that there are counter examples.

ALICE: noooo i don't mean that, i'm thinking of other people, not (name of festival director).

laughing

BARBARA: good festival practices.

FIRST GROUP presents: Laurie, Alice, Gretchen, Xenia

ALICE: i think we started with trust?

LAURIE: what does trust make not possible? it seemed to gravitate towards institutional trust. elena [elena-rl] brought forward a case, from Brooklyn, a space in nyc, they were working with a latinx performer in a workshop space. And basically, as I understood, the Latin X performer did not feel welcome in this space. And that was a new experience. And I didn't quite understand why not. And they were like, well, this is a white space. And I've encountered prejudice here, and I can't relax here. I can't just fake it till I make it. I don't want to fake it, I want to be seen. So that became one case that we kept on circling around.

ALICE: Elena [elena-rl] was was reporting this, just assume trust, you can trust that if you pretend it will become true, whereas the collaborator would say, No, but it won't. I can't do this in that way. And and then we were speaking a lot about exactly what are the assumptions around the the way we speak about trust, you have to give trust, you have to invite trust, and so on. One thing I think you said, that distrust reveals the power structures?

LAURIE: it's an invisible mesh. And actually come also coming from your practice of the consent work, like, what happens if we honor the fact that I don't trust this institution? what is that the inner bodily feeling like this is not good. what does it reveal? honoring this intuition - they haven't proven to me that they can be trusted. Why not? What are the parameters where I need to be where trust can be developed? it's interesting to think about it in terms of friendships or long term relationships, you can build on that there's this kind of balancing of give and take, that can happen in these invested relationships. But what happens if you don't have that and you just have to trust this institution. going back to this bodily sensations.

ALICE: also the possibility to to approach this as a source of information and not only as a problem that should be fixed, to think that maybe what should be fixed is not the lack of trust, it is the reason for that. and then, how about practicing radical distrust, not as something of being against everything but just another way of being attentive.

SIEGMAR: the phrase of radical distrust - physically i get a feeling that this is dangerous - because i think thats whats happening all around us already. from a physiological and neurological point of view, trust is the thing that lets us experience safety. if that is destroyed, or if that is disappointed, or that gets cracks, and we start experiencing the lack of that thing... the only reason why I'm saying this is, I wouldn't call it distrust, I would call it criticality, or being attentive or really transparent etc., but I find to bring it to distrust, and to put that as a value, that's what all these practices of exclusion are about.

ALICE: everything you say makes sense, but on the other hand, we were trying to wrap our heads around asymmetry and inequality and how to change this and how to change the fact that some people, we will have resources for the possibility to assume trust in a way that other people will find it much more difficult and that this is a standard.

SIEGMAR: if we're building culture and language, then distrust is not a word...

LAURIE: a reference that came up was feminist killjoy, the melancholic migrant, the unhappy queer - language is really important here, but it's about understanding what these imbalances, hierarchies are.

ALICE: to get away from the loneliness - what can be a solitary practice? trust is related to safety... merde what was it? what is the word?

SIEGMAR: queer migrant

laughing

LAURIE: maybe it's about im unhappy because i can't trust, and how can i be happy?

SIEGMAR: maybe it's also about unpacking what we mean by trust - do we mean the same thing?

ELENA P: i was listening about this, i didn't find it so helpful for my work. Why are we immediately talking about having to have this intimate relation of trust, for example in institutions? I'd like to introduce the words expectations and assumptions. If we can all learn to be very explicit about our expectations of each other and our assumptions of what the other is going to do for us, or we're gonna do for them, then that starts to build a basis that will be clear. And then there's no disappointments happening. Because how is the other person supposed to know what my needs are? it's a little bit more of a non emotional, pragmatic approach. trust is this huge thing... it's a little bit more pragmatic, and it's about negotiating. i would like to shift that as a possibility - not immediately going to trust relationships.

RONI: it's about being trustworthy - there are actions that need to be taken in order for me to trust.

ELENA P: if you have a negotiation of expectations and assumptions, and then they agree to something and don't fulfill that, yes, then we're moving on to the next discussion about trust. but it's not immediately on the table. I want this, I give this - there is going to be a gap in there all the time. Talk about the gap openly, people become trustworthy to your emotions.

ALICE: in this example of the workshop we talked about - there were two young artists - how do you present your work and gain interest from the theatre? so before there was even the possibility that they would want your work, the question was "how to make them see you and be interested". and then the one collaborator was like "we just go pretend and feel very self assured", and then the other was: "I can't. you know, they will not listen to me in the way they do to you". it's another modality that is not accessible to me in the same way. And it's very concrete.

ELENA P: from what you're saying, I don't hear the fault immediately, automatically with the institution. I don't think it's anybody's fault. it needs a lot more spaces that we don't have currently to acknowledge that there is racial trauma, there is gender inequality, there's all kinds of things which inhibit people's ability to just say here I am. obviously, they've had experiences where they think, and probably rightfully so in an American context, that they will not be heard. They also haven't first found out if the institution does it, it's completely different if they've been there before and already experienced an actual bad behavior, and then they react, I think that's a difference.

SIEGMAR: But this is again pointing towards victim and doer, and what I really think - the responsibility is how to develop cultures of all the ones in the space of the witnessing. and then there's another term i want to bring in - its used by somatic evolutionism, but also adrienne maree brown, it's called the Speed of Trust. I find that super interesting, because it doesn't see trust as a quantifiable identifiable thing. But it says, there is a temporality to it. And there is practices that need repetition. it's also not enough to do one round of consent and say, oh, now we all consent to the situation. But to actually find out, on how many different corners do we actually have to check in again? so I'm trying to avoid the word trust, which means that people, everybody in the room can ask, I need a check-in or I would like to suggest a check-in, maybe I don't need it, but maybe I'm wondering whether somebody else needs it? And then what is this format of the check in? first of all it's about how to find the repertoire of practices that are good for this group. Because it's different in every group. so we don't need to have a generalized universal facilitator thing, it's just for this people in the room and then to start practicing them in repetition.

MARIA: i wonder... these things really changed my life, its about practice practice practice. But I'm very skeptical when we are talking about the art context, I think it's a change that I wouldn't see in my lifetime. I'm negative in that sense. that's probably what fuels me or my relationship to art making per se. I feel that there is a field of good intentions, but it is not possible within the freelance lifestyle, like cycles of exhaustion and overwhelm of trying to make these collective things, but the collective is unbearable, if you're not very well resourced. so I wonder, I come in and out of this. what are my expectations? once I go and work with (name of choreogrpaher) I’m like, forget about it. Doesn't exist here. but other things exist that can compensate for some sense of belonging, leaning in, but I have to negotiate with myself a lot, and then find two good colleagues, that I can have that. but it's not the thing.

SIEGMAR: i agree, but I don't think it has to be universal. its like, I know, I'm not gonna get there. And yet, if I do want to keep making work, how do I negotiate my being in this thing? the arts scene has so many different layers - like i can be okay with this layer, engage with this language like that? but I do need people and things that resource me.

RONI: exactly. maybe you have another circle where these things do happen, this can also feed you and then when you go to your other spaces, like another professional context where the things happen, this gives faith.

ELENA P: for me it's a problem of scalability. Can you do it within 20 people, we can do the 60? where's the breaking point? I would almost call it where it starts to dissolve again. and then, as a person who's able to trust, how can i also open space for ppl who don't have this ability to trust? like somebody who's young and says, based on my past experience, I'm not able to trust anybody anymore. I can't get past a certain trauma or something, or am super introverted. but then, how do I make communities and spaces that also include people that I don't even know how to find them? how do I reach out my hand blindly into the dark?

MARIA

says sth about saving

ELENA P: it's not about saving, though. It's literally like opening a door. I was thinking a lot about my own closeness or not. It's not wanting to save anybody. how do I make the community in a way that everybody inside, including myself feel safe, while also making sure it's open enough that people feel okay. Coming in, for example, in a community that's already existed for two years, which has its own little internal talk, and then it's hard to enter.

BARBARA: this also relates to personal relationships in institutions, you are working with people you do not necessarily have personal relationships. how do you establish a certain culture of trust? Or how do you establish concept of openness? you need to establish different means, like evaluate your action. it gets harder in an institution, I think. that's why there's always this conflict: the dramaturgical team can be very aware and open and then you engage with the administrators team, and they have a very different approach of how to speak with you.

RONI: i did racism last year.

laughter

ELENA P: That was great example of our small group that had an internal joke. So let's open up the jokes that everybody hears them. i was telling the story from the stitching textile art community, where one woman randomly said, oh, yeah, I did my anti racism work last year. first i left it there. And then very gently later spoke about how I believe my own anti-racism work to take years and it's ongoing and it's continually repetitive and the problems keep happening and you just stay with it if you're white enough to stay with it. And she did hear that, I could see her face. that's a story about being accountable for each other with gentle reminders and compassion. But yeah, I did my racism work last year.

FAKE THERAPY

ALICE: wow, the room is full of unsolved, at least processable, issues. today we want to bring in a practice developed by a group of people, which Valentina Desideri has been developing and carrying around, and it is called political therapy. So we propose to practice that for ethical therapy, since that is our word here today. the basic form is actually a one-on-one thing, and there's a few underlying assumptions. First, the patient does not actually need to be healed. Second, the therapist does not have particular powers. The third i can't remember. now this is a card deck for fake therapy. its online, you can print a pdf and glue your cards. we gonna do it in a group.

SHEENA: where do you find it online?

ALICE: Fake Therapy

what we need is a problem. in a group like this it could take some time, but we need this one problem. that will be the first step that we will aim for: to define together in the most concise formulation possible a problem that we want to engage with, something that we identify as an ethical problem...

SIEGMAR: ...in the form of a question.

ALICE: the one playing therapist plays the deck, uses it about guidance. the guidelines are: enhance what's already happening, constraints about time, relax your whole body, become a channel of energy and keep your spine long, keep the back of your neck open and relaxed. the person who has brought the problem lies down and embodies the problem, the other person uses the card as guidelines to give an intuitive treatment, focuses not on the specific person but as a carrier of the problem. So the main focus is not so much the problem, but what's actually happening between these two bodies, and to pay attention towards whatever is happening, for duration of at least 10 minutes. then the therapist decides when its done, and then discuss what happens, and then have a discussion what happens, always based on the experience. And then both will discuss what happened? When was the experience? where did you feel sth, at which moment is something passing your mind? that is a long discussion that can go in many, many directions, but always encouraged to read it through the experience of the treatment.

SIEGMAR: normally we do it 1:1, we split up in groups of two, do it, then we come back, with the embodied experience we speak to the person. it doesn't have to be that you have to think how am I embodying all the social injustices of the world, but what has does it feel like and where. so for example, if there is heat accumulating or blockages, so how do you speak from what you actually physically experienced to the question in the room? we see what that does.

ALICE: and we will all use the same four cards?

SIEGMAR: no, different ones.

ALICE: the biggest challenge will probably be to articulate the problem, or the question.

SIEGMAR:

shuffles cards

ALICE: in the meantime, we could talk about positive examples. i had Agnes Quackels in mind, she is now the director of kaaitheater in Brussels, but she also used to be a producer. and i also want to mention Jacopo [Lanteri]. for me these are people who are really at work, who want to find ethical relations with the artist, with the people they work with. with Agnes its really interesting and amazing, we are quite friendly, but she never programmed me, and it was never weird. that because I always could feel there is a natural, genuine interest. And there's zero problems. thinking of yesterday, we were also experimenting with receiving a no, and that it is so much easier if the no is very clear.

RONI: also, am i my work? there's a difference between you and your work. sometimes people are interested in you and they're not interested in your work. And how do you sit with that? what can grow from that? What can happen from that place?

ALICE: And then it's also possible that something becomes really interesting. there can be redirection. then instead of being in a seller-buyer relation, which can be really flat, it becomes a collaboration, as being being in the scene together. but it takes time. our job is not only to make deals, it is to actually nourish an interest that we all share and then to understand where it is and in which way.

CLEMENT: how could we ask a question here that goes towards sustainability? I don't know how to formulate it, but it is interesting.

ALICE: whatever you identify as a political problem.

CLEMENT but then it's lack of sustainability for me. Because this feeling of floating constantly, you never know, if something's gonna happen, or not.

ALICE: I wonder about precarity, precariousness now. I know both problems, but then for me, they're not exactly the same. precarity is existential somehow, whereas sustainability is about the possibility to build and to develop and also to pass on. maybe precarity tends to be very personal, it's experienced individually. Whereas sustainability is something that is more collective, sth that is not dependent on your individual conditions. but let's do some rounds of questions now.

RONI: maybe people need time to think about their questions?

ALICE: maybe we do several rounds with questions, where we circle back, and people can also repeat questions, so maybe we arrive like this?

ELENA P: can i propose a visual for this? everyone writes down a word and puts it in the middle, so things can be mapped, moved, removed, added etc. its more physical like this, we would build a map.

people are writing down their questions, putting them on a giant piece of cardboard, walking around, looking at the proposals, chat

RONI: let's continue.

ALICE: we do rounds, while we repeat our questions, or reformulate it, or take over another questions.

RONI: how can we develop trustworthy relationships in different temporality and scales?

ELENA P: i'd love to hear every question once.

SHEENA: my three key words: expectations, sustainability, community accountability - and the constant feeling of being alone in collective work - what do we really share, what are we committed to, how can we be accountable?

LAURIE: what is Backbone? how can we build truly intersectional spaces?

SIEGMAR: what kinds of supports are needed - without assuming it? how can i develop practices of accountability towards others, but also towards myself?

BARBARA: what about responsibility - my own one, but also towards groups?

ELENA P: i determine my own identity. to explain that: i feel this relates to lauries desire - i like spaces that allow that I do not make assumptions about the person entering about who they are. so thinking about processes of inclusion and exclusion.

ALICE: how can individual experience and collective practice inform each other? this brings the question of institutionalization - should individual practice be institutionalized?

JULIA: how to be more radical with ones personal ethics, that they could be expanded towards a collective?

MARIA: i thought of precarity - what is the expectation towards art from where you come from? how does exhaustion get acknowledged? we are embracing the glitch as normal. how to refuse flow as a sign that things are going well? the non-flow is maybe a symptom to recognize that things are not being normalized. it's like a holding of a paradox between particular symptoms.

SABINE: i wrote down generosity and / in clarity - how to maneuver clarity - and how to utter things that are not clear yet to be formulated? this goes in the direction of sustainability in the long run.

ALICE i like it, and i want to ask: how can we actually build a truly intersectional space? also in relation to language?

ELENA P: something that constantly disturbs me in our spaces, that we need to have a need to agree in a language. And this isn't actually everybody's language, and that's not okay. And English has its own history and its limitations, whereas other languages would open up other's hearts first. we also have german, french, italian, japanese, spanish... if somebody has a different word that more aptly brings in aspects that the English language is not capable of expressing?

SABINE: maybe even saying things in your own language?

CLEMENT: i put sustainability - everything is uncertain, but can we build structures underneath that counter this feeling of lack of sustainability?

ALICE: can i ask if it is a question of artistic growth, finances, or general wellbeing?

CLEMENT: i had a lot of traumatic experiences in the last years, never knowing what will happen, it creates a feeling of unsettlement. for me, it's a lot about creating. Yes, relations that create stability.

ELENA P: i hear two questions: lauries question around intersectional spaces, and the question of sustainability & accountability.

SIEGMAR: some people haven't even said their questions.

GRETCHEN: my question is very much related to accountability and responsibility - how to invite it, but not police it?

ALICE: invite accountability without policing it?

GRETCHEN: yes, exactly - touching on it but also not touching on it - both micro macro.

MARIA: i feel super stressed about this thing of raising a question - i need people to ramble in order to understand the backstory of the experience.

ALICE: maybe we can "re-flesh" the questions into concrete cases.

SHEENA: the case-studies and concrete scenarios really help.

ALICE: lets pretend we know what the question is, and after lunch we come back and embody it...

SHEENA: ...and the question is?

ALICE: sth is forming itself around there... aller lets go to lunch.

LUNCH BREAK

again, super amazing food by neue häute, and super amazing casual talks about housing in berlin
PART II OF POLITICAL FAKE THERAPY

ALICE: so we know what the problem is, we gonna get past it, can some of you come with a concrete case? then i suggest we pair up, one person explains it to the other, then we embody it, and then we pull four cards, lets all have the same cards, and then the patients will lay down. And then we will come back together and draw a map where we will be talking from our experience of either receiving or giving the treatment and through through this start to find ways of thinking about the problem.

LAURIE: what is the actual exchange between the two people?

ALICE: let's say you have a concrete problem, then you lie down, let it fill your body, and the therapist then looks at the four cards, connects with their intuition, and gives intuitive advice.

RONI: so we share the concrete examples in the pairs.

TIPHAINE: each group will have their own example.

PAIRS

roni+alice
sheena+laurie+maria
sabine+elena
barbara+tiphaine
gretchen+julia

CARDS

keep your spine long and the back of your neck open and relaxed

relax to the point that you might be falling asleep

become aware of your energy in the centre of your body

pass your hand a centimeter away from your partners body and notice the shifts of temperature

people are gathering in pairs. the patient explains their problem/situation, then lies down on a blanket, the therapist starts to apply the treatment
things that are happening: passing the hands a centimeter away from the partners body and notice the shifts of temperature, stroking the limbs, covering the head with a hand, massaging the feet, pulling the feet, laying on the patients shoulder/arm/neck, patient gets rocked on the hips/arms/upper body, touching feet/hips/legs/ankles/knees/fingers/calves, shaking and stretching the arms, softly rocking the legs, applying pressure on the hips/shoulders/legs/knees, bending the knees and softly moving them, putting hands under the shoulder blades
also the therapists are laying down on their backs, doing some relaxation, while the patients stretch

people are gathering in a circle again, alice arranges the notes on the cardboard

COLLECTING THE EXPERIENCES

ALICE: in the classical form, we would write the question in the middle, but we can stay in our pace. describe specific things that you perceived, and we will see where this leads us.

SABINE: do we name the question, the concrete experience?

ALICE: if you want to... we will just invent something now.

SABINE: there was a physical situation where i felt... there's a german term, "sich dazugesellen", for me it corresponded to what has been addressed, it was very physical: i'm here, but also myself. it felt like i was "mich dazugesellen" to the situation she described.

ALICE: as a physical process?

SABINE: yeah, it was a physical situation... and it felt like i can "mich dazugesellen" in that situation.

ALICE: it's interesting you were not laying in the same direction.

SABINE: yes... it had a different bodily direction, the configuration looks very different.

ALICE: it's not an instrumental relation.

SABINE: yes, it's more like a chain, they go like this

sabine illustrates something
elena shows the thing she's knitting on, its a perfect illustration of what sabine described

ELENA P: i'm following up on this...

describes the knitting process, and what happens if you pull on it

ALICE: So whenever it's constructed, it's a volume. The moment you undo it, it's just a line left.

ELENA

continues to elaborate on the knitting process
when i was laying there, i began thinking about my way of mending. theres two common ways to mend a hole. first, you can put a patch on top, then you hide the problem underneath. the only way to see what was originally the hole is if you would turn the garment inside out. So actually you're subverting its intention, or also its actual use. I don't like that. I like to do the second, more labor intensive process of building up the fabric, again from itself so you're weaving into it so that the mend is not on top as a layer, it is in it which allows that you could see the previous hole and it is somehow a strengthening of the original fabric. It's much more intense, like a much more exhausting process. I was thinking about these two while being held.

ALICE: whatever you hear, you can write it down on the map.

MARIA: in italian it's called rammendare. it's from a profession which doesn't exist anymore, my mother used to work as one. she had a laundry and we had all of these different people who would do certain fabrics and put them in pairs... i received the hands and holding, and the question was "how to change the paradigm from one-ness and flow to disruption", but also how to learn to find it revitalizing rather than frustrating or exhausting. and then the topic of friends and lovers come up, or strangers in dance workshops, and how dependent i am.

people are writing things on the map

ALICE: i kept coming to the question of adjusting in relation to comfort. [...] first there was a lot of adjusting, towards myself and also roni, and then i decided to stop doing that. adjusting in relation to my understanding of comfort, and in relation to what the other person is comfortable with - and how to make that truly intersectional. it was interesting for me that comfort became an important physical path in this exercise.

ELENA: it reminds me that the words safety and security didn't come up yesterday...

ALICE: ...but they came up, in the smaller sessions in the afterwards.

ELENA: it's just observing where they surface, and in what discussion.

ALICE: it's about a possibility with comfort and adaption, not a beauty or so.

people are writing, others are walking around and looking at the things written

ELENA: may i add one more? while i was laying there, i and others had a desire to be held, which could be called mother/parenting, and it is not a contradiction that at the same time they resist that, and accept that, and also hold space that it is ok to not expect others to do that for you. it's a mix of accepting the need, while not necessarily fulfilling it. i used the word mother not in a gendered way. its a certain behavior that everyone has, benevolent and nurturing energy, accepting that we all have that need, we need it fulfilled from the outside, but the question is where to place it.

SABINE: i recognized i need some kind of being hold, and sometimes i catch myself thinking what am i thinking here, can't there be someone who will just hold me, never knowing if sth could be over by tomorrow already... but also, recognizing we live in a neoliberal world, so this is how things are. the good news is we made it that far, the bad news is this is the world we live in. but accepting the need is something else and accepting the structures.

ELENA: it's about accepting the need, and also accepting that it applies to everyone. when someone can provide sth, this only applies to the now.

ALICE: i am encouraging you to go back to the physical exploration, and continue the same conversation from there.

JULIA: i was trying to articulate the problem, or the question, and i recognized i couldn't get to sth. and suddenly sth happened, i kept having conversations with myself, but then also thought that maybe Gretchen is having an internal conversation too. where i want to go is what was really nice is, the need to hold on to language and operation wasn't operating fully, because sth else was happening. And I was not directing that towards sth like she's taking care of my problem, what gretchen was doing could apply to any body. it was a way of unfocusing. and i came up with two words, urgency and connection.

ALICE: do you remember what gretchen was doing when those words clarified?

JULIA: one came when she didn't had her hands on me, the other came in the middle, it had sth to do with the knees.

GRETCHEN: from my side, there were two topics, first it was rather meta, but then it became very concrete and allowed me to focus my energy more clearly, and the meta was more of a holding, trying to hover with that. i feel we're speaking a lot about this hovering together. And then the more concrete the examples get it allows us to connect.

ALICE: i wrote "connection through concrete situations", i also heard "in the general state", it were two kinds of connections.

ELENA: i want to add "hovering together".

ALICE: the connection with these individual situations happen when they get collectivized.

LAURIE: i was thinking about the word flow while i was with maria, what bodies can flow through space, when is flow interrupted, met with resistance, but i was also hovering, i couldn't really land, because she was thinking in polyrhythms laughter so i always returned to the feet, to feel grounded, land, trying to understand the relationship to the ground.

ALICE: it's interesting that you just returned to the feet as the place that grounds. you said through which you can feel the rhythms. it's not that first you need to be grounded and then you can go and sense it, but from the ground you can sense it.

BARBARA: i can connect to a couple of those things, this thing of having the feet on the ground, in safety situations, holding, stretching, making your body grow, and on the other side holding your head. how can we create this safe spaces, situations when we feel insecure?

TIPHAINE: I felt with this practice in the room and this moment in time, that opened space for healing in that moment in relation to everything that we are busy with all the time. maybe the power of being there, not doing anything, balancing the risks. just feeling your intention - it doesn't have to be perfect, but being intended was already good. it was recovery time.

ALICE: you were the therapist?

TIPHAINE: i was the receiver.

ALICE: can you describe this again?

TIPHAINE: the feeling that i was intended, not having to do anything, going back to my body, allowing me recover. maybe it doesn't solve my initial problem, but there was sth else that was good enough.

BARBARA: i could make a lot of money, by a ten-minute session.

laughter

ELENA: i want to pick up on a very calm statement - you said, it wasn't really therapy. but also the therapist is not always right, they have good and bad days. and institutions are the same. so accepting that even structures are right sometimes, and wrong sometimes.

ALICE: but this is why it's called fake therapy: it's both calling in an intention and pushing away the idea that sth needs to be fixed. there is no diagnosis, theres nothing wrong, and also taking away the power relation. in professional situations there's also the trust in skills, which is not happening here, we just make good relationships. it's like playing those positions, and in the same time holding back from playing too well.

ELENA: in our relationship to institutions, we do this every day: we assume they have certain skills, but in my experience they often don't. And they're much more sick than I am. so I'm wondering about this and these desires, and how we build different structures that we wish ourselves to be more helpful than the ones we're surrounded by. it's extreme to say, but the sickness from the institutions keep seeping into us.

SABINE: i'm wondering about the container, the 3D of a thread thats being woven, a container thats being prochained, the thread could be undone, it doesn't have to stay in the container, thats the problem with institutions, all the disappointment that comes along with that. i'm also wondering about the sustainability of this, if this can be in the process of changing, gets undone, instead of being "verknotet".

ALICE: to stay with that metaphor, but change the perspective: it has a predetermined volume. but what if the institution is a membrane, that adapts through that what one's go through. then the membrane might be like a chain of of people and relationships, and it can still be an institution. The reason why I always bring this word again and again and again, is because I'm becoming tired in this moment in my biography with the labor that's at the very beautiful but short life of collective self organization. can we hold each other without all of this that is really draining? you see it on the face, the people who are very engaged in these kinds of things, everybody is exhausted. can we turn around and think okay, then maybe it is not that we have to stop working towards the collective as well? there must be a form that becomes a little bit less of a matter of who has the good strong shoulders and the hooked elbows. can we create that chain with more...air...? I have no idea. But these are the desires.

ELENA: I wouldn't think about that word because I live in a continual collective working structure, with the difference that it is one of the few collectives that does not consider itself artistic. I wonder sometimes if this is the difference, there is something about artistic and ego.

ALICE: can i jump on your boat? i'm also engaged in a house project, and the people who put on the most stress are the artists! it's all skill from building projects. its relaxing when it's often not the entire group. And then when you just have people who go to their work in the morning, there's a very different call, which doesn't mean they do nothing, but they have very little ideas to inject into really making things different.

BARBARA: that brings in the question of functionality.

ALICE: exactly: functionality, and what is good enough?

BARBARA: is it very clear what you're doing?

ELENA P: actually not anymore - its very open, its very sustainable. its including even artist members meanwhile. the membrane is getting stretched. On top of that, we didn't have revolutionary ideas and structures. is there a story we need to let go, or re-tell? like with marias case, that collective work is always so exhausting? where can we find joy?

EVERYONE: we dance!

RONI: going back to the body.

EVERYONE: yes absolutely!

ELENA: i'll leave this resource here.

puts a book in the circle

OUTLOOK LAST DAY

ALICE: there is no plan for tomorrow, just options, but there's so much in the room from these days. and repetition is always great. everyone have that in mind to figure out about what we will do tomorrow.

BARBARA: it's a preparation. we can also think about how to bridge to the next session in september.

ALICE: thats a really good point. we thought about this in the preparation: how can it be more sustainable? what are we even preparing for?

LAURIE: my question was genuin: what is Backbone?

ELENA P: i would like to hear your answer, barbara.

RONI: i find your answer not so interesting anymore, barbara.

laughing

BARBARA

agrees

RONI: no, i don't mean it that way. it was about making space. and now it's not about that anymore. what do we want Backbone to be?

BARBARA: it turned more towards this question now.

RONI: what is actually needed?

ALICE: experiencing these two days was already super interesting. collectivizing what is my organic community. we've all met at once before, it's different relations. in fact, it's not about choosing each other, we choose the community. i find that really relieving, i like my chosen community. that already helps in feeling much less alone. i don't know you personally, i don't know you're private life. but there are some issues that we can care about together.

BARBARA: that's why i find this question of laurie so relevant. because it's a very diverse group in the sense of not knowing each other.

ELENA P: there's been other spaces like this, and i have a strong desire to link those already existing bodies of work. there has been "Working Utopias" by Christina Ciupke and Anke Strauß, i had a conversation with Ming Poon, and there's Maria's Social Pleasure Center. I want to link somehow or at least acknowledge each other's existence in a way that builds larger resources.

ALICE: what i want for this is a journal, that can be passed around for other people, to be inspired, maybe a blog? a resource that might lead to other people joining.

TIPHAINE: today i thought of the calendar on the website, to share all of our events.

ELENA P: i love blogs and zines and thinks. AND it brings me back to my major problem: when i have to write it down, i always wonder with this translation, it feels like a limitation, a flattening.

ALICE: i will try to remember and find and bring "walking theory" from the early 2000s on self organization. they asked many different organizations and groups all the same questions, like how are you structured? How is decision making going, you have money, where does it come from? what do you do, what is shared? just to see this as a panorama is already so inspiring.

ELENA: i would love to ask institutions more of the same questions, so to continue that role.

ALICE: yes, let's make a new issue of this. maybe tomorrow we can ask all these questions tomorrow, what Backbone is? For me at the moment Backbone is this being... it is the promise that it becomes this and that.

ELENA P: i got that funding for a series of talks on the subject of degrowth and desire, and I really wished to integrate that here. I really want to somehow at least have some connecting threads to each other. How we can keep each other's integrity intact. [...] it's very random that I came here.

BARBARA: yes, there's so many different projects happening altogether.

DAY 3

25.05.2022

PARTICIPANTS

Barbara, Clement, Elena-P, Julia, Micha, Roni, Sabine, Sarah, Sheena, Siegmar, Xenia

STRUCTURE AS PLANNED

10h00 - 10h30 coffee + arrival
10h30 - 10:50 Intimate micro lectures (2 x 10min) - invitation to process (Siegmar)
10:50 - 11:10 Plenum summary on what the burning issues are now, each reporting on issues told them by their lecturer (2' each)
11:10-12h plenum continues
12h00 - 13h00 lunch break
13:00 - 13:10 make the groups on burning issues
(13:10-13:25 Touching as a way of listening?)
13:25-14:30 smaller groups on selected burning issues - draft plans to work on those issues

COFFEE + ARRIVAL

INTIMATE MICRO LECTURES - INVITATION TO PROCESS

facilitated by siegmar

BARBARA: welcome back. we kept the last day quite open, let's discuss what to do. we thought of the micro lectures, but yesterday we didn't find the big question, so it's all open again how to continue. how do you feel to continue?

ELENA P :there was one big question from laurie: what is Backbone?

CLEMENT: for this, I would like to hear from different perspectives what are the needs in relation to ethics? it would be a good step for me to see how to move on.

SHEENA: for me concretely that would be great, there were things like meeting points, a reunion, support systems, calling in and out, for me it would be great to have sth concrete. maybe using the micro lecture for this?

SIEGMAR: i can explain what the format is. it's called the intimate micro lecture, and its about, for example, talking about your next project, and you have a certain language around, and you keep repeating repeating repeating. and the question is how can i learn other words, and how can I do that in relation to somebody else? the proposal is simple: one person speaks, the other listens, and the person who listens decides where they wanna be spoken to. the mouth should not be further away than 20cm. but it can also be much closer. for example speaking to the knee, or the neck. what's also important is that the person who listens, doesn't say anything, not even hmmm-hmmm, because the body will speak anyway. So then you start speaking in relation to this body. the other thing is, its gonna last 10', which is a long time, so at some point you have to figure out how to continue. try to focus on one topic, one need. and then when we gather, the person who listened will present it. so it's a way to collect needs and possible support structures. and then we can make cluster groups. topics like unions, support clusters, pr for other people, and then in the group situation we could dive into it.

XENIA: that made me think of another proposal that we didn't do, the bag of needs. maybe it would be interesting to have a step before that. the bag of needs is basically a format to use in every kind of collaborative situation where you encounter or are about to work with someone else. And everyone takes a certain amount of time to write down what they need, what their intentions are, also what they bring and what their boundaries are, in relation to this particular situation that you are envisioning. it's less about lunch break, but more about what do you need from...

SIEGMAR: ...what do you need from Backbone?

XENIA: ...yes, from Backbone, but is specifically in relationship to this ethical framework? so that there is, before we go, a kind of pathway from the individual, starting from the individual needs.

RONI: maybe i have a need that Backbone doesn't want fulfill, does it have space here?

SIEGMAR: absolutely.

XENIA: i think thats why it's nice to start individually.

SIEGMAR: exactly. let's do both, but i would really encourage you to chose one need, even though i have more.

XENIA: my proposal was to have some introspection before, like 5' of brainstorming, as a supportive round. i find it really helpful to bring the three together: needs, intentions, boundaries, because I feel they're very tightly interwoven.

BARBARA: it's just speaking, the listener doesn't take notes?

SIEGMAR: you offering yourself as a listening body.

SHEENA: let's do it!

INTROSPECTION SESSION

GROUPS

siegmar+sheena
xenia+julia
sabine+barbara
roni+clement
elena+sarah

SARAH: 10' is an enormous amount of time, should we make it shorter?

SIEGMAR: thats the point... it's an enormous amount of time to get lost in your thoughts and kind of figure out what else comes up. but should we make it shorter? ok, let's do 7'.

micha gives sarah a recap from day1+2
sheena is laying on her back, siegmar are laying behind her and speaking to her head
sabine is sitting with her face on her knees, barbara is sitting behind her and talking to her back
roni is sitting against the wall, clement is sitting next to her and speaking to her shoulder
julia is laying on her back, xenia are laying next to her on their stomach, speaking to her ear
sarah and elena are sitting next to each other on the sofa, sarah is talking
people are whispering intimately, its hard to understand anything from afar, and it feels intruding to get too close

timer

SIEGMAR: now the listener decides what do they wanna be spoken to.

siegmar are laying down, sheena speaking, laying with her head on their chest
sabine laying on her side, barbara speaking from behind her back, with her head on her hands
clement sitting against the wall, roni sitting next to him, speaking to his shoulder
xenia laying on their back, julia laying behind them on the side, speaking to their head
sarah and elena are sitting next to each other on the sofa, elena is talking

timer

SIEGMAR: how should we do it? should we put another paper, and collect it there? or just put in on the cardboard here?

RONI: i think the other paper is too small. its nice to have the mapping option.

SARAH: i have an idea. maybe we have similar needs, and then you get a longer piece of paper.

SIEGMAR: but we could just shift them together.

SARAH: my brain is really badly working.

laughing

XENIA: it's like a graph, a mural board.

CLEMENT: there was sth huge in the response of my body. it just came to my mind, we could also shape the words into a thing that feels like homemade material.

SIEGMAR: should we just collect them, and then arrange them later?

ELENA P: i just wanna add this to clements idea, i really liked it.

starts to walk on the map

XENIA: it would be very nice to hear everyone just say it first.

RONI: that's what will happen.

SIEGMAR: the person who listened just gives a short summary of what they heard and puts it on paper. And then we look at them. And then we start making clusters and put them to [...] whatever we wanted.

ELENA: I would find it helpful if I'm only repeating what I heard and somebody else can help me to make notes.

SIEGMAR: great.

SIEGMAR: it's a huge responsibility. i can start with what i heard from sheena. two main words were world building and loneliness. how to find ways to speak and articulate this sense of loneliness, especially in collective processes, where might that come from, what it would need to not feel it. this would be a commitment, but different ways of commitment to collective world making, but also how this world making can be bigger than a project, go beyond it, imagining a future together.

SHEENA: the main word i heard was accountability. siegmar came with a concrete need, a frame of whoever shows up, coming together, to come together around these questions of how to be accountable as a person, how can you be accountable for yourself, how to be in this complexity of decision making, saying yes or no to sth, how to hold the space for each other, as sth regular, a practice, a practice of being accountable for one another.

XENIA: the tow big words of julia were continuity and gathering. gathering, as in which way it is different to community, like coming together in a regular basis, for example coming together for dinner once a month, that there is a continuity of coming together, asking of what we have in common, of what brings us together, and at the same time not knowing exactly what this is.

JULIA: wow!

XENIA: gathering, continuity, unknown - asking a question and not knowing the answer, an unknown common.

JULIA: what i heard from xenia - i heard that they were talking about a structure that can happen in a long term, and that the beginning, the entrance to make this happen could be by putting more attention to spending time together, also this time is spent together through the practices we can share, and thinking about it as sth that goes beyond one year, a structure that is connected to specific people, but also that can open up to another constellation. what was also quite present was the word commitment, a commitment to a common ethos, practice, that could lead to a collective. 

RONI: i will continue with sth similar, with clement, what i heard. the words were sustainable, and collective, and the wish is for a sustainable collective structure, that is somewhat independent of funding bodies, so you can continue working independent on funding, in terms of space, administration, and then something like collective success rather than individual success, and another thing is working longterm and continuous, without getting stuck, but rather also opening up, inviting.

CLEMENT: can i add sth, is that part of the game?

SIEGMAR: no, no.

laughter

XENIA: can i add sth? can you also put "opening up" please.

SARAH: i love this.

CLEMENT: i would correct it...

SIEMGAR: ..its on the table already.

laughter

XENIA: we're responsible for your success.

CLEMENT: im relieved.

laughter

CLEMENT: what i heard, she was talking to my heart, my diaphragm, it was about creating a context for her work to be in, to not be an isolated artist, which is due to the pandemic, but also before that, both supporting and responding to that context, she mentioned a community based project with an afghan woman where she would have liked to have more support, and where i could relate to was a need for a sense of dialogue.

XENIA: i also wrote down "a context to make work in".

RONI: thats good.

SIEGMAR: sarah should just write what she writes, and then the others could add.

as sarah is making posters for everything that is stated

SABINE: maybe we continue. barbara was picking up on... feeling isolated, feeling like the one that shoulders things, and then i remembered she asked me to speak to her shoulder, starting from a situation were she wants to change sth, but not being part of a collective of producers, so it's about finding a way to create a structure where it's not that you have the feeling that you shoulder everything, and that it breaks in the moment when you don't shoulder it anymore...

mobile phone interruption

SABINE: ...i remember there was a moment when i physically felt my own structures, and then there was a moment when it was liquidized a bit, which was when she talked about the function of Backbone, the concrete things, related to the question of yesterday, how stretchy can the membrane be. Is this structure about aesthetics? Or does it not matter? Is it even healthy, that it's not about aesthetics, any aesthetics that are shared? then we can actually come back to the relationship question. Is it maybe also very good that it's not based on personal relationships? is it about a big number of people or is it about a very small number of people so that it can be hold? what what does it hold? And how can it still stay extremely flexible? and one thing that is also very important: what can we exchange? it's not about producing and being an artist, this should not be the border, the membrane.

[...]

ELENA: I would like to also include people that do all the other practices that also involve the art that we make. It just incidentally happened to a bunch of producers and a bunch of people who happen to stand on stage are the people who do the admin of this here.

XENIA

summarizing her paper
it says membrane stretching / flexible including all / different practices of making.

BARBARA: what sabine talked into my shoulder connected very well to my needs, being responsible by oneself, being the one who is always initiating things, and she brought many examples of doing things by herself, the fear of putting all the energy that is left in the structure and not having energy for own projects, this discrepancy, not having energy for the things that are needed, wanted, like art. also being in this space, even though she knows people from that context, she doesn't know many people, it's not a chosen community, she felt a healing process in that regards. sharing intimate things in a round where you're not friends.

SIEGMAR: a community of practice rather than of chosen friends.

ELENA P: sarah told me she likes having lots of needs, but then she decided to speak about one of them: sophisticating communication, to have more awareness of how oneself and others communicate, communicating and performing kindness. Not only in our work environment, but also for example in a post office, not only with other people, just genuinely with things around us and how we approach things.

BARBARA: performing kindness?

RONI: that's not a need.

BARBARA: just kindness.

ELENA P: i also have to say we didn't keep to the rules, it was more a dialogue.

SARAH: yeah, its true. elena spoke excessively about the need to slow down, in a sense of facilitating the possibility of either extending yourself into a practice that you don't know or extracting yourself from a practice that you need to look at from the outside. so it can be listening to yourself in the sense of, actually, what do I want to eat for dinner? or stopping something because the capacity is not there anymore. To hold things together. if I have to focus on what was the need that was named, it was the need of having this ability, which had a strong time element to it. So I would say slowing down, and at the same time the need to manage one's own capacity.

ELENA P: i like it, i like the wording a lot.

XENIA: i wrote "slowing down (extending yourself into a desired practice and extracting yourself from others)".

ELENA P: can i add sth, like the word reduce?

RONI: adjustment?

XENIA: attunement to individual capacities.

ELENA P: on first day i was saying that I was observing why we didn't use the word safe and security. And I just realized afterwards i said the word subversive, that nobody needed to say subversive or guerrilla or any of this, it hasn't happened. just an observation, somehow it wasn't in the space. And I find this really interesting, because it often is in similar discussions.

XENIA: i want to throw in one more word, it's the word of autonomy, which is really huge for me. this thing of being autonomous and in community, or being autonomous and interdependent is something that I heard a lot, because it really addresses this topic of loneliness. And this paradox of how to be autonomous and also be part of something. So I was wondering if I could write it on another paper?

ELENA: it has also a relation to kindness?

XENIA: i really feel it's belonging?

RONI: do it!

SIEGMAR: ten more min to lunch. we can look at them and then make groups for when we come back.

RONI: should we do the silent mapping? creating islands without talking?

everyone looks at the words, they get arranged silently

ELENA P: i removed myself because the trickster energy is gonna carry me away.

discussions around how to structure the things, how to put them together

SHEENA: so there is three groups? so then after lunch we go into these groups?

RONI: and it would be good to share before we leave.

SIEGMAR: I have the need to really think of concrete examples of what could that be. when I am just gonna take my example, accountability. I'm thinking within all layers, so from the macro Union Building - fair practice guidelines - to what is it actually to practice commitment in a group that we know is not going to show up every month? And how can we find ways to sense this commitment? Or what are the possibilities of thinking them, even for people who have, for example, not showed up until today? I think, for me it's really a continuous rehearsal of that. what are ways of communication? how do we address things? How do we bring them to the group? it's not like there's an accountability group that starts policing everybody, but what else is that? also, because next time we have governance, and accountability? So hopefully it gets more and more practical. And concrete.

SARAH: lets maybe try to be really sharp and come up with a practical proposal, for example for the next six months...

SHEENA: ...or longer.

SIEGMAR: also in relation to people who didn't come, where i might build up not so nice feelings, what could be commitment in this group that is practical and real, and feeds into the group even though I'm not here?

CLEMENT

asking about what Fortuna could be

ELENA

asking about these meetings and other people involved
I'm noticing how I'm emotionally confused about it. And how I feel about it. You're saying there's people in the mailing list and i've got an email so on. This is me having a fun weekend, i guess it would be nice to be more expansive.
some people are stating that it's confusing for them as well

SIEGMAR: it's very typical when we come in and think we are not part of the group. how can we take these questions seriously and resolve them for the time being together?

ELENA P: related to what, we also talked about this question of trust and presence. How do you build a certain presence in the space, if people are changing on a daily basis, they have to leave. And at the same time, wanting to give people maximum freedom that of course, they have other shit to do and other responsibilities - like how to balance that?

SHEENA: its all of those things here on paper - it's a shifting landscape, what to lean on?

BARBARA: it's not only about trust, but trustworthy relationships, which are not necessarily based on personal relationship or friendship, but on a different level of commitment.

ELENA P: and also acknowledge that they are personal relationshops in that place, which do inhibit what you're saying, because you might feel if I just say sometimes what I say off the record, it will maybe come out wrong in a way that somebody takes it weird. I really noticed that yesterday, I had this myself in a moment. I noticed it really came up when we were talking about racism. do I start to censor and police my language based on who's in the space and I don't want to be known as an asshole - on the other hand, it's good if we can openly talk about these things.

[...]

ELENA P: may i add one? honoring the anxiety?

SHEENA: this thing connected to commitment, that I'm starting to not feel so kind towards others. how do we practice other forms of commitment? Or how do we understand commitment, is commitment only based on presence? I think about that in relation to these other connected projects that I have. Is it only about showing up? And that means that you're there? You're trustworthy? You're present? Or what other forms or value can you install? If you don't show up, but you put in money? what do we recognize as commitment? And then how is that connected to value? and how is that connected to judgment, expectations, assumptions within also this group. it was set up here, but now we have these entanglements, we're working towards more autonomous structures within it outside of Barbara and Sarah. But then, can we start to name what what we expect in terms of commitment?

SIEGMAR: it's also important that we can bring, test, and let down things again, but it's important to keep the loop going.

CLEMENT: i had an experience in a collective situation like this. it depends how the resources of the collective, how are they used by individuals. and then there's this thing, I see someone is personally using it, some others might also feel that I don't trust anymore.

SHEENA: What do you mean, I feel like I am totally personally using this?

CLEMENT: what is the relation to the artistic success as an individual versus the collective trying to build something that is long lasting? why do I choose to be here and not with my work?

SHEENA: you're making a decision that this is not your work? Or this is?

SIEGMAR: How can it be as well as? How do I use it for my personal idea of success, and contribute to the practicing of collective success? for that it has to have some kind of critical mass already. that's what is interesting for me, because I have a lot of collective things that crumble every time because of these premises that we have of what productivity is. i fear that if we base it on the same premises, it's going to crumble. so I'm really interested in finding out, what are the new, the other ways of articulation?

SABINE: And for me, this is where the membrane comes, and the long term. for me, it was a long term trust and that things don't have to be named all the time, but can also be there.

ELENA P: how can i radically think of everything i do as desire? for example taxes. and what to do when i recognize i don't desire sth? shifting from the responsibility to choice. My desire is to eat something now. is it time?

BARBARA: it's absolutely time to eat something!

LUNCH BREAK

video link

SAME CONSTELLATION OF PEOPLE CONTINUES

ALTERNATIVE STRUCTURE

SARAH'S PROPOSAL

SARAH: let's get closer to the board in relation to the questions. as a mood board, like how much am i feeling represented.

SIEGMAR: can we start really far away?

people start from the periphery of the space, slowly approaching the board, rearranging a bit

SARAH: nice, let's make a quick mental picture.

SIEGMAR: let's do the same with the single topics, so we have the groups?

SARAH: let's step on the groups.

roni enters

BARBARA: we just positioned ourselves...

RONI: ...in the groups we wanna work on?

CLEMENT: i haven't decided because i need to leave.

XENIA: let's stick to the things, the wording on the paper.

people are gathering on the different topics

GROUP I sarah, julia, sheena, siegmar, xenia

GROUP II elena p, barbara, roni, clement

GLIMPSES INTO GROUP I

PAPER 1 gathering & continuity investigation, unknown common

PAPER 2 commit to imagine future together

PAPER 3 long term trajectory / commitment of togetherness

PAPER 4 work continuity guarantee thanks to common support / solidarity

PAPER 5 balance energy management between individual practice and support structure practice

PAPER 6 not being the only one, holding things together thanks to a new structure

XENIA: i might need to leave the group. or i will stay, to look at one side of the equation, which is the the commitment and the building.

SHEENA: there's a lot of individual work within building a community based structure. And I think that is always a negotiation on these questions around commitment. And what do we understand as work? I cannot think myself out of it either. That's why I brought up this question about loneliness. maybe loneliness is not the correct wording in this, but I think the individual is always negotiated within that somehow.

XENIA: for me it's about individual practices. and then there's another practice which is the world building practice.

SARAH_ another way of phrasing it could be the WHAT - HOW - WHAT COMES NEXT.

points to papers
because the commitment you have defines the purpose.

SHEENA: what is it that we are really practicing? is it a practice of togetherness? Is it a practice of support and solidarity?

XENIA: what's the basis of us coming together?

SARAH: i don't need to come together just to come together.

MOST OTHER PEOPLE: no.

SARAH: the group doesn't have a relevance just as a group. i would do things in order to achieve sth, for example basic income.

SIEGMAR: no, that’s not what we're talking about.

XENIA: so maybe we really have to define it what brings us together.

SIEGMAR: on the one hand, that can be an individual case, that is that somebody has a need to have somebody to bounce back a tricky situation that they're in, which could be negotiation with collaborators, negotiation with producers, with institutions, or law. Or then, for example, the basic income, or the fair practice guidelines, something beyond the individual case study, something that we want to start developing for Berlin. but that is not something that we can solve immediately. That's a long term thing, building, lobbying, making policies. Understanding.

SARAH: maybe here's the misunderstanding. the way Backbone is proposed is to offer resources where usually no resources are there for. the more money we have, the more we can achieve - for example three months completely off work. another option: we come and pay for research when someone is out of production. or we share skills, people learn how to do admin, or be in the studio etc. its very much about narrowing the focus, and understanding what is actually a need, and what is a proposal. for example this points to papers 5/6 is something i relate to, but am not interested in.

SIEGMAR: it's interesting how you frame Backbone - as sth that realizes things. but this is just one understanding, other people need it to be sth else. one proposal is for example: lets make it a structure that equalizes the lacks. basic income or invest in sharing skills are two very specific proposals. but what i've heard was much more mixed than what you said. it can be really interesting to differentiate between a project and a container.

XENIA: this is interesting because it helps me to understand my relationship to it. for me this is not about a project, but about building a structure. usually we come together, build something, and then leave it. so i'm personally much more interested in building something more longterm, some commitment. another aspect is - its not just about building, but also maintaining this structure. the goal is to build a non-institutional support structure.

SHEENA: but what do we mean as commitment? in that structure, how do we identify it? is it about showing up? Is it saying, Okay, you can only miss two meetings? for me this is interesting.

XENIA: I guess there's always some people who will be more active than others and building and maintaining structures. That's just how society works.

SIEGMAR: the two examples of sarah - a basic income or a research support - for me the two are very different pillars, and do we wanna think through them, or imagining a third?

SARAH: there is a third, which is a research centre. something that is not dedicated to a need, but dedicated to the need of investigation. it's to do this unknown, common and imagining a future together.

XENIA: i feel for me its always all three.

SARAH: continuity is everything above five years. everything else is just "we like each other". we need to address this.

JULIA: i have the sensation that its also about figuring out about what do we wanna commit. and this is sth we need to figure out together. for me its about understanding commit to what?

SIEGMAR: staying with the money business: this has been realized through funding. what kind of resources do we actually want to address? is it always sarah + barbara applying? is it a cut of 10% from everyone? how to make it sustainable?

SARAH: but again, for me it's to make what last? there was this idea of the shop, you're sharing your practice with a diverse range of skills and that those skills can contaminate your practice and give other resources. now we are doing this black and white thing, the artist comes and asks the admin for advice, is this interesting? there needs to be a meta investigation motivation. thats me. everyone is building a bag of things that are relevant, while we are having these conversations. at some point we'll be drawn more or less towards different directions. for today we could imagine a practice for the next months. personally i don't have a stress with continuity.

JULIA: for me, i'll do my best to come to the other meetings, and these meetings really affect me.

SARAH: but then let's build sth around this.

XENIA: but the question is - continuity towards what? work - basic income - meta level?

SHEENA: i'm missing the what - what are we gathering for, what are we committing to, is it goal oriented, what actually is the desire and the pull to be committed towards sth? i just feel like i'm missing sth of the flesh?

SIEGMAR: what is it that you are in for?

SHEENA: i'm in for more sustainable working structures.

SIEGMAR: i'll translate that in my words: for me what's needed is on the one hand a project towards creating (like basic income), and on the other hand what is the structure to share research. i have a lot of experience with the second. i'm in for the research ways, of how to be together in a more political way.

XENIA: i always wanna ask what's your individual practice right now?

SIEGMAR: i know how to build shared research, i am really interested in basic income. 2000€ is not a basic income, but it makes sth possible.

SARAH: let's do a round with that kind of reflections.

SHEENA: what are you in for?

SARAH: i am in for the more sustainable working structure. i have a dream. i want to turn the arts into a seasonal thing.

SIEGMAR: what does that mean?

SARAH: like coffee or fruit picking. i wanna work in the arts half a year. for me it's just another way of saying I need to figure out a way to relate income and time in a sustainable way. and this is something that's impossible to do by yourself. i want to do it either with the state or with a self organized group of people. this is what i want for my life, and for my friends.

JULIA: this resonates for me, too.

XENIA: i'm in for more sustainable working conditions, community, and not so much for arts as a seasonal thing, more about living and working both.

GLIMPSES INTO GROUP II

PAPER 1 slowing down, extending yourself into a desired practice and extracting yourself from others

PAPER 2 reducing

PAPER 3 autonomy and belonging / interdependence / togetherness

PAPER 4 break isolation around making / thinking norm

PAPER 5 overcome loneliness

PAPER 6 a context to make work within

PAPER 7 collective success

talking about signal groups

BARBARA: should we gather?

COLLECTING THE RESULTS

collecting the sheets of papers in the middle

SARAH: so we do a presentation?

RONI: we can start. we have a very concrete, simple proposal: a regular weekly meeting in Fortuna, minimum two hours, possibility of having lunch, and then extended based on the present desires.

ELENA P: this is a model that sheena might recognize. it was developed towards the end of Agora, but we never implemented it. the idea is that it is organized not by roles, but by tasks of the people who are in there. boundaries are permeable, and being part of one of the circles is a time based thing. there's the red circle, which means people were willing to be all in and do this semi full time for whatever the structure is. those are also the people who like to take on the tasks that are necessary for the survival of that structure. it needs to be enough people in the red circle, but that structure also allows for other people to be closely associated. maybe they want to come by often and support things, but they don't want to be fully responsible. And then there's people who are loosely associated, maybe they think it's a good thing but they only want to give money once a year. And that they also feel belonging, it's like a structure of belonging to a structure. And the idea is that you can for years being the loose corner, and then suddenly, you decide that you want to spend two years in the deep insides of a structure. And there are consciously not concentric circles or anything, because it's not hierarchical. So what's in, those things are different tasks, is that they sometimes intersect. somebody who's loosely associated could also be doing the tasks that are essential for the survival of the structure because they decide to, for example, doing the taxes. you only come in once a year and do the taxes, which is super essential for the structure, but not all in in any way.

BARBARA: how flexible, how stretched can people can come in?

RONI: the proposal also came from realizing the importance of a physical space and a kind of home or a nest, and then realizing that this space already exists for this group in Fortuna, and thinking of how to fill up that space. Mondays are not being used for example. and with the needs, there came up the common wallet example again, where they just share breakfast every week. because we're talking about commitment, and this is where the commitment is also being expressed just by being present. 

BARBARA: we started very ambitious with form, practice, function: the slowing down, reducing as the practice, the membrane is the form, and this proposal is the function.

RONI: we also kind of did it.

ELENA P: we went from like meta-meta to super specific.

SARAH: ok, thank you. who wants to do the recap of our acrobatics?

JULIA: for example towards this once a week thing, the question arose what are we committing for, practicing, gathering for? there was a round of what that individually could be, and somehow it landed into "more sustainable working structures" / "relate income and time in a sustainable way". it went back to the question of what Backbone is proposing - like how could that be possible, and what kind of practices, structures are needed for that?

XENIA: then we almost circled out, we also made a three group cluster, and then we landed at the initial idea of Backbone, and then checking what is going on now, and checking what is the continuity.

SHEENA: all of this proposed a temporality, a goal, a trajectory, a commitment. we missed a bit the flesh, the reasons to come together, to show up for each other, it was oriented around money, sustainability, working structures. but we didn't come up with a regular meeting, like how to do it.

ELENA P: everyone puts in 10€.

SHEENA: what perspective does that give us? it took us a moment to really land. these community based needs, what are they really? a structure that provides all of those things.

SIEGMAR: we could meet every monday and talk about it, but the question is, do we need to have the structure or the purpose first? and if we meet, then we could figure this out.

RONI: it could be also a container for the burning issues.

SIEGMAR: it just might need different, parallel structures for other things, which are not in the "fire pot".

XENIA: we were a small group figuring out what the group wants, and we came to a kind of common conclusion - sustainable working structures, but then... the structure would be the one of a working group, in my personal reading, it fulfills different kinds of needs, and the needs are not excluding each other. so then people know what they are coming for.

RONI: initially i thought you know what will every monday be about. But then I like the metaphor, when you read the newspaper, and then you're interested in this article, but then your eyes drawn to something else that you weren't sure you were interested in - as opposed to just a Facebook algorithm that you just get what you're interested in. that's also the commitment. like in a relationship, I'm committed to the thing, not to this specific part only.

BARBARA: bring your own topic into the space.

XENIA: choose maybe not so much the topic, but the way of relating.

RONI: there was this practice of the mycelium workgroup during MärzMusik, where the people facilitating it came every day and had to think of their own intentions for that session of that day. and that was what facilitated that session, rather than having a long preparation meeting. that was interesting.

ELENA P: another check in: not "how are you", but "what's alive in you"? another statement for the intention.

long pause

SHEENA: so is this fantasy, or is it happening?

BARBARA: the monday for Backbone is still blocked, we can discuss if we can have it every week from 10-12. sarah?

SARAH: yes, it's possible.

ELENA P: let's do it. for me its far, for others as well, but i would still do it.

BARBARA: we also spoke about communication, there's a signal group that is sharing information on these kinds of things.

figuring out who's in the group already, who isn't, and you might wanna join

BARBARA: we can open up the space in Fortuna.

SHEENA: i could join online.

RONI: how are peoples experiences with these hybrid formats? does it works?

BARBARA: no. in Fortuna we said no to it.

XENIA: it works when the person is a witness. if the person is speaking, it creates a very strong hierarchy.

RONI: should we do a check-in?

SHEENA: i have jour-fixes on tuesday or wednesday, not sure if i can commit to one more.

SIEGMAR: i also want to check-in about summer. we talked about this meeting as a prep meeting, not as a meeting that's important for the rest of our lives.

SARAH: actually what happened is that there was a weekly Backbone meeting so far already, to prepare things. so i'm surprised to hear it should be formalized more. my idea was to launch next week the call for those who want to take part to the reflection between now and September. And it's usually weekly, and it can happen on Monday, if that's something that we want to decide now, it stays Monday because it's just clear, and then maybe shifts throughout the day, according to those who actually want to show up. We do have the flexibility to do that.

RONI: for me these are two very different sessions, to speak about needs and desires vs. prepare the next session, i would not join the latter.

SIEGMAR: there are not miles apart from each other?

SHEENA: are people in town during summer?

SARAH: there is a strange rigidity here that we can just break through very easily. preparing a session doesn't mean anything. we can do whatever we want. this are invitations to gather and reflect. there is a misunderstanding: if there is a level of productivity that is expected from the meetings in September? there is no such a thing. we can also say, September is not dedicated to governance. It's just the group start now every week together, and keep thinking, and then simply in September there is an intensification. that's what the project is for - not to keep plan as proposed a year ago, by just two people, not 25.

BARBARA: it helps to imagine when the group meets again. in september we meet as a group again.

ELENA P: and that helps each person how to intersect that with all the other elements of what they're doing in their lives.

SIEGMAR: i find this idea good, to say "it is governance", but let's see what happens in between, like it happened with this session too. its nice to keep it stronger connected to the practice and where things can grow out of.

XENIA: i like a diversification of ways of spending time, i think its really great to allow for different ways to spend time together, that attracts me, even though you don't wanna prepare things but wanna be in touch with the others. it could be a nice solution to put those meetings together in the same space.

ELENA P: my heart feels really warm right now. Because I can totally identify with this. my summers are planned for family. And at the same time feeling a really strong desire to stay in connection to the process, having enjoyed the last few days and wanting to also contribute into the longer term of it.

SARAH: let's try, whatever. 

SHEENA: i wanna ask who can commit to that, otherwise we're talking clouds.

SARAH: just to remind everybody that this process has happened already. if you remember, at the beginning of the year, you more or less organized, I hope, your agenda around these four appointments. And as you can see over the year, there's people that show up in certain periods of the year and then disappear in other periods of the year. And this is actually something that we already know, who is committing to be present around Backbone subjects for this third part of the year, we know, it's in the notes. So a lot of people already made themselves available for the process in chunks, meaning that they said no to showing up every week in other chunks.

XENIA: this check-in is only about the weekly meeting.

SARAH: i'm just bringing in the capital of the other ten people.

JULIA: what happens to the rest of the people who are not here?

SIEGMAR: everything that we have here will be communicated to everybody. From the people in the room, I've heard how different people, including me, from mid June till mid August, are not even in Berlin. So for example that's just something that we could communicate on signal also. Or we just say, whoever comes comes, and then... then probably we have the thing with the shoulders again.

RONI: who can commit?

SARAH: there's a bunch of people who are willing to join from next week on.

XENIA: what if it's organized in a more loose proposal?

SARAH: i have an idea. why don't we do breakfast every wednesday? me and barbara will be there, and everyone can just join? me and barbara will not work for the first 1,5h.

XENIA: there's at least two participants

SIEGMAR: just to finish it together - thats great to take the tensions away in the room, the more practical we get the better we can address them.

everyone gives a big thank you to everyone

SESSION #1

INDIVIDUAL PRACTICES

ON

19, 20, 21 April 2022

HOSTEDY BY

Radialsystem, Berlin

PARTICIPANTX

Xenia (they/she) - Siegmar (they/she) - Agata (she) - Gretchen (all pronouns) - Tiphaine (she/her/hers) - Giulia (she) - Angela (she) - Roni (she) - Laurie (they/she) - Annegret ? - Barbara (she) - Sarah (she) - etaïnn (no pronoun)

DAY 1

10h00 - 10h30 coffee + arrival
10h30 - 12h00 EXCHANGE #1, THE PURGE
12h00 - 13h00 lunch break
13h00 - 14h30 BODY #1, MARIA

ARRIVAL

(12 people)
(a room with a Spree view)
(coffee and jeans, chat chat chat, 1 pair of yellow shoes, unusual)

EXCHANGE #1, THE PURGE

Sarah: i like that we chose a very business setting while we had many options laughs. this is the first session, sit back and enjoy the program. a word about the space (we can expand) and tools (we can play with) for these coming 3 days. you can stay longer in the studio, that's the best studio ever, nobody should bother you, just say "i'm here for the workshop", for whatever that means. here's etaïnn, they gonna take notes, we want to experiment with note taking, everyone will access the notes, and you can say what you want to stay of record. (Self Care Club sweatshirt) so let's dive in. and go backwards a little, Backbone is an invitation to gather and create a context to have meaningful and non meaningful discussions about conditions in the art, ethics, researches..., that we use, share or could share better. Barbara and i have production based pratices, and are involved with structures and in mutualized systems that we wanted to share. there will be 4 different topics: individual practices / ethics of labour / governance / ressources. so that's the vague and vast dramaturgical contract we gonna play with and disrupt, we proposed a program but in no way we gonna try to get really anywhere laughs. this is the mega meta. when preparing the session we had a lots of discussions about what we mean when we say "individual practices". the definition we use, don't know even if there is a consensus with that laughs is: the ecology of ways of doing thinking understanding embodying that has to do with everything we do, from the moment i wake up, open the fridge, enter a workspace, take care of my body my children my lovers, or how i chose to spend my time, productive or not, from money making venture to rest, we intended practice as a way of thinking a human body in the world and in its system of interactions and connections. this has a lot to do with political activism, how to make decision...

Xenia: when we thought how to structure these days, we had a blank page. i can maybe add that individual practice is also the structure-making not only something that exists in the structure. the first session brings a little structure but can be very different in the next ones.

THE PURGE

Sarah: we're cool? let's break the ice, we got 1 hours and 10 minutes, we gonna do a game called THE PURGE, very simple, now we gonna focuse on the future. i hope my introduction was vague and inspiring enough. try to imagine and make a list of the things we want to get rid of, burn, dismantle, have disappeared, withing this perspective of our own practices, feel free to share what you want to or not, truly, feel comfortable, and if not let's find ways to check on that. write one thing and fold paper and pass it on, give your paper to somebody, and then we gather when timer buzzes.

someone: fold it backward, it's easier, just saying laughs

people sitting at the tables, standing at the comptoir, lying down, reflecting, writing, changing places and postures, and passing their sheets. time's up.

Sarah: it's a way to get our minds to imagine change, by trying to gather this material that, again, does not need to make any sense. it's a game of imagination, that focuses on negativity, but tries to creates funny tensions in conceptualising things. it's just an invitation to organise concepts, and if a strong contradictory arise in you, name it and we will invent another category. read out loud the list on your paper and make a proposal where that sould go on the board. whoever?

Xenia: i can start. it says "pressure" and i'm gonna put it under PRESSURE laughs

someone: how many "pressure" do we have?

someone: "pressure to produce".

someone: i have "time pressure".

someone: i think "pressure" can also go under PLEASURE.

someone: i don't understand PLEASURE...

Sarah: in the practice proposed to me in the past, it's to facilitates articulating disagreement, someone can see it as negative and someone else find joy in competition, so all readings can coexist. it's more useful to think about negative inputs as potential pleasures. if it does not resonate, leave it.

Agata: "financial anxiety", there's no pleasure in that for me, so, TENSION or PRESSURE. what is the difference between TENSION and PRESSURE (folx make gestures, tension is horizontal and pressure vertical)

Roni: i have "i don't want to do taxes anymore just pay a fix percentage" laughs

someone: it's not about getting ride of taxes.

someone: i'm adding p(l)ay in the PLEASURE box, because that would make things easier.

someone: "don't want projects to indue fiscal year", so all the projects have to finish by a certain date.

someone: do we need a fourth category?

someone: what's the feeling of the room?

someone: "time pressure" can also be activating you, like MOVEMENT? it's a general GENERATOR? TRANSFORMATION?

someone: "mansplanning by anybody", oh god everything's become play with me (while writing mansplanning)

Sarah: "end of human centric thinking", which i guess is a PLEASURE.

Siegmar: oh that's a good one.

Laurie: "to get rid of the expections that the art maker creates towards the projects", i put it under PRESSURE.

someone: but the end of anything is a pleasure then...

discussing what "end/ing" means

someone: "glorification of distructive behavior", PRESSURE.

Xenia: basically, everything was about ending, how it was written counts, i mean it's not clear to me...

someone: it makes you understand the tension about clarity, where you would put it and where someone else would, then you can see another perspective.

Barbara: "valuing productitivity as creativity", PRESSURE

Xenia: "don't want to predict how i'm gonna spend funding money", PLEASURE

Roni: "to get rid of competition", would be pleasurable.

Sarah: and i put "competition" in TENSION.

someone: i have "competitiveness".

someone: "i want to get rid of time pressure working towards deadline" > PRESSURE.

Barbara: i have a very different one, "the end of the pandemic" > PLEASURE.

Agata: well maybe question mark laughs that means also the end of pandemic funding...

Siegmar: "class" > PRESSURE and TENSION.

Angela: "politics of othering", in TENSION?

Siegmar: if you feel it should go there, then yes.

Gretchen: "don't wanna be pigeon holed" > TENSION.

Roni: that means that you're categorized into somethin specific according to identity or...

someone: "agism" > TENSION but could also go somewhere else.

Annegret: "gossip" in TENSION, also PLEASURE come on, laughs

Siegmar: "get rid of distinction between friendship and relationships", where to put it? wow, that's a lot, then i say it's a TENSION.

discussion about how sentences are phrased and how that matters

Laurie: "disconnect", so ending disconnection, that would be > PLEASURE.

Barbara: i have "disconnection from nature", but where to put it?

Annegret: i find it difficult to get ride of things, instead of listing things that i want.

someone: ok so PLEASURE.

Roni: all the things that separate me from my playful curious and enthousiastic inner creative child", PLEASURE.

Siegmar: all the things that, that's a great trick.

Sarah: "racism, medical gaslithing and violence", in PRESSURE, all three

Siegmar: could you add "patriarchy"?

Agata: and "misogyny".

Sarah: and "reductionism", in TENSION.

Siegmar: is presomption the same as asumption?

trying to define, laughs

someone: "get rid of back pain" > PLEASURE. many nods

written on the board > TENSION = feeling alone with what's hard / insecurity becoming overprotection / social anxiety / emails, the laptop / deciding theory vs practice / judgment internal and external / inhibition to rest / shameful resting / comparison...

someone: where do we put "i dont want to travel for one day"? PRESSURE, there's a big pleasure part also in the "don't want to", so PLEASURE too.

someone: "all political parties", i have no opinion.

someone: PLEASURE, "work hard play hard"

someone: and "growth"?

someone: oh not gross, growth.

someone: PRESSURE, "abuse of power", "overworking", can you add "impatience"?

written on the board PLEASURE get rid of backpain / get rid of factor 2:1 time needed: time planned...

Annegret: i have "lack of accessibility", PRESSURE, maybe TENSION?

Xenia: add "feeling of insecurity".

someone: "paralysing pessimism about future" > PRESSURE.

Agata: "all political parties", please, in...?

Barbara: "housing issues" > PRESSURE.

Roni: "prioritazing", "purge us from collective power games" > PLEASURE, and "chips for dinner"?

someone: "unnotiger Stress" > PRESSURE, a very good sum up for everything.

someone: "to get rid of product oriented structures" > PLEASURE.

someone: "jalousy" > TENSION.

written on board PRESSURE to be consequent / comparison / deadlines
there's energy in the room, everyone writes down, and stand looking at the board

someone: "following trends in your work" > PRESSURE.

Gretchen: "artists choosing the curators and structures" > PLEASURE.

Laurie: "restrictions", "feeling impossibility", PRESSURE.

Sarah: maybe we could take 15 minutes now, trying to not have a circle talking because we hate it, but we need it maybe? so get comfortable, and maybe each can present themselves and say what came up for you during the game, and then we have lunch in the sun. the initial idea was to burn all that list, but we need a fireperson for that, so Radial said no, then to connect it to Maria's practice but she's sick so she won't come.

Siegmar: what can be beautiful about that is the "feeling alone with what's hard", it's a great list of what is hard, and it brings this feeling of "i dont have to feel alone with that", that's what came up for me, it makes me very soft and also very angry at the same time, these lists.

Annegret: i wonder about finding negative ways, how conditionned i am to think positively, cause you mention political activism, so everytime something brought some rage i would emphasize on connection and rephrase it, reformulate it. what's the good balance here, to embrace also the anger that can be a productive force, and i'm not good with that.

Angela: i feel relieved because it's a practice of the invisible, and seeing all of you taking pens, and all the colors, and all this action, now i feel like yeah schön. in relation to what you said Annegret, it feels more comfortable to put things in a positive way. it's hard to think about your motivations in life, you need big motivation in the future in order to cope with all of these, it's much more easy to follow this road, but on the other hand what do we do with oppressions and discrimations? the action of looking at it and acknowleding it is super important. now maybe the relief is connected to me searching for a community that aknowledge that dynamics of oppression.

Xenia: relating to this, i have a visceral sensation, putting it on a wall and now sitting with it, the inbetween, it's a heavy weight on my head, looking at this, and i'd like to push it away but something feels like to stick, i have this image as glued things in your muscles. while doing this, and having to look very closely at it, the specificity of not saying immediately what i want but going through what i don't, what i want to get rid of, feels good.

Roni: it would be nice to hear how people deal with these, we all develop our own strategies, and i'm curious how you do it.

Tiphaine: it's interesting to write on our own, and then collectively, it's a coping tool we can use together, we all struggle with these independently and addressing these collectively, being vulnerable together, was empowering, as a group.

Agata: even though when we share and cary as a group, we have individual experiences with these, it's also a difficulty in this kind of discussion, we have completely different backgrounds, families, economical situations, education, and this build our experiences. it's very personal, so difficult to give space to this in a group. how can we recognize differences in a group?

Siegmar: the specificity of experience needs space. it would be good to start to really talk about each of us, how to understand each other's history and what do we have to learn and practice in order to start breaking it down, so it does not happend anymore. how do we stand in for each other? but not only in this room, with fundings, premiere evenings, taxes... what can we actually do? who needs a kick in the ass, who needs... sometimes i need that "you wanted to do that, so do it!". it would be interesting to practice.

Angela: i have the strong need to put "fear of boundaries and limits" in PRESSURE and not only in PLEASURE.

Xenia: for me it's a question mark...

discussion about how to understand this sentence

Angela: if this is about overcoming your boundaries, there is a sexiness in that.

Xenia: i did not mean it in the sense of oh you're afraid of these limits, so go and get it.

Annegret: the double negation is tricky, is it overcoming or accepting?

Xenia: i get ride of the fear of having boundaries, being afraid of them.

Angela: so it would be "embracing my boundaries and limits"?

Xenia: yes.

Angela: so i add it in TENSION.

Sarah: i like how you forget these words belong to someone else. it happens weirdly without a suspicious feeling of collective ownership. in the absurdity of this operation and doing it with words of somene esle, not buildinge something that translate all but a space where any voice can exist in an imperfect way. reflecting on change, i find that building languages and structured conversations that allow differences to coexist is very useful. and i'm glad we're going there this morning. there is consensus a lot, the last one on the question mark was very funny and was not compelling, obviously, but interacting with our way of thinking, i find it very intimate to play and share with a group of strangers. there is fear in the body of these elements we do not get rid of. but all can be put in the pleasure box. it builds the ability to complexify without the fear of complexity.

Xenia: Maria was supposed to guide the afternoon session but she's not here, so it's nice to do something with this. the theme of afternoon session is "the body", because it's about indivual practices, we thought each could share a tiny bit of their practice. and i have a proposal, bringing voice practice in here, and one is making slogans and singing together, and usually we come out with non sensical things. we could sing or shout them, and make a litanie, as we talked about how all the voices can be heard here, and also something was said about anger. so it's nice to come together and sing them together. you can participate or listen. and everyone can propose. Roni proposed making boats with the papers. and we can decide how we want to close the session.

LUNCH BREAK OUTSIDE

AFTERNOON

(11 people, Sarah left)

BODY #1, HUMMING

Xenia: propose a singing practice i take the opportunity to share a regenerative voice practice, to stimulate the parasympathetic system, to rest and feel good, and some things inspired by Pauline Oliveros, so also deep listening stuff. i invite you to do accordingly to your capacities. and after that, we'll go through the words, and make a list, and proclaim them. maybe outside? we gonna talk about how we want to do it, after the singing. i'd like to start with some vibrating, we gonna focus on the inside.

everyone moves in the space, lies down, find their place. humming by themselves, changing posture, getting louder, then joining in a circle. sound-silence exercice, several rounds. then reading the board, some add words: ableism / white supremacy fragility silence / social media...

Xenia: intention is really important for this ritual, so we agreed to spit it in the middle. we can have some sentence to start.

someone: "no more"?

Xenia: no more, yes, we'll try to find a rhythme. no holding back on the voice.

after first round of reading-shouting

Siegmar: i feel a bit rehearsing the revolution here, i can go to TENSION now.

someone: what about the "?" category.

someone: we leave it for later.

Annegret: can we find a way of saying "no more" in a pleasurable way?

final humming for closing, and going through tomorrow's program

Siegmar: i'm wondering if we can have time to exchange our practices in the group during these 3 days, share and connect in different ways, seeing how different we are. how you deal with these problems yourself?

Roni: and also collect wishes for session 2, at the end of the third day.

Angela: we can have a collective sharing, where each says about their practice, i'm really interested how others do it.

Siegmar: The Common Wallet is great but they're also very advanced, i can't myself present something final, because i'm at the beginning of things but i can share how i'm doing it and where i'm at, and someone could pitch in and give advice. also, should we leave the words on the wall? because we were supposed to burn them.

Xenia: i think we gonna leave them.

Roni: yeah, and maybe we gonna add some stuff.

STRONG NEED EXPRESSED HERE: PEOPLE WANT MORE CONCRET QUESTIONS AND INPUTS from each other AND SOLUTIONS

Siegmar: i've been part of many groups, in one we were reading My grandmother's hands, by Resmaa Menakem, on somatic abolitionnism, by practicing affinity groups, when addressing big questions like "how to build culture of support?" can we dare to do that here? when we discuss what we wrote on the board like "white supremacy", can it be discussed in affinity groups, and what would they be? just wanted to put that into the group, and voice that we doe not stop to analyses, but also practices.

Roni: and also what is the culture of Backbone, the culture we want to build here? what's nice is it's long term, it's just the beginning. we did one week with Ada, last year, and i wished then to continue. and what kind of very practical tools we want to build and use? this is nice, it feels very familiar, these gatherings, which stopped because of the pandemic, but i feel an exaustion of the format, i'm looking forward to rebuild touch, connection with community.

Xenia: structure making.

DAY 2

10h00 - 10h30 coffee + arrival
10h30 - 12h00 INPUT #1, COMMON WALLET
12h00 - 13h00 lunch break
13h00 - 14h30 EXCHANGE #2, THE BAG OF NEEDS

MORNING

(11 people)
(conversations about fashion, the group has some taste in outfits, Agata makes her own clothes inspired by Vilanelle's look in Killing Eve serie, talking about sleep strategies, and Christmas decoration...)

INPUT #1, COMMON WALLET

Sarah: Tiziana is based in Bruxelles, she's a friend and a very good friend of good friends. she joins today to talk about the experience of Common Wallet, an experimental economic practice a few folx started few years ago. we found that it could be interesting as a close input for the group. so we gonna dive in this story, and then will have time for questions. Tiziana speaks english, italian and french, if you feel more comfortnble in other languages.

Tiziana: i'm a bit sick, so i might follow my notes more than usual, otherwise i'm very happy to talk to people into dance, because this project is much connected to body, you'll see.

Sarah: great, you have the floor.

Tiziana: reading Backbone presentation, i see some common language: precarity, common ressources, mutualisation, more inclusive, empowered, less fragmented... the Common Wallet project started in 2019, with 10 people working in the performing scene, who decided to share a common bank account. i joined later. each member commits to add their individual monthly incomes, fees, child benefits, wages, author rights. each has a nominative bank card, with both their name and Common Wallet name on it. each uses the money according to their individual needs and independently from their contribution. all expenses can be rent, mortgages, telecom bills, expenses for children, going out, any personal savings. on the side we keep our personal account. the Common Wallet is not legally recognized, so we still have our own account. the project was initially created because of the conditions artists and workers live in. to replace the logic of control with the logic of radical trust, experiment on kinship solidarity and transparency. each member takes responsability for the whole group but also remains free to live the lifestyle that suits them better. if not it means it failed. it's a think tank, everyone dissociates the notion of work from the notion of money. we are performers, makers, visual artists, dramaturges, producers, one teacher, and an NGO worker since a year, so some have fixed salary, some contracts, others are freelance, some unemployemnt benefits (which is a belgian thing). most come from abroad, some are couples, have children, some not, the younger is 35 the older 51. we dont live together. at first they created a cooperative, in a spirit of mutualization, to push the usual limits, what would it be to replace control by trust, what would we gain in terms of time and ressources and energy if the structure remains dedicated to creativity and not controlling and functionning? people had to commit for 3 months. the cooperative did not succeed because it was too much energy needed for the administrative part but it became a live project pooling a longer term of saving account money and radical trust. it enties money from its hugly emotional idea of self esteem and social worth. in our relation to others, money is mostly used as emotional black mail or pressure. we examine the psychological tricks money plays on us, how does it shape the relationships, and leads to mistrust, fear of others, and the belief of one can only trust oneself. the highly transformative power of the Common Wallet stimulates the forming of the radical generosity by collectively addressing and resolving money issues: you're not alone anymore facing money. we're 7 other beings bearing that issue with you, in our case. learning or unlearning redefines your way to be in the world, on a psycho, ethical, social, professional level. we need tools, a bit boring for some, and some beautiful. we do weekly breakfast meetings every Friday morning, a check-in, we share where we're art, discuss possible problems and solutions. it's important to keep the project alive, we also have a Telegram chat, we talk cash flow problems and bills, etc. we have a rotating role of the monthly secretary so to keep tracks of the in and out and to keep the group updated on cash flow -is there extra income coming this month... and we have an Excel sheet to get an overview per month of expected incomes and costs. as we're most freelancers we got money in chunk. and we also have full working reflecting days a few times a year, to go deeper with certain issues. the rule is we don't have rules but basic principles, there are implemented in the way we act. our needs and desires define the values. keeping personal account is a must. what we need comes as the project goes, so if members change, the state and functioning then change, according to the needs. values instead of rules. we move from a contract of policing to a contract of trust, embodied in our breakfast meetings, the attitudes, the tone of voices, it really builds the trust. we also commit to a non judgmental attitude, it's difficult, and also not. when i joined, i had a lot of judgment, thinking it was about others, but in fact it was about myself, how i perceived money and work. first, look at your own shit. we commit to provide each other with less anxiety, more pleasure, happiness. there is love, we could call it a polyamourous relationship also. the transparency is a huge pillar to the project. it's not about what one spends but how one feels. an important pillar is also: unreciprocitiy, it's an active contribution, it does not matter how much money you bring. there's no exchange of services, they tried at first, but that created some slave dynamic, so they dropped it. it's a pilot project for a broader society, it can be very accessible, it does not mean it's for everybody, and it can also be many other things. but radical trust and transparency can be cultivated, cherished, developed, yes. what is it about and not about? if the project lower the quality of life of each it failed (if you earn more and spend more and then you have to lower because of others earning less, no). it's not about making a successful economical model but creating a shared living interdependency. also it's not direct proportionally, it detaches money from work and work from the individual, so the ownership. it allows us to expand the notion of family into kinship. i had professional questions, was single, without children, was 46. my pleasure was to enjoy this security and this being together, not being left alone about money and also other parts of life. and the unkowing part of it is big, as principle, you can't anticipate, if one leave the balance changes, the personality and expectations of a member can change it all. it's not about equality, money is not redistributed equally, you take what you need and bring what you can, so it's accepting that. it's not because i give that i have to receive back. if you have savings, it's a way of being we developed, keeping money aside, in case, for later, and we don't use this money. i want to share personal perspective. i'm talking about the Common Wallet by myself today. other members would give another presentation maybe. we all have priorities in perception to the project.

Sarah: it would also be interesting to hear about the failures.

Tiziana: failures, a very important point. i joined a year and a half after the creation of the group, so it was a process, i was given space-time to find my place into the project. so you put your money in and commit to trust. you don't get guidelines to follow, you learn by observing the process. i'm gonna read a love letter. during the confinement, we could not meet, and missed each other, so someone wrote that, and we answered, so it's very linked to the body.

Tiziana reads the LETTER

Dear Common Wallet,
Thank you for this text, Luigi. I see it as a perfect opportunity to make a first assessment. For my part, it's only been 8 months since I joined Common Wallet so I'm still learning to explore and integrate the language of this safe haven.
Since I did not participate in the construction of the values as the project was being set up, I think it would be more interesting, in my case, to tell how the encounter with these values occured during these 8 months.
I often link the idea of the liquidity of water to the Common Wallet. Wiring your income for the first time can be like diving in the open sea. Getting our momentum is not easy with the habits and protections we're taking with us.
Once in the water, you can see your own functioning more clearly: the muscles that you have overused and those that have atrophied. The muscles on which the relative balance was based were probably those of the sense of guilt that money induces and the state of insecurity it can generate. On the other hand, the activation of muscles related to the sense of sharing, gratitude and radical trust required a conscious effort.
Once immersed, the body gradually comes back into contact with all its faculties of movement. It finds itself carried by the water, by something bigger than itself, with the constitutive and fundamental needs of 9 other human beings as its guide.
What first struck me at the time of the first meetings was the radicality of the project and the intelligence with which the members communicate: direct and unvarnished exchanges. Everyone being aware that the viability of the project rests on transparency.
I remember being astonished that it did not lead to more concrete initiatives. At the time, it even gave me an impression of wasted energy. As time went by, I realised that, although it depends on money, the investment is fundamentally human, not productive. Although it did not exclude the possibility of future initiatives, the project was self-sufficient.
I had brought with me the burning intention of buying a flat, while living from professional activities that did not suit me or no longer suited me. Whatever the cost, my main objective was to ensure the security of my old age. And that's it. Being single and childless at the age of 45, it is easy to see one's future through the agreed prism of individualism.
Through the Common Wallet, I learn to be more sincere and flexible about my ambitions and perspectives. While ensuring my old age remains currently relevant, the urgency has changed since I joined the project. I think I would like to buy something with happy money, which I will have earned with a certain satisfaction.
Isn't security first of all to feel integrated in the way we earn our living before deciding to invest? If not, what kind of atmosphere will the house of my old age exude?
This project also teaches me to appreciate my need for dependence on others, or rather interdependence, and to take a different look at the constraints and benefits that this implies.
This practice helps me to integrate the subtleties of the project into my daily life with ever greater openness and flexibility. Every numb muscle is stimulated, every enlarged muscle relaxes. At times, certain individualistic automatisms reappear unexpectedly, or I sometimes try to get rid of a questioning too quickly or too practically, without taking the time to really go through it with the group. Whenever this has happened, the mere presence of each person helped me to get back on my feet, without any confrontation or judgement.
Will the Common Wallet keep us together for the rest of our lives? There can be no certainty about that and I don't think we're particularly interested in that question. But it often comes to mind, with the fear that the project may stop one day. Once you get a taste of the rightness of such an experience, a point of no return is created. Because one has no desire to leave a place that allows such diffuse notions as money, transparency, daily routine, love, fears and listening to converge coherently.
In the last 8 months, certain taboos have been broken, delicate questions are less frightening and judgement is losing more and more of its strength. Quite honestly, I think I can say that I feel closer to myself than I have ever been and at the same time I am becoming a little bit of each of us.
Perhaps the added value of such an experience would be to access with more consistency and constancy the best part of oneself.
Thank you to all of you!

Tiziana: i read it as an assertement. the plus value of a Common Wallet is to share vulnerability through the money and the playfulness in finding solutions, the mental charge is distributed, as long as the problem is openly addressed to the group, so you have to share, and put emotions in the dynamic, it's essential. an important question is: we trust each other genuinely, it's radical and real, so we try to understand how come we actually trust each other as we do, not the other way round. the Common Wallet is build on the same attention as love, looking at each other, gestures... it's not possible to not produce thoughts and judgements. empathy transforms the judgment, that comes naturally, but it needs the decision of not going through that direction. it needs time to reflect on many things about your life. when you drop the judgement on yourself -this is what i am, want to be- automatically you drop judgment on others, so you're an observatory for the project. then the failures are very important. they were 10 in the beginning, one left because she wanted to find ways to eradicate money at all in her life. i arrived after, and came with different perspectives of course. i was very enthusiastic, now it's pretty different. and the dynamics changed, with Corona, zooms did not give a nice feeling, so we went to the park -we live in the same area, it's not on purpose, it's a fact. it was 3 degrees outside, and it was more chatting than a deep conversation, this fragilised us, it's a proof that it lies on the presence of everyone to come to the meeting and be transparent. then two members announced they wanted to leave, one because his father died and he had financial issues with legacy to pay, and a baby. we're still in touch but so far he did not come back. another left because she has children and works a lot, so she could not save enough to invest in her flat, she saved some for her kids and the future but it was not enough, so she left. then an NGO worker joined, we wanted to try out

how it goes with people who are not connected to art. so that person did not grow with the project, like me, and had a lot of questions, and struggles. another left because they dated someone in the group who also left, so he had too many various bank accounts to handle, a couple one, the Common Wallet, his own. the failures come from what you are and want now, actual or future perspectives and needs. Corona fragilised us. for some it's good for now, for some it's good for ever. and it's all acceptable, we don't need to anticipate and count in each other for the future, it's energy wasting, like the administrative work with the cooperative, and we want to keep this energy for our art. we respect decisions, still, there is some deception, because of the kin. we'd like to give more security and stability to the group but in the art field there's a lot of invisible work, the quality of what you do is not linked to the money you're paid, you work a lot and got paid little, so the project is that people find happiness and we deal together with the money problems, to put it aside. it's a force, and a failure, having to check anytime the common account -is there enough money? it's work, still. the commitment has to be strong then. but what is failure? it depends on how you look at the glass, half empty, half full...

Q&A

Roni: i wanna thank you and share a little, i was triggered or irritated, for many reasons: i lost my wallet recently, i'm a failure of a version of a the Common Wallet, and yesterday my mother called me and said she was so lonely. she was born and lives in a kibboutz, in Israel, and when this system fall apart, common money disappread and women suffered from that, first line. how do you consider all these differences? i imagine the Bruxelles Common Wallet as a group of white middle class Europeans. also i have a kinship group here in Berlin, a strong chosen family, but we never discussed that as a possibility. if i was married, etc. i would already have a common wallet. were people friends before the Common Wallet? was there a ground before?

Tiziana: it's very interesting your irritation linked to the social precarity of your mother, one member in Common Wallet has grown in a kibboutz and brought lots of inputs into the project, she left at 18 and brought inspiration from that structure's experience. when we think about social structures, like communism, like kibboutzs, they are very defined by rules. the difference is with Common Wallet there are no rules but values that we adapt, so every week we'll have another thinking, adapting to what the group is today, not anticipating or looking backwards.

Roni: trying to be in the now with money is so interesting, and i do it in my private life, i bearly saved, my future is insecure in that sense, and what triggered me was that this is what my ancestors were doing, and i'm here doing the same.

Tiziana: what we save for the future is our personnal account, the individual is accepted, not refused because the group has to exist.

Roni: it's a huge difference. the fact that individual has space to make their own decision, and you think of it as an experiment, and not ideologically dogmatic, and your approach to do something, trying to create an alternative to your life, is different. you're chosing to do that from a place where you already tried other things and want to try something else. when they had not much choice, to live in a kibboutz. i'm curious to reflect more. the fact that she experiences that, she's from a younger generation, different from my mum's experience, and it depends from which kibboutz and the actual communality. and what about the friendship and love parallel?

Tiziana: C, M and LC made a show about money, A was C's partner, so the question was there, and they caught other people not in their circles, whose vision could be interesting, so when i joined i knew some of them and others i knew only their names. we don't very like to use "friendship" for our relationship, it's more a kinship. sometimes the trust can be stronger with someone that i don't know very well, than with someone i know, knowing their personnality (oh i trust her but she's not good with numbers).

Barbara: i have a practical production question, how does it work legally for your tax declarations?

Tiziana: we have no recognition, legally. if the state checks in, they gonna look through my personal account, not the common one. there are constraints from the bank, you have to be active with your account, so the amount that arrives on the Common Wallet is already minus rents and all... so you wire the all amount in the Common Wallet then i wire the money back.

Barbara: it could be money washing like.

Tiziana: indeed, but in case of control, we have all access to the transactions on the common account and can easily show it to anyone who would want to control. we also have press articles that make the project sort of a little official.

Siegmar: coming back to the social economical background. it's a life and live project, so some people are building property and some are not, so we're not equal. it's great and at the same time, can you engage in a mortgage with a Common Wallet? what's the relation to that acquiring property, if there's no financial future perspective. i'm curious about this. in Berlin, artists live a precarious life of the now. i'm thinking about the person who left because she could not redoe her kitchen. it should be possible then. i mean, i'm going to die financially poor but safe in the Common Wallet...

Tiziana: it's on the table, this issue, since a while. we shared the inheritage situation of everyone, who rents, who owns... some are financial cautious, some can advance more money without getting it back. owning a house, how far does it belong to you or to the Common Wallet? we don't go that far, what is important is to preserve individuality. we haven't found an agreement or solution for a long-term account yet. there's a discrepency doing things together and individually. now it's easy for me to commit. i don't have enough savings to ask for a loan, or regular income right now. but i know i can ask the other members who have more money. some are investing time in land and bought a common house, but not with the Common Wallet, so it's very separated from the future. what i'm building here is the ability to learn how to share and rely on others, so the stress is less strong as before, for me.

Siegmar: i don't want to become an owner. i found interesting the twist in there, on one hand there's immediate safeness, and on the other there is consideration about how to relate to money and society, i find interesting that it goes in different directions.

Tiziana: totally, i think about one member who just subscribed to a pension, a life insurance, she's not an owner, but it's how she sees the future. it's her decision, we're happy she find her way and that the Common Wallet could help.

Xenia: while you were speaking, a lot goes inside of me, just hearing about it, one i was interested is to accept inequalities so the differences, instead there is solidary. i'm curious about what solidarity means in this context? the failures were when people left. when the needs don't match the agreement. what about the inbetween zone, how you deal with different needs and ways of spending money? maybe you could give us an exemple?

Tiziana: what solidarity means... to commit so that the project fulfils the needs of the others. the group makes the situation possible for each to get their needs met. of course, we talked about the buying a Ferrari in our discussions -maybe this person should preferably not work in the art field then -it's a spectacular example, but we also take desires in account, they're as much important. about the grey zone, two years ago one member had to reimburse a huge tax to the governement, so we asked if all uf us could not buy Christmas presents that year, that was a problem for only one person because it was an important way of showing love in her family. as long as the problem is addressed, there is no problem. we're happy this person can offer expensive or not expensive presents to her family and that this person can pay their taxes. the ones who can do it do it, and if not not. does that answer your question?

Xenia: yeah, it's great examples of how to accomade different desires and boundaries.

Tiziana: that's why weekly listening is important in the project, new elements come and transform each person and need, so listening to the needs help cover the grey zone as much as possible.

Barbara: about insecurity issue, you said you are worried when the account is low or at zero. so it's a shared precarioussness then? you feel more responsible for a group, or alone?

Tiziana: indeed, it happens. i'll give another exeample, a bit serious but so eloquent: during Corona, a working loop solidarity was organised in Bruxelles, artists had to find other activities to live, they were invited to meet, and someone said they had to prostitute themselves to eat. this person said also that just the fact of sharing that with the group transformed it. being alone with a problem is killing, but sharing in words to others who are entitled to understand you, then it transforms the experience. so here's the shift when you experience it alone vs many. having 9 other brains to deal with and think about solutions transforms everything. so the secretary rotation role helps to moderate. if i'm stressed with other things i can not be stressed about money on top. of course, we try to avoid having a zero account, and for that we need to transform invisible work into paid work, it's the field and the world problem, so we invest energy to make that recognized.

AFTERNOON

(10 people, Julie left)

EXCHANGE #2, MAP OF HABITS AND PRACTICES

Xenia: we started yesterday with the future, and what we don't want, so today is about the present, we gonna share what your needs, your boundaries and your desires are. and your intentions. we had a conversation with Siegmar to facilitate this, also according to what was said and exchanged yesterday, so title and practice changed and it's called now MAP OF HABITS AND PRACTICES.

someone: nap of habits?

Xenia: MAP laughs

Siegmar: we talked about the board list, what we wrote yesterday, and how to find more about individual relationship to these, and thinking that there are practices and things that people are doing, sometimes intentionnaly sometimes not, and find out what that is. i did a workshop about what would happen if you consider something that you consider a habit a practice, so for example how would it be to consider procrastination as a practice instead of a habit? what changes in the relation and the agency of it? what does it do to make it something intentional, to first of all look at the habit and not put it aside as a bad habit, and ot see what changes if reality would change, without functionalizing it, not in order to be more productive. what does this do in the world and with me? another format i've been doing, and we can adapt, we draw, we take a constellation of 3 things from this map that for you are in constellation to each other, that you are engaging with at the moment. and think about what kind of habits and what kind of practices has it produced in you and your relation to it. and then to draw a map of that. and i brought very colorful pens.

someone ask a question

Siegmar: let it be up to you. and maybe that's the conversation we can have. it's a good question about individual. it produces you as an individual body in relation to your social body. you can draw numbers, symbols, lines, up to you. we have 15 minutes for that, the first inital drawing, your own map. then in a group of 3 people, we practice radical listening, one describes their map, one asks questions, one just listen, then after 10 minutes we stop, and we all draw an aspect of the person's map, take 5 minutes for that, and then each tells what they draw. and we turn and repeat the procedure, whe shift roles of listening, asking, explaining. the redrawing takes to considerate what moves, after the conversation. so we go deeper in everybody's practices and we start smaller conversations.

Xenia: there's voluntary and unvoluntary practices, and the unvoluntary practices may call habits then, but so the idea is really to initiate the three things you're busy with at the moment, the question is what habits and practices you have developed because of these, either as a coping mecanisme or a thing that inspires you, it has all these different angles but i think it's interesting to see how the practices are coming out of the dealing with these things.

Siegmar: a lot of this circulates around the question of agency and wellbeing. some people call it freedom but it's a problematic concept i think. but the question of agency is it in reaction to or in attempt to change or...? what is the relationship to agency and the relationship to wellbeing, of the individual and the social frame? no need to answer that, it's just another component.

15 minutes, everyone focuses on their map, sound of the gong, then reflecting in groups of 3

(i go from trio to trio to listen to and have a snippet of how the exercise works, so notes are more like a very short collage here)

Angela+Xenia+Barbara

they discuss Angela's map

Angela: it was hard to pick 3 words, i made packages, RESTING gives me deep shame, it's also a huge topic in my work, my bed is central they switch to german ...CLASS/ABLEISM... i wanted to play tennis when i was a kid but had no economical environnement for that desire... CAPITALISM and glorification of destructive behavior... "STAY SICK". drawings on the sheet: nature, a bed cover and a fist coming out of it but also a tree and some water. your body is political, how can i manifest from my bed?

Roni+Laurie+Agata

Agata's map shows CLASS in the middle of the sheet / pretending the future does not exist / thinking about others / wanting to improve myself, and Laurie and Roni react

Laurie: time is also a ressource, the term "back" came often, "who has my back", it's linked to body and security...

Roni: we have opposite coping strategies, i wrote "everything is so exciting". to rename and redefine is a form of healing...

Laurie: my map is messy. DISCONNECT: i'm coming back to Berlin (earth, contact with family in Canada, home) TAXES: (financial) during pandemic in Australia i could not do artwork so i learned new skills, sign langage, composting and somatic trauma therapy, i feel it's deeply informed in my artistic work... physical movement is essential to my well being but i don't do it enough.

Roni: what is your relation to discipline?

Agata: trees connected communi through micellium and roots, even if not visible, you have a grounded balance always present.

Roni: yeah it was almost organic how you talked about it, an active healing and interconnectedness.

Laurie: it's interesting you reflect that back to me, i was not aware of it.

Sarah+Siegmar+Gretchen

Siegmar: explains her map ...organs, this is a kidney but it can be a mushroom if you want, bubbles that can burst quickly, these harsh paralleles are practices of interruption, sometimes they unvolontarily cut what's supposed to be soft, and this is more about how can we build something else to be in the world...

reformulations by Sarah and Gretchen

Sarah: i saw wetness everywhere, the all system leaks constantly... this is an intentional space, and here there is an anarchic one.

Gretchen: i was touched by the wripple, going out but also up, and what i interpreted as a bubble, and how they intertwined, and the softness... the floating nets could be breaks up of what comes after the body...

talking about Moebius clouds and pancakes and energies circulating

NEED EXPRESSED FOR EXAMPLES from each one experiences BECAUSE THESE DISCUSSIONS AND CONCEPTS ARE SO ABSTRACT

Sarah: some of these habits are not even mine.

Siegmar: what are the things i do that are implemented by my surrounding? do i want them? can i change them?

DAY 3

10h00 - 10h30 coffee + arrival
10h00 - 12h00 INPUT #2, SPIN
12h00 - 13h00 lunch break
13h00 - 14h30 BODY #2, ANGELA

MORNING

(11 people)

INPUT #2, SPIN

Sarah: i can do my presentation two ways, a very theoretical one and a very much concrete?

all: concret!

Sarah: this morning it's the presentation of SPIN, it's very much correlated to the Common Wallet, on a different angle. so we'll talk then we'll navigate the material together -some already know that presentation. SPIN is the official producer of Backbone, there's a financial relationship. it's all about how to turn things around so the governement think there's a collaboration. we're good, everybody's cosy? so SPIN is an organisation borned in Bruxelles 10 years ago, created by three artists of the performing scene, HB, KM and DP, when artists questionned how to make work outside of a company model that was done, in the beginning of 2000, all over Europe. in Belgium in particular the answer to that need for this artistic practice was what they called production büros, offering services to artists, but it creates then the gate keeping of the gate keeping of the..., one more layer of burocratic trouble for the artists to be able to reach the tools they needed. these three artists started a büro but in this they could not make long term decision about their own money, it was a project based system, that actually did not fit their art practice -the system does not fit everyone. they are very slow makers, H. produces a piece every 10 years, K. every 5 years, it was very stressful, they could not fit their own tempo inside the tempo proposed by the governement and the production system. how to build a long term support structure that can facilitate work in long term scale, that was their question and the basis of SPIN. it was 10 years ago. i came in 7 years ago and joined the second republic of SPIN. the first republic of SPIN was a very simple model: three artist, one producer, working to get Basisförderung, and then applying for fundings for the projects the artists wanted to make. and it failed in a second, the producer burned out, not cool, bodies on the floor. that's when i came in, and we enter the second republic of SPIN, that was a moment of restructuration, in

the artists life and also in the general artistic environnement, performing art in the north of Europe in 2018 went under a major crisis, everyone talking about austerity, artists were said they could not tour anymore, and at the same time a lot of european money funding circulates, just for the big companies to be used, and this create a lot of confusion. at that point these artists are quite established, they have visibility power in Bruxelles scene and internationally, they're doing great, so the situation and needs are very different when we design the second republic of SPIN. the second SPIN we have this clear vision to support long term artistic practice, research, between projects fundings, the only way to do it is to really look at each practice and to meet each individual need. that's why having one producer for all will never work. so every artist receives 15 000 euros cash money for a year that they can use however they want. either they need a producer this year, or to go to Mexico for research or... that was the key, regular cash money. so once things are clear, everything is possible. this is the model now we operate on. so there is common costs and separately everybody runs their own business. it works very well, but why letting it keep working, let's fuck it up. so now we're redesigning SPIN, it's the third republic, we're transitioning to a cooperative system where everyone is the director, all equal, wether we have artistic practice or not, producers, activists... and we want to invite more people.

Siegmar: so the project was founded through other projects funding?

Sarah: yes. it shows that 1, this kind of system works when diverse groups of people unite to generate tools and 2, that honesty

being an active or passive or no financial provider having a pot or not,
some are making money, some are spending money. we do not talk about our work collectively, unless we want to do it, then privately. there's no artistic control of a sort, art practice needs absolute autonomy and we agree on that. even if we go see each other shows, and don't like it maybe. sometimes we do things together, mostly activist or advocacy work for the scene and for everybody.

Barbara: why do you make this separation between money makers and money suckers?

Sarah: me as individual i know how to generate money and i enjoy doing it, K. if she needs to make 20k or is interested in making money she needs to hire someone like me to do it, so that stress does not affect her art practice, so either you carry the structure either you lean on the structure.

Roni: when are the moment where people switch the roles?

Sarah: the tempo of our organisation is very slow, it's a cycle of 4-5 years, so you commit for this period. for the cycle to come, i'm gonna have a fellowship from SPIN to be supported by the organisation for 2 years. with the actual model we don't need necessarily someone else to take my role, let's see.

some confusion, more questions

Guilia: it's a structure that precisely respond to the need of precise people.

Xenia: so any who has a pot, can use this year money?

Sarah: we work from 5 years to 5 years on the financial system, you build a sustanbility plan, so you won't need to top on. we take conservative decision about money. you agree with everybody and you jump in. if i change my committment in the middle, mathematically the only person hurt is me, if i unplugged, for the next cycle we will have less money. when i make money now for the organisation, it goes in a big reserve pot for the future. the new model of SPIN is cutting edge. SPIN applies for a basis, and has a structural funding for wages of direction, administration (we're booked as we all work for SPIN, so we get two thousand five a year).

Barbara: commissions and co-productions are different here in Germany.

shared feeling in the room that it's frustrating, and indivualising

Siegmar: so each artist don't put these costs in their project application? great.

Sarah: it's piracy, we pay the artists to be the producers of themselves. in Belgium taxes are very different, in the German system the administrator would have to pay the others and prove it. nobody invoices. it's between a Verein and a Generalversammlung so every year we decide with the account what goes into commercial and into art. we have a lot of people working to make it legally possible (lawyers, accountants...) we pay for development, a typical belgian money laundry system. when you need to transform something into cash, you put it in DEVELOPMENT. and infrastrucstures and technologies because we live in different spaces. So when you got a POT, you add your own resources, coproducers, project funding, and you can use the pot for research or writing a book or... you always give back to SPIN to the solidarity fund (used for emergencies, like the pandemic, we were able to pay wages to everyone) and the rest sits under your name on SPIN bank account, and when we design the next SPIN we start with that money. one IBAN, savings don't go under 150 000, that's the solidarity found. in the eye of the governement we are one. to distinguish we use Airtable, it's a fictional tool, to label each one's money, and we have guests. everything you do, you add it on your account, expenses, workshop fees, performance fees, everything SPIN makes an invoice for, your income... each artist looks at how much they made and decides how much they want to leave on SPIN and how much for themselves. so artist don't pay taxes on it, and others can use that money. K. gives a workshop in Vienna and SPIN invoices 3 000 euros, K. decides to be paid by SPIN only for 1 300. every 20th of the month we have the wages discussion, you send your contract request. the difference with the Common Wallet is that there's no solidarity. at the end of the year you need to be self sustainable, you can borrow more that you brought, it's supported by common savings.

Xenia: it prioritizes security then.

Sarah: i prefer not to pay taxes and support others with my savings.

Siegmar+Roni: so you don't do it for yourself, and you don't do it yourself, there's a whole organisation that does it for you.

Roni: this is what we try to do at PAF.

Sarah: some years SPIN needs a push, some years not at all. it's easy to open it to guests, a lot of people plug in, they don't get a pot but use SPIN for administration, and contributes to SPIN with a % (minimum is 3%) and leave their savings. so you learn to use a SPIN wallet and get a prepaid of 10 000 euros. it's useful for those who have no european administrative base. so now, the last generation of SPIN, we give for granted thatwe have a safety net (so we're able to borrow from the bank if the governement does not fund us) and offer a year contract. artists are SPIN employees (and you got insurance). in Belgium you pay a huge lot of taxes. it's now based on income. we're all equally present all the time in the organisation, but we can chose how much % you work for SPIN and % for yourself (you can't put it in SPIN if you're teaching at university). and we have a residency program where artists can try the system for a few months without giving to SPIN. or you can use a wallet for a year and you give back to SPIN. SPIN is one company and we work with all the structures the artists inside work with, so it's a force to support less legitimate artists.

Roni: is there anything in Berlin like this?

Sheena: yeah, we started something in Tanzfabrik.

Roni: but historically?

Barbara: politically, artists wanted to get out of the strucure system but now we're going back to discussion, we need structure.

Xenia: there's more fundings than before, in the last 10 years, and it works for the artists who make it, who cut it.

Barbara: it worked for a long time, until the pandemic.

Xenia: or it never worked and it was invisible.

Siegmar: within SPIN, these are all very established people, so there's a huge flow. it's like basic income.

talking about Tanzpark program, Guilia shares her experience about this

Angela: SPIN is an organisation that actually hacks the system. we should maybe not discuss the funding structure and how it supports us, but find ways to hack the system. so how to do that? where are the ressources to start?

Sarah: Backbone is basically the old SPIN republic.

Barbara: we got Tanzpark for a year, but we see long term.

Xenia: so if Backbone wants to apply to Vorderung in Berlin...

Roni: i know that in the year to come i'm gonna make a piece, so i can prepare very well.

Xenia: sounds like a plan laughs

Sarah: it's good to start to play with the system. in December we'll have this discussion and need to show the governement what is this long term support, and how to credit Backbone, as a co-production?

Roni: let's start to talk about this already now.

Siegmar: if we start to mention Backbone as a co-producer then we create visibility.

going back to the words listed yesterday, discussion about having a common wallet, a common PR structure...

Xenia: we're lacking curators, i mean there's a reason why maybe laughs

Sheena: i have a +1 curator. we can invite people too, with the money.

AFTERNOON

(11 people, Sheena joined, Guilia left)

BODY #2, EMBODIMENT OF PASSION

Angela: it's a crip tool and also an access tool, a way to make your production work accessible to folx specially with chronic inflammatory nervous system. how can i crip my own work? adapt the structures that i'm thrown into to my needs? so of course i need to know what my needs are. i try to connect practices of self care with artistic work. if i think about body practices, my aim is not to prepare my body for a working day but i can use this time to connect to my body, check in to my body, because the conditions disease i have is unpredictable, i have to really take time in the morning. i tell you what, showing us the screen EMBODIMENT OF PASSION this is science-fiction, it's not happening, it's a concept, my dream is in the future.

Barbara: it's a fake practice, it's very popular laughs

Angela: i'm showing this for the first time, i'm not rooted as Sarah. it started with an invitation for a residency called "New Techniques", 4 weeks, the task was developping a new dance technique. i thought it could be a possibility to take this time to think about practices that support me in a way that i can stay sick and work healty laughs. i want to crip things, i like the word "crip" because it's an action, to make my life sustainable without overworking, stressing myself. of course i do. it's not a game, if i don't respect my boundaries, i'm gonna pay the consequences so i'm forced to find solutions. it's not negative, it's also good: it pushes you to self advocate, learn how to communicate. i wanted to see if there was some embodiment i can use for my practices. so for these 4 weeks i wanted to lay down, rest, read. but then sure it was pure stress, we got all this money, and they asked to spend it. i invited then friends into the project, and i was the host of this whole group. the benefit out of this is i learned about working methods. we all do embodiment of passion. it's only a concept. this is why i cannot teach it to you, it's more a task for everybody to find their own embodiment of passion practice. if you're in a production, working with people, the first part of the day would be the embodiment of passion part (warming up, preparing for the day). the first part is a practical part, each does their own practice, or share a practice: walking in a park, having a bath, going to the studio... this practice is to calm down the system. in dancing we work a lot with flesh, bones... i wanted to work with more visualisation, how does the nervous system look like? it's only visible in a fluid, it lives in water, it's impossible to see it outside of the body. so we were finding images for picturing the nervous system, the most beautiful part of the residency for me. that's the Perel (someone at the residency) releasing technique, that we could do, it's about 25 minutes, they're gonna guide it, it's an audio. and the other part of the practice is more active, about where the passion comes from. neuroscientific fact: if you want neuroplasticity, the nervous system to redesign and heal, movement is a very important thing but not only, you need not a functional movement but a movement with an emotion, a strong curiosity or pleasure or passion. i chose passion instead of pleasure, because when i thought about what gives me pleasure in dance i have to be passionnate. i'm into sports, i always wanted to play tennis, my dream was to become a pro while a teenager. when i have physical limitations, sometimes my feet get numb and i can't walk, i have this feeling of as if they sleep. then i got a passion for flamenco, that is very feet activating, so i was executing the movement and feeling healing at the same time. if now i'm in the dance industry, i want to find the passion, create myself and spaces where i can do it. we could all play tennis now.

Barbara: we don't have all this passion i guess.

Angela: when you start a project, you need to set the structure and prepare the working space. we did too many things in this residency. if you're in the leading position while being sick it's problematic. what about your needs? how to do that: when an artist applies for funding, get the money but then does not want to lead?

going through her powerpoint

Angela: with preparation, check in, check out... so at the end of the day you have 3 hours to work on your project and that should be enough. laughs in this residency people wanted to swim, and this is not allowed to spend public funding into swimming.

Barbara: but it's research.

Angela: yeah, if you bring a swimming pool to the dance studio laughs but going to a place and buying tickets, like going to a butoh class, no. in the end it worked but we had to write an extra letter, to justify it. people where asking, what is this? why do you need tennis and massage and all this, what are you doing? for the next project i do i have osteopathy included for everyone.

everyone is lying down and listening to Perel's audio message

Sarah: i'm wondering if we can have a wrap up also of the 3 days, it's in your hands.

Angela: it's a bit backbonish, me in residency asking someone to create a practice for me, and now sharing it.

Xenia: it releases the backbone.

Angela: it's a gift from them to me, that i use for my practice.

Siegmar: i was inspired by the sentence "i try to stay sick to work healthy", i have a collegue, after a burn out, she started to introduces her needs in our work session, without any guilt trip and control, but to make them center of how we work together.

Angela: i have been invited for a group residency and the person was really caring about my needs. in this context i need a place on my own, at least for 20 minutes, so i had my studio with a bed next to the space, and after a couple of days, everybody was in there, others asked to use it too, and there has been moments where we were all sitting in the bed, talking. others benefited from it, it became also a tool, not only my room, my personal access, not emphasising that i have special needs. and it was a wonderful experience. there's lot of shame and guilt, to sneak away when others cook, to have my private space when i need to rest.

Siegmar: (going back to the burn out situation of her colleague) what was great is this stepping in culture, how you re-enter the working space, more conscious, but also more fluid. it was a soft slow learning process with that group.

Xenia: that's why i enjoy being in PAF, to have the opportunity to be part for 10 days, in this architecture, in terms of a community architecture. stepping out and in, resting in the space of the community. so it's super nice to hear that experience.

thank yous

CLOSING ROUND

Sarah: so it would be nice to have a 15 minutes closing.

Barbara: i did like the clear structure you gave, the body inputs and exchanges, the exchange could be more extended. i enjoyed the conversations inbetween. it could be longer. the concreteness we spoke about was already planted in these days and could go further.

Gretchen: i'm very grateful. i also appreciated the structure and time frame, 5 hours a day felt good. a lot of questions came up while being together, about Backbone, and how that lands with individuals. me personally i was missing an introduction to people, i'm having a desire for a little bit of landing, how we are in the space together.

Angela: i was happy these three days, there were so many accessible things for me. having slices of time, like this arrival between 10h and 10h30. i love that there's lunch also. it's pragmatic but it has a huge impact on how i have to prepare to come here. for me it has been not concrete but this is something we will build up. Barbara and Sarah curated this group of people who're meant to do what we learn. and being in a female group also was good. it was intense, emotionally. thank you, really.

Tiphaine: it was great to be a guest, hosted, and interesting to reflect, being less active here. so it's precious to have these moments collectively and share practices, what was shared was very important, and a great potential of evolution for what we're doing.

Xenia: i'm still reflecting. i'm very grateful for having this time.

Siegmar: also super grateful to come together like this again. everything was super interesting, and i wish for more. just the Common Wallet and SPIN, what we can learn from that, is super helpful. i was quite busy with who is here and not here. i share Gretchen desire to not find out what Backbone is but what it could be, what we're trying to build. so on one hand i'm thrilled, excited, and i also feel the frustration of falling into patterns. we know how to perform spaces like these. so i'm wondering. the structure was great to start and be in the room. how can we build the structure not to stay general and abstract, and what is this "we"? there's a lot of questions. i'm happy and curious how to work through them. for me conflict is not a problem, i'm super happy to have friction, and frustration. it's worth it. that's where i'm at. i'm very grateful for this kind of deep start.

Agata: i'm very happy. i like the amount of people, with Corona it costs me a lot of anxiety to be in big groups. i appreciated having this half hour in the morning, i was rushing to be there at 10. as Siegmar said, we know how to perform this format groups and topics, already, the question for me is more like if we can approach them differently, i don't have specific ideas, i have no tools for that. i found super great the exercise we did yesterday in trios. i'm part of different groups for years and i had the feeling that this reached more than all the discussions we had on how we should work together. these are very emotional, for me, emotional topics and it needs space also for this, so always the particular and the structural can apply. how we see these different things, like jalousy, how we can state and discuss them and not just pretending it's fine and we care about each other. that all the dynamics have space in the group, how we can have the entire spectrum of these movements. as a starting point, it was very great.

Roni: i relate, how this time it can go to knew places, i'm super excited and also scared it will not. i like a lot the individual shine, so it would be nice if it happens more. i really like the possibility to invite collaborators, that's really important. so thank you.

Sarah: i was very happy with these days. the experiment was to have a weekly, a very constant potential gathering, which in the beginning would have been quite utopic. thank you Xenia for join the preparation last minute. it takes a bit of faith and time to dedicate. i'm happy to work together. and yes to the soft start, Xenia you were right. we were trying to have not much time for "me time", but i do miss free conversation, and more context, we did not open that space, to enjoy each other, but looking forward this moment more open. in terms of Backbone interaction, i love inviting guests, it makes a lot of sense, we would like it not to be a curated group. so make it your own. it's a paradox, we can work through. we have Wednesdays in Fortuna, all the Mondays, we can gather. i hope for the next session that the preparation would be more participative. this is the occasion. the structure is there, so everyone can reach out.

Siegmar: how to do it, with adding people? the in and out circle makes me uncomfortable.

Barbara: people inviting are hosting, so the communication does not get lost, with a huge group.

Sarah: we take care of administration work on your name, we can't do the care for all who join. so you give them the introduction.

Xenia: i really appreciate these sessions and would love that to be continued, the integration of the body, and emotion needs the body, it really grounds things, it's great, it can be really intense to be in this kind of groups, i would love that to continue.

Sheena: (who have a kid) i appreciate doing it also and would like to join online. i'm busy with the question of how to show up.

SESSION #2

ETHICS

ON

23, 24, 25 May 2022

HOSTED BY

Tanzfabrik Berlin 

PARTICIPANTX (over the whole period)

Alice Chauchat (she), Barbara Greiner (she), Clement Layes (he), Elena Polzer (she), Elena Rose Light (they), Gretchen Blegen (all pronouns), Julia Rodriguez (she), Laurie Young (they/she), Manon Parent (she), Maria F. Scaroni (she), Roni Katz (she), Sabine Zahn (she), Sheena McGrandles (she), Siegmar Zacharias (they/she), Tiphaine Carrère (she), Xenia Taniko (they/she)
Micha Tsouloukidse (he) - documentation

DAY 1

23.05.2022

PARTICIPANTS

Alice, Barbara, Clement, Elena-P, Elena-RL, Gretchen, Julia, Laurie, Manon, Micha, Roni, Sabine, Sheena, Siegmar, Tiphaine, Xenia

STRUCTURE AS PLANNED

10h00 - 10h30 coffee + arrival
10h30 - 12:00 Between us (Roni) 
Emphasize: Questions Problem, Case Studies
During the interview everyone chooses three questions 
Bringing them into the group
12h00 - 13h00 lunch break
13h00 - 13:15 Touch and Consent (or lack thereof) practice (Siegmar)
13:20 - 14:30 Working in smaller groups / Getting Concrete - Case studies from the morning - expanding on questions of the morning (Alice)

COFFEE + ARRIVAL

ppl arriving slowly, in the beginning a bit of stress in the air bc the breakfast caterer had to cancel due to covid, but after some minutes of ppl getting stuff from the kitchen it gets relaxed and chatty

BARBARA

gives a review on the last session in radialsystem on individual practices; this time less structure, less input

ALICE: these three days are a preparation session.

BARBARA: we want to get concrete in this session. so we're gonna try to really collect concrete problems and questions, burning issues, we want to touch and go into case studies. the topic of ethics is very broad, so we don't want to just touch it on the surface.

ALICE: we want to go deeper with this issue.

BARBARA: you want to add something here?

ALICE: the idea is that in order to go beyond general notions, what is ethically good, actually open ethics as a place of problem. if we look at a concrete situation, we can unpack it and see why there's an ethical issue at stake. to separate it a bit from the making, that could be maybe more in governance, the making of rules, but also, what is the space for hesitation? how do we deal with the situation without refusing to take responsibility? this is why through everything, whenever concrete cases come to mind, note them down, so we can see what we feel is appropriate or useful, to bring forth and to work.

SIEGMAR

gives an overview of the day

on Wednesday morning, we can we can gather again and see what is needed, because last time we found we were left with so much and didn't have time to chew on it a bit more. But also this is a preparation for the whole year, and the preparation for something to hopefully build together. so it's just a way of how to get to know each other, because one of the things that came up is trust and trust building, so I guess all of this is contributing to getting to know each other in our differences.

BARBARA

on some practicalities, and suggests an introduction round

INTRODUCTION ROUND

everyone says their name and pronoun

SIEGMAR: my pronoun is she/her, and I'm trying to build up the courage for they/them.

laughter

BETWEEN US

facilitated by roni

RONI: this is a performative format that I've been using to facilitate conversations in many different situations. i think it might be useful for us for generating content for the coming three days. So we're basically playing a game where we're having a collective conversation as a group, but it's happening by two people sitting on the couch talking to each other. And these two people switch. The other thing that is important is that the conversation is happening only via questions. it's a ping pong of questions. we're trying not to give answers by formulating questions. We're trying to stick with the idea of questions. how do we switch? if I wanted at some point to not not be here anymore, I want to go back to the audience, or when someone is asking me a question that I don't want to respond to, or I don't feel comfortable, or just I had enough, then I can just get off and come back to sit in the audience. then there's an empty space here. And whoever feels inclined, comes up. And it's nice if you're inclined to respond to the question that was just asked. So we're continuing the conversation. that's how to get on and off the stage. And if one feels, this is something I really want to go on talking about, then you can say hold, and then I'll hear the hold, I'll come down, and you'll come up. it's a bit about being attuned to when is the right moment for you to to join the conversation. and it's also a performative format. So I want to share with you the performative strategies: allow time for contemplation and silence. converse as if you'll be doing this forever, make yourself comfortable. oscillate between extremes, political, confessional, practical, philosophical, personal, social. Allow your response to the question to manifest in your body and your face. No need to hide anything or stay composed. Let these questions have texture through the voice. Let the sensuality spread in the space between us. Keep saying yes, follow the flow rather than diverting elsewhere. If you do direct somewhere, do it softly. Talk about things you care about. Put yourself on the line. allow doubt, self doubt and uncertainty. Use eye contact with each other in the audience. We are not looking for answers. Don't use a question to give answers. This is not about your opinion. Once in a while, allow yourself not to be concise to get lost in formulating the question, to think out loud to thread a few questions together. And there's an underscore to the performance: we're already friends, we want to get to know each other better. We allow ourselves to be intimate and to be seen that way. We assume intimacy, we constantly open up to each other and to the audience through the gaze, the physical posture, the content of the questions. So it's like a conversation among friends.

so there will be a lot of questions in the space for the coming 60 minutes. we want to ask you to note down the questions that resonate with you very strongly. You can collect as many as you want. It can be your own it can be other people's it can be questions that come up when you sit and watch and not necessarily something that has been said but something that comes up to you while you watch. we'll share them afterwards.

ELENA-RL+ELENA-P

ELENA-P: do you know we share the same name?

ELENA-RL: can you pronounce yours?

ELENA-P: do you know the background of your name?

ELENA-RL: do names need to have some kind of meaning or ancestral linkage to have power in our lives?

ELENA-P: does magical thinking have a place in your practice - artistic, daily life, etc.?

ELENA-RL: when you say magical thinking, what do you mean?

ELENA-P: is there more to existence than can be explained by the current state of scientific analysis?

ELENA-RL: is this orange a planet?

ELENA-P: can you sit on it?

ELENA-RL: does your body determine its existence? how do you consider your body in relation to objects?

ELENA-P: If I'm in relation to the world, is it relevant that I always fully understand what my body is doing?

ELENA-RL: how can i stop thinking?

MANON: hold

ELENA-RL+MANON

MANON: how can i see the right thing?

ELENA-RL: what is right in your spiritual world view?

MANON: what do you mean by spiritual?

ELENA-RL: what framework do you use to guide your decision?

MANON: how is the world organized?

ELENA-RL: do you organize the world?

MANON: do you think my world is as beautiful as this orange?

ELENA-RL: is beauty a guiding principle in your world view?

MANON: is beauty not a guiding principle in your world view?

ELENA-RL: when we say beauty, do we mean beauty in a western sense? is it possible to define it in an intuitive, personal way?

MANON: do you think beauty is connected to racism?

ELENA-RL

leaves

SIEGMAR

enters

MANON+SIEGMAR

manon eats oranges and shares them with siegmar

MANON: would you like to have more than one?

SIEGMAR: how do you shift from scarcity to abundance?

MANON: when is the point when you feel full?

SIEGMAR: what could it be not to be full physically, but have the pleasure of higher distribution?

XENIA: hold

SIEGMAR+XENIA

XENIA: what is enough for you? when is enough for you?

SIEGMAR: how do you determine limits - in your work, in relation to love, in relation to desire, in relation to future & past?

XENIA: are all of these things you mentioned connected - and how?

SIEGMAR: what would it mean to sense, perceive and act upon those limits?

XENIA: on a scale from 1-10: how much have you become aware of internalized ableism in your life in the last 3 years?

SIEGMAR: what is the last thing you didn't do you don't regret?

XENIA: how do you communicate your boundaries and needs with people you're not intimate with?

SIEGMAR: how do you build intimacy as a way to interact with the world, like in your work and with people that you don't have personal desires for or close connections?

ALICE: hold

XENIA: i go right?

leaves

SIEGMAR+ALICE

ALICE: is action on the base of an assumed trust a trespassing of the others, does it make possible the actual building of trust?

SIEGMAR: if trust is not assumed, but earned, does it mean it comes from a place of scarcity? 

ALICE: what is it that trust does not make possible?

SIEGMAR

leaves

alice starts eating an orange

RONI

enters

ALICE+RONI

RONI: what has not been made possible for you recently, in the last two weeks?

long silence

ALICE: if we don't build institutions, what can we build that can nourish and sustain a future?

RONI: are you asking that question from a place which is the same place where you said the other day there's no such thing as an institution?

alice makes gesture "its complicated"

ALICE: it's really hard to not answer sometimes

RONI: because you want to answer? maybe you can just tell me?

ALICE: how do you build sth that can sustain beyond your own person and relationships without an institution, whereas an institution lives from the people who carry it? sth that reaches beyond yourselves and your personal networks?

RONI: when does a structure become an institution?

ALICE: how do you call something that has enough stability and resilience to persist beyond individual commitments and relationships, so that it can be accessed by more people than the immediate ones?

SIEGMAR: hold

RONI

leaves

ALICE

leaves too

laughter

SIEGMAR+ELENA-P

SIEGMAR: how do you build these resilient structures without reproducing racism?

ELENA-P: why aren't we allowed to use the word institutions?

SIEGMAR: isn't it sometimes more interesting how things work than how they are called?

ELENA-P: Why was the word resilience and racism in the same question?

SIEGMAR: how would you call a bouncing back of the nervous system other than resilience and how would you call a bouncing back of a violent structure to itself other than resilience?

people are aaaaahhhhhing

LAURIE: hold

SIEGMAR+LAURIE

LAURIE: how does vibrational thinking feel like for you?

SIEGMAR: sometimes i wonder how to sense the vibrations of, for example, the humming of the bees on the same level as the tension in the room, as the internal shaking of my nervous system, that then sounds in my voice and to ask, how can I be with that, and sense how that can actually make the conversation go in a different order. Or how can all of that be on the same level that enables something that is shaking - you know how in German there is a thing: when two joints are not fixed, one says it has "Spiel", so this thing of actually being clunky and having "Spiel" - how do we live like that?

LAURIE: how can a vibrational force that is a repetition of a movement back and forth can be a way to regulate nervous systems?

SIEGMAR: do you know that our nervous systems are completely interwebbed? how can I then not co-regulate you? and how can that be anti-racist work?

SIEGMAR

leaves

RONI: you can't leave

SIEGMAR

comes back

LAURIE

leaves

ELENA-P

enters

SIEGMAR+ELENA-P

ELENA-P: would you like to leave?

SIEGMAR

leaves

ELENA-P: was i contributing care work?

SABINE

enters

ELENA-P+SABINE

SABINE: how would you describe care work?

ELENA-P

leaves

MANON

enters

SABINE+MANON

MANON: how are you today?

SABINE: i'm still pondering about things on the last question... its really about words i stumble upon... what is the dimension between terms like boundaries and limits, what is it that they emit?

MANON: when was the last time your boundaries were crossed?

SABINE: how do you place this crossing / being crossed within your further action?

MANON: if i was taking your hand, would i cross your boundary?

SABINE: how can crossing boundaries open a door?

MANON: if you were to open a door to a new dimension, how would you enter?

SABINE: fly?

MANON: are your dreams ethical?

SABINE: in which dimensions do dreams appear?

MANON: do you think setting up a fertile ground for dreaming could be revolutionary?

SABINE: through which situations or incidents does the way you want to set up XXX for dreaming change?

MANON: does feeling the wind on your skin change your minds?

SABINE: does working in certain situations change your worth?

MANON: do you think caring so much about work rather than life is ethical?

SABINE: how and where is it possible to distinguish the two?

MANON: are you your work?

SABINE: how much does work carry life?

ELENA-RL: hold

SABINE+ELENA-RL

ELENA-RL: what if we substitute the work practice for work?

SABINE: do we have to name them different forms of practice?

ELENA-RL: How can we do things in our everyday lives that push forward our value systems without transforming them into a codified system or mode of practice that can be commodified by the arts economy or the economy at large?

ALICE: hold

ELENA-RL+ALICE

ALICE: would you like to exit the art economy?

ELENA-RL: How come every time the question of my personal relationship to the creative economy emerges, I imagine some kind of dichotomy between city life as entrenched in the economy and a rural communist lifestyle as outside of.

XENIA: hold

ELENA-RL+XENIA

XENIA: do you think that the artistic economy and working in the arts is a gift economy in relation to the capitalist market?

ELENA-RL: who is giving the gift, and who is receiving it?

XENIA: when you go to the studio, are you giving sth or receiving sth?

ELENA-RL: is it valuable to imagine ourselves as self-sustaining givers and receivers within ourselves, or is it more valuable to imagine a collectivity beyond ourselves?

RONI: hold

ELENA-RL+RONI

RONI: how do you choose the ppl you work with?

ELENA-RL: do you feel that there's a certain destiny/alchemy that bring ppl in your life?

RONI: have you ever gone through an artistic breakup?

ELENA-P: hold

RONI+ELENA-P

ELENA-P: In terms of your question about collaboration, can we learn how to productively use the word masturbation in artistic practice in terms of satisfying our own desires?

RONI: do you know that this practice was originally about masturbation?

ELENA-P: it is wonderful to realize.

RONI: how do you feel about open calls with note about identity?

ELENA-P: do other ppl owe us their current word for their own identity? can we trust they are simply as they are? without privileging certain groups?

ALICE: hold

ELENA-P+ALICE

ALICE: are rules meant to be an economy on time and attention?

XENIA: hold

ALICE+XENIA

XENIA: did you just get up because you're getting upset and you felt your nervous system on an overdrive because speaking about racism in a round of predominantly white people feels like masturbation?

laughter

ALICE: do you think that your main motor of intervention is the feeling of being upset?

XENIA: has covid changed this pattern for you?

ALICE: which pattern?

XENIA: the pattern of attention.

long pause

ALICE: does having time help you to make better decisions?

XENIA

leaves

ELENA-P: is it necessary to sit on that sofa in order to ask another question?

ALICE: how do we decide if breaking the rule is gonna bring improvement?

SIEGMAR

enters

ALICE+SIEGMAR

SIEGMAR: what would it be for rules to become an ecology rather than an economy?

ALICE: can we think politics rather than ecology?

SIEGMAR: can we think ecology beyond metaphor?

ALICE: how much do you repeat things that you have learned bc you know that they will function, and how much do you experiment bc you're interested in the unexpected?

SIEGMAR: Why is there an assumption that the unexpected is the unknown? And how can the unexpected be something that we know and how can the unknown be expected and how do we build community with that?

ALICE: in your garden, would you say that it's more about making the known common? [...] where is the knowledge? what is my question?

BARBARA: hold

ALICE+BARBARA

BARBARA: is there knowledge in the seed?

ALICE: is this a metaphor?

BARBARA: can a metaphor help you imagine a reality?

ALICE: How can we talk about something specific without allowing it to immediately represent something general?

BARBARA: can we go from the very general to the very specific?

ALICE: what did you had in mind about ethics when you came here today?

BARBARA: is ethics connected to values?

ALICE: are there some values that you claim as guiding in your life, and that sometimes tremble?

BARBARA: can trust be a value that can shake?

ALICE

leaves

BARBARA

peals orange

ALICE

comes back in

ALICE: is trust a value?

BARBARA: can we build intimate relations without trust?

roni's phone rings - time is up

BURNING QUESTIONS ON THE WALL

RONI: each person can have four questions - the most burning ones

ALICE: also the ones that were not asked on the couch

manon writes the burning questions on the wall

ALICE: what was the last thing you did not do and what you regret?

BARBARA: when does structure become an institution?

SHEENA: what does trust not make possible?

RONI: are there values that guide your life, but sometimes tremble?

JULIA: how can we speak about something specific without making it general?

CLEMENT: how do we decide if breaking the rules brings improvement?

ELENA-P: do others owe you an explanation of their current identity?

XENIA: if we don't build institutions, what can we build to nourish and sustain the future?

MANON: does your body determine its existence?

BARBARA: how do you choose the people you work with?

CLEMENT: is assuming trust a gesture of abundance?

ALICE: how can a structure gain resilience, without becoming rigid, especially in its exclusionary mechanisms?

XENIA: is it possible to talk about ethics, without engaging judgement and disembodied discourse?

CLEMENT: how do you shift from scarcity to abundance?

RONI: can we think ecology beyond metaphor?

ELENA-RL: what are our motors for intervention, other than nervous system activation?

SIEGMAR: how do we build structures - how do we build institutions - how do we build cultures?

ELENA-P: is being in abundance a place of privilege?

XENIA: what is my question?

ELENA-RL: what is enough for you - me - us - them?

BARBARA: what does trust not make possible? - "it's there already"

MANON: how can the unexpected be something that we know?

ALICE: are boundaries and limits the same? are boundaries limits?

SABINE: how are boundaries connected to pleasure?

ELENA-P: why did the words "safe" and "security" not come up today?

RONI: let's have a look at the list and see if sth is missing.

ELENA-P: are your dreams ethical?

SABINE: how to build something sustainable beyond personal relationships?

RONI: shall we lunch?

LUNCH BREAK

super tasty food from Ana Conda in the sun and talks about community projects in the countryside

TOUCH AND CONSENT (OR LACK THEREOF)

facilitated by Siegmar

NEW PEOPLE: Gretchen, Tiphaine

SIEGMAR: the format basically developed within sex positive work and how to give and receive touch. we're not going to go into the whole history as a whole background, because a lot of that is actually discussable. Also on ethical grounds. but what is really nice and easily accessible, are the four formulations that divide the positions of giving and receiving. what is really beautiful in doing that is that it separates the idea of doing from the position of desiring. normally we think the person that does desires what they do. these two are linked, but in this situation, they can actually be two different motors. the formulations are: may I touch you on your knee? And then the person who receives the touch says, Yes, you may, or no, you may not. And the other active role is asking for a touch, would you touch me on my knee? And then again, the person who gives can say, Yes, I will, or No, I will not. So basically, those are the four formulations that we're proposing to practice. And the idea is to go into pairs. And first, please, let's do a round of No. So that we really sense in the body, how that feels, when somebody says no. the idea is to really take some time and think of what you really sense, or if you can find a desire so to say something that you actually mean. So that when you know you're going to receive a no but still trying to really ask for something that you would like. we just do that a couple of times. And then let's have have a quick check in how that felt and then we go to the next round. So hopefully the whole thing won't take longer than 15 minutes.

people are going to wash their hands - then find a partner

COUPLES

Gretchen + Tiphaine

Julia + Manon + Siegmar

Elena-RL + Alice

Sabine + Roni

Laurie + Sheena

Elena-P + Clement

Barbara + Xenia

FIRST ROUND

always no
ppl are murmuring, laughing

SECOND ROUND

always yes

SIEGMAR: the aim is to come to the state that i can say yes. if that doesn't work, say no. it's about doing: say yes, and then feel it.

what people are doing: kisses on cheek, stroking arm, stroking neck, massaging back, touching knee, touching the face, hugging, tousling hair, putting legs on each other, laying on other peoples leg, tapping the back, laying on top of each other, hugging from behind, putting head on shoulder, laying next to each other, stroke hair

THIRD ROUND

negotiation

SIEGMAR: if people suggest sth, and you don't agree, you can suggest sth else - no, but...

what people are doing: seeing and touching tattoo, laying on the stomach of the other, massaging with elbow, generally a lot of MASSAGING, squeezing the chest, the arms, brushing the upper body, sitting on the lap, touching the head

FOURTH ROUND

no again

SIEGMAR: let's try another round with no and see how it feels?

ELENA-P: no?

SIEGMAR: so then, how was it?

RONI: what I liked about the last round is how nice it feels to be so precise.

ALICE: it was sometimes complicated, i had to figure things out, but it was very interesting.

XENIA: it was interesting to start with the no, what was nice was receive a no with the same feeling like usually receiving a yes - it felt like the beginning of a cultural shift.

SIEGMAR: in the beginning I was getting nervous with the no. Like, what does that mean, for me? What does it mean for the other person? And then indeed, in the end, it was an option. And it felt comfortable to say no.

ELENA-RL: the hardest part was saying no, when i actually felt a yes - felt like a betrayal of myself.

MANON: it was very similar for me - it brings me back to circumstances with social pressure, where it's expected to say yes or no.

ELENA-P: not so much here in this situation, but usually, i don't really know if its yes or no - because i don't have the time. often i recognize it three hours later. How do you make that space in yourself? Or learn to make that space?

ALICE: We can also practice asking questions with signifying and meaning that we don't need an answer immediately.

SIEGMAR: another option - i really want to give an answer, but at the moment i can't. Yes i want to answer, but i really don't know. But but can you ask again?

XENIA: i can relate to that. when I said no, I felt more like I'm saying no to it now. And that felt really liberating. It did almost sth like decompress time. And so even if I say no to this now, it doesn't mean that I won't get it in the future.

LAURIE: there was something for me about saying no, but always having a smile on my face. I don't know if it's like a typical PoC response or this sort of oppression? No, actually no, but I present this as Yes. I felt that very strongly.

BARBARA: i liked saying no, but in a in a comforting way.

RONI: the more you say no, the easier it gets.

SIEGMAR:...and the more real it gets.

ELENA-RL: I also found when the other person's no's were genuine, or real, I felt better about it. I felt great. Now I really know. I felt agency and a sense of everything's out on the table. It felt like healthy transparency.

ALICE: It's easier to take a clear no because […]

ELENA-RL: exactly. I felt liberated by the clarity.

SIEGMAR: another thing that I find really great about this is that i say no just to practice, to not have to argue for it or have to prove a point.

ELENA-P: The harder part is when someone says no. To accept that. When you realize you formulated a question that wasn't a question. Would you do this for me? Well, that instead of saying I want you to do this, and then they go, No, but that was the question. Actually, I just assumed this is part of your job. [...] Both saying no to the question, and no to the statement. And then also, what does that mean, and how we are together? i have a friend who's constantly asking for things by asking, Would you like to do this? No. But if you need me to do this, I would. So then how do you formulate instead of do that, there's tons of rhetorical propositions, like, can you please, or I need you to do this? Or, you know, what are the escalations here, I am dependent on you doing this, or I would like you to do that.

SIEGMAR: would you like to do that vs. i need you to do this is such a difference.

RONI: It's so interesting to reflect on that in the work context, with calls, emails etc.

ELENA-P: I write emails where I either say, I need this - from you - until - because - if I don't get it by then this will happen.

SHEENA

nods

ELENA-P: it's about giving back agency to both sides. I think what's important is can we find strategies how do we deal with this in unequal power relations? That's fine among each other, even fine among what's called the artists-producer relationship, which can also hold power imbalances, maybe less. How do i say: Impuls-Festival, no, you do not get your press text tomorrow. because you did not tell me so that you need it by tomorrow. I can do it by Friday. and not even asking it. I can do it till Friday. Period. this in such a power imbalance - what strategies do we all have with this?

MANON: This is bringing in the subject of threat. Threat. It's a huge thing.

SIEGMAR: But there is a difference between threat and consequence. And I think that's really important to make that difference that not every consequence is a threat. There will be consequences. Threat it would be if he talked to me that way: "I will never program you again."

XENIA: But there is an underlying invisible thread behind sometimes with those institutions, and sometimes it's hard to tell.

SIEGMAR: And some of them we bring in. [...] And I think that's really also a culture of how to speak with each other, and how to also peel off the layers of fear that all of us bring in.

ELENA-P: Also think of assumptions. what is an assumption? What is a fact - like somebody says, I need this by then otherwise, this deadline won't be met. That's a fact. It's there. We're just assuming they're not going to program us ever again, because people are not fulfilling their deadlines. That's an assumption. So I try to make myself ask more questions. And I also have tried to practice a compassionate curiosity. I have compassion for the other colleague, that there's a reason why they have that tone of voice, which is really getting me super pissed off. That has nothing to do with me. from a compassionate state, I'm also kind of curious why they are in that state. And that takes out the fear and the anger. To stay solid, in yourself, because compassion, like opens up a different state of being for yourself. And then you can say yes, and no, in a different way. You're not stuck in this emotional world.

SIEGMAR: And then where it becomes even more complicated when we're in a room like this, where there is differences in power relationships, but then there might be shifting from day to day or moment to moment. how to really cultivate a way of talking with each other and building something together? Where do we actually rehearse these openings? to avoid falling into patterns, these formalistic approaches help. we wanted to do this as an intro for the next session with smaller groups.

WORKING IN SMALLER GROUPS / GETTING MORE CONCRETE

SIEGMAR: get into smaller groups, select three of these questions and elaborate them with concrete examples.

RONI: also think about practices, or situations from your work.

SIEGMAR: let's do it!

SHEENA: three questions with three situations?

RONI: could be as many as you want.

ALICE: it could be also one situation.

SIEGMAR: it's about the conversation.

ALICE

proposes counting to three to create groups
group starts counting to three

SCENES FROM THE SMALLER GROUP

FIRST GROUP: Laurie, Alice, Gretchen, Elena-RL, Xenia

QUESTION: what does trust not make possible?

ELENA-RL: I did a collaboration in nyc with a latinx colleague. i facilitated this exercise on desire. but my collaborator refused: this is your white privilege. so this game can't be played by all people at all times.

XENIA: when i'm not assuming trust, i am really comfortable with boundaries. whereas when i'm in a relationship, or with friends, i easily tend to say "i trust you".

ALICE: rules. what are the structures to set up to not wait for the crisis to happen? there's a lot of entitlement in relation to trust.

LAURIE: elenas case is a really interesting one. also thinking about this in relation with the wheel of consent...

ELENA-RL: i could add that in that moment, i asked them how to help, to support in that white-led theatre. i was like "fake it til you make it". and they were "i can't do that. and fuck you for assuming that i could do that". i felt like "shit, you're right, you can't do that". we talked very concretely about why my work had been curated, but theirs not. and it came really down to that affect. it's sth they didn't wanna feel. it came down to: until there's a different person in power, nothing's gonna change.

XENIA: the concept of trust isn't work. there's this "spiritual whiteness" - if just i come into the space and bring in trust, then there will be trust. but this is just wrong. it's not available to everyone.

LAURIE: what does trust imply? what does it actually mean? i have trust in people, but do i / can i have trust in institutions? is there a negotiation that i can participate in with agency? it's about an embodied lived experience of trust.

ALICE: i want to stay on this but bring in a concrete strategy, regarding this "we can't do anything until another person is in power". its developed by a group of artists in Zagreb. "whenever we meet ppl from the scene, we never speak about our own work, but just about other peoples work". in production meetings, after a theatre show etc. - to make the scene stronger! maybe that strategy can be remodeled in the sense that amplifies these discourses.

ELENA-RL: i really like that. but i've seen ppl overperforming it.

ALICE: minding the references! not making it about MY work, but work in general!

[...]

XENIA: trusting that it's not trustable.

ELENA-RL: that feels like a feminist killjoy vibe.

ALICE: what would it mean to collectively build radical distrust?

XENIA: in a way, that means just assuming that the system is super problematic. maybe not distrust...

ELENA-RL: ...but scepticism?

SECOND GROUP: Manon, Sheena, Elena-P, Siegmar, Roni

QUESTION: social justice practices

[...]

MANON: we are not a family, but a community.

SIEGMAR: culture vs. structure. how to build a structure that is build upon cultivating structure. what would it mean? once a month checking the temperature? who are the people who check on you, who remind you to do certain things? but also appreciating the people who are doing it! how can an individual practice become a collective culture?

SHEENA: it also depends so much on the intention behind it, the accountability. 

ELENA-P: for me, there's two things. One is also, how do we build communities that people want to be part of without feeling like they have to? that's part of the accountability. the other thing is, I get this very weird sensation that we and ultimately more younger generations have this obligation to care, or obligation to take responsibility. And I find it really important that we honor it if we don't have the energy, like people don't keep feeling they have to pour from empty cups all the time, because that's the right thing to do. If you're not abundant, you're actually going to be not helpful.

RONI: these kind of conversations we're having now refill my cup, and that's sth I'm willing to do them.

MANON: ignorance is the most violent thing to do. for me to answer to somebody saying you did something wrong is still a way to engage. anger is a gesture of care.

SIEGMAR: conflicts always arises in moments of dependency. love is one of the strongest moments of dependency. i want to be here bc i value you for that, for this. Conflicts are so nourishing bc they don't have to be harmful, but they make me grow.

RONI: its a bit like the no-practice. And then it gets easier to do these kind of conversations.

ELENA-P: i try to learn how to value things that i don't value usually. its difficult to be "useless" for months, but i try to do that.

MANON: I want to talk about a situation, it was one of my main jobs. The production person was abusive, and it's nothing obviously threatening, but it's underlined. I observed that for many years. because there was this financial dependency on this project. very often I sucked it up, thinking if I say something i could lose the job, because she has a lot of power in the companies today. Half of the company didn't say anything.

SIEGMAR

asking sth about subjugation

MANON: there was no checking in there was nothing around these practices.

ELENA-P: by going to break open those terms, we can learn sth from the formal social justice processes. if both parties are part of the community, how do we bring both back in? So it's asking the so called victim, what would make you feel that this entity is whole again, and what would you need for that?

[...]

SIEGMAR: what structures can help in abusive situations? checking in, speaking up for others? what are the different situations were we can help others?

THIRD GROUP: Barbara, Julia, Sabine, Clement, Tiphaine

QUESTION: How to build something sustainable beyond personal relationships?

BARBARA: responsibility is a big word for me at the moment. i really rely on other peoples responsibility.

CLEMENT: in this question of trust, if you count on people who you don't trust, how to maintain the connection? how can we maintain the connection also when it's not going well? eg. with theaters? eg. in cases of crisis?

BARBARA: a very concrete example: in that moment where money came into the whole system which was so based on sharing and and trust the system collapsed, because then suddenly there were many different responsibilities entering the space. I had the feeling the whole base the project was built on was gone. so when structures change or situations change you have to adjust your structure or your values.

SABINE: i try to trust in concrete things - we have these agreements. friendship and personal relationship - they are sustainable in a longer term to facilitate things. that also touches the question why i don't put my artistic work in a university. not everyone can have good relationships with everyone. i am still putting a lot of work in space making. i decided that i don't want to fight for putting my work into a place. i'm organizing other things, but i don't put my precious, fragile things into spaces. what i trust is personal relationships. i don't trust other spaces. that's my question, are there ways where you don't burn your trust?

BARBARA: do you have good or bad examples?

TIPHAINE: i don't have clear examples, but more grey ones. its sth around being clear, allowing the ethics of relationship to be negotiated...

BARBARA:...making it a practice.

TIPHAINE: exactly. it can be based on many things like transparence, self-care, and listening to that. i don't think that there's one way. it's an intention. and knowing that it's compromised when you compromise. knowing that it can fail. its such a process and a practice, there's not one solution.

BARBARA: going away from assumptions to evaluations. Don't assume things are just happening. having a regular practice of evaluation. because in person relationships of trust, assumptions are usually right. but not with other ppl, where it needs to be practiced. So if you don't have this level of relation, another tool needs to come in, which is maybe evaluation.

TIPHAINE: For me they are good experiences that navigate around those topics. it's never 100% sustainable, but at least when there is room for that, it doesn't feel harming somehow, but when there is no room for that, then there is room for anything else that can be really... And I see, looking backwards there are experiences that fall in those two umbrellas somehow.

CLEMENT: if there's pressure, it can't be sustainable. and you can't create always a safe space for ppl. inside an institution, you see the work frame, you understand what ppl want, but outside, it's much harder to recognize.

DAY 2

24.05.2022

PARTICIPANTS

Alice, Barbara, Clement, Elena-P, Gretchen, Julia, Laurie, Maria, Micha, Roni, Sabine, Sheena, Siegmar, Tiphaine

STRUCTURE AS PLANNED

10h00 - 10h30 coffee + arrival
10:30 - 12:00 Fake Political Therapy (Alice/ Siegmar) (big paper!)
12h00 - 13h00 lunch break
13:00 - 14:30 read together Anarchist Relationship manifesto + We Will Not Cancel us then cross-read them (all together or in smaller groups)

COFFEE + ARRIVAL

ppl sitting outside, drinking coffee, having cigarettes

BARBARA: Should we start?

SIEGMAR

gives an overview of the day
we're going to do political therapy today. And then we're going to gather what we did yesterday in the small groups. And then we were thinking to read the texts together and then discuss them, the texts are the "anarchist manifesto", and "we will not cancel us".

RONI: It's just a skeleton for the day, we can modify it.

SIEGMAR: Let's also collect things for tomorrow.

ALICE: I thought we gonna do a little report from yesterday? that could be useful for the therapy.

PRESENTING THE OUTCOMES FROM THE GROUP WORK YESTERDAY

SECOND GROUP presents: Manon, Sheena, Elena, Siegmar, Roni

RONI: we talked about how to bring in the question of social class into our conversations. How to make it possible to share resources, if that's even a possibility, what are the things we never talk about? In regards to money and financial situation and all the complexity that has to do with that? Because even if you have money from your parents, you don't necessarily have a good connection with your parents. its the complexities that come in with social class. And in relation to public funding. So how much do you apply for? How much do you take from what's there? How do you make it available for others? If you do? We talked about why we don't have a dancer's union. And how do you address conditions and how difficult it is to address it to your employee. And we were also talking about the assumptions that if you address it, then you'll maybe get fired. But also we don't know these things, but we are stuck in a fear mentality of bringing things up and... how to be outspoken without feeling that this will have a huge impact on your entire career.

SIEGMAR: also we spoke about how to interact with abusive relationships, working relationships, and what structures could be rebuild, or what cultures could we build around? Speaking from every position, so even if you're not the predator, or the so called victim, how can the other witness become an active role? And could there be a kind of culture of checking in, so that it would be something repetitive like once a month or there's a forum where these things are brought up and where we collectively can build structures of calling out and calling in.

RONI: we were talking about the emotional labor that it takes to do all of that and when is it something that also fills your cup or just empties it.

SHEENA: and there was the question of scarcity...

RONI:...yes, how to move from scarcity to abundance...

SIEGMAR: ...so that these are at the same time critical and building practices.

RONI: the point about it is some of these are individual practices, and some of it are collective practices. how do we do both and encourage each other also? as we keep on doing the individual practices, we also try to create a structure for ourselves that can encourage that and even if we just do it individually, how do we support each other with that? because even just like speaking up in a circle about something is already an action, it can be controversial, and you can have impact. so how do we hold that?

SIEGMAR: there was also an interesting point that came up about how to build critical mass not in numbers but in gravity. so if you would speak as a representative of Backbone, how to gather that gravity with regards to fair practices and with regards to a kind don't fuck with Backbone kind of thing. it's not a speaking for but it's speaking as Backbone or any other structure that we call Backbone right now.

RONI: i think that's it.

ALICE: that's a lot.

THIRD GROUP presents: Barbara, Julia, Sabine, Clement, Tiphaine

SABINE: we mostly spoke about the last question.

CLEMENT: ...the shift from scarcity to abundance, but we couldn't address it, so we moved to the last one.

SABINE: the relationship with friendship and trust, are these different things, how can relationships be sustainable? i wrote down: clarity. how can we build trust by being clear and build decisions? how can we be clear in our motivations in decisions? what's at stake and what not? maybe you want something else in the work, when you work with friends, and then it gets sometimes complicated, or there's this feeling of betrayal.

BARBARA: we also spoke about different contexts - art world, curators, friendships, not friendships, what we need in order to build relationships, uncertainty, fear, how are decisions made in this kind of relationships, not being always the nice artist who serves, and how this is connected with power.

CLEMENT: We were talking about how trust can be built somehow within the personal relationships. it's something sustainable, actually, because it happens that you have personal relationship, and there is also this insecurity, because it's not based on a clear contract, it's more something floating. and if it's with a friend, or if it's with a curator that you are close to, then this can change also.

BARBARA: we tried to find concrete examples...

CLEMENT: ...but its always a bit painful.

SABINE: it takes more time, in order to be truthful there would be a lot to unpack.

MARIA: For example, you've been doing (names big international festival). Everybody knows that (name of festival director) is an alcoholic abuser. On the other hand, everybody knows that he also mobilized miraculously this crazy amount of money to create a contemporary dance festival, which is a minor art extravaganza. So there is this paradox, you know, and I have it every year when I'm invited to teach, and I know the team and all these people who work there they're very kind and very passionate about what they do. And a lot of people get so much out of it. But there is this thing. Does anybody have a story about how to deal with them? how do you think it's this paradox of holding grief? how do you feel about it, because I feel weird. But on the other hand, I also need to work, I need to be paid, I love to do what I do. 

ALICE: I want to make it even more complicated. everybody who works in that team, all these people suffered from the behavior in relation to power of (name of festival director), so he's mistreating his entire team. i had the discussion with (name of team member) every year. Why are you still here? And then it's exactly these things that you were speaking about before - it's still an extraordinary thing that is being achieved here. i always stay away from (name of festival director), except if I want to be drunk because then i meet him on his level. But it has nothing to do with working, also because I don't need to sell him pieces, because I don't try to show my pieces. that's where he has a handle.

RONI: I don't understand the last part you said.

ALICE: I think if you're an artist who is trying to tour works in (name of festival), and who is not in the attention row anymore, then you have to get to (name of festival director) and recite that you did show work at (name of festival). Yeah, well, that was a long time ago. maybe now it's happening a bit by chance. I have another story in relation to this.

MARIA: it's also the topic of accountability. that happened. it was a call out, it was around harassment and around racism, it's pretty big stuff. And he systematically refused to do the accountability. then what do you do with people who refuse accountability? You boycott. Yeah, but you cannot boycott because this is so powerful. so I feel like that went through, there was like this kind of situation...

SIEGMAR: there was an uprising. so then you can either take yourself out of the relationship, or you try to get them out of the relationship. And then you have to live with both consequences. And if not, it means how can you build alternative relationship situations with it? So if he is the mega umbrella, then how can you build the pockets underneath? But basically, I think if somebody completely refuses, eventually you have to do self care.

RONI: there's also the other possibility of really rising up and getting together a huge group of people and getting them fucking fired.

ALICE: close (name of festival).

MARIA: It's the same thing with Amazon - you have to find other shops, then you find other relationships.

ALICE: With (name of festival director) and (name of festival) - it's his private money every year, he gets himself from that. it is his festival, that's the joke. It's not just his fantasy about power, it's the structure.

CLEMENT: I was there, four times in different situations. And what's very strange for the students is, it creates something in the scene, which is very weird, you feel you have to mingle in a certain way, I always felt it's very difficult to be there in a quiet manner. this is sth we could discuss, how to encounter these kind of spaces, because there are a lot actually, without being so damaged by it. Because I was always like, either I try to engage and actually slowly get disgusted by the situation, or I'm separating. But then I also want to belong to that scene. could we find ways, by talking about it, how to engage in a way that is satisfying for us? to open up about how it feels to be there, how it could change a bit, a feeling that I will not be alone, more supported, maybe that's one way to also improve, without having to make the big gesture of calling out.

ALICE: oh, it's done, every year, part of the thing is also to accept that it's important to keep on calling him out, he will always say "Go fuck yourself", but he will still not close shop, but there is no way to go there and not have your feet really deep in the mud. But it's interesting, because when I was listening to you, I was thinking of counter cases, like positive examples. And they also exist and I think we need to... in order to speak about the same thing.

SIEGMAR: but that's always the case in abusive relationships, that there are counter examples.

ALICE: noooo i don't mean that, i'm thinking of other people, not (name of festival director).

laughing

BARBARA: good festival practices.

FIRST GROUP presents: Laurie, Alice, Gretchen, Xenia

ALICE: i think we started with trust?

LAURIE: what does trust make not possible? it seemed to gravitate towards institutional trust. elena [elena-rl] brought forward a case, from Brooklyn, a space in nyc, they were working with a latinx performer in a workshop space. And basically, as I understood, the Latin X performer did not feel welcome in this space. And that was a new experience. And I didn't quite understand why not. And they were like, well, this is a white space. And I've encountered prejudice here, and I can't relax here. I can't just fake it till I make it. I don't want to fake it, I want to be seen. So that became one case that we kept on circling around.

ALICE: Elena [elena-rl] was was reporting this, just assume trust, you can trust that if you pretend it will become true, whereas the collaborator would say, No, but it won't. I can't do this in that way. And and then we were speaking a lot about exactly what are the assumptions around the the way we speak about trust, you have to give trust, you have to invite trust, and so on. One thing I think you said, that distrust reveals the power structures?

LAURIE: it's an invisible mesh. And actually come also coming from your practice of the consent work, like, what happens if we honor the fact that I don't trust this institution? what is that the inner bodily feeling like this is not good. what does it reveal? honoring this intuition - they haven't proven to me that they can be trusted. Why not? What are the parameters where I need to be where trust can be developed? it's interesting to think about it in terms of friendships or long term relationships, you can build on that there's this kind of balancing of give and take, that can happen in these invested relationships. But what happens if you don't have that and you just have to trust this institution. going back to this bodily sensations.

ALICE: also the possibility to to approach this as a source of information and not only as a problem that should be fixed, to think that maybe what should be fixed is not the lack of trust, it is the reason for that. and then, how about practicing radical distrust, not as something of being against everything but just another way of being attentive.

SIEGMAR: the phrase of radical distrust - physically i get a feeling that this is dangerous - because i think thats whats happening all around us already. from a physiological and neurological point of view, trust is the thing that lets us experience safety. if that is destroyed, or if that is disappointed, or that gets cracks, and we start experiencing the lack of that thing... the only reason why I'm saying this is, I wouldn't call it distrust, I would call it criticality, or being attentive or really transparent etc., but I find to bring it to distrust, and to put that as a value, that's what all these practices of exclusion are about.

ALICE: everything you say makes sense, but on the other hand, we were trying to wrap our heads around asymmetry and inequality and how to change this and how to change the fact that some people, we will have resources for the possibility to assume trust in a way that other people will find it much more difficult and that this is a standard.

SIEGMAR: if we're building culture and language, then distrust is not a word...

LAURIE: a reference that came up was feminist killjoy, the melancholic migrant, the unhappy queer - language is really important here, but it's about understanding what these imbalances, hierarchies are.

ALICE: to get away from the loneliness - what can be a solitary practice? trust is related to safety... merde what was it? what is the word?

SIEGMAR: queer migrant

laughing

LAURIE: maybe it's about im unhappy because i can't trust, and how can i be happy?

SIEGMAR: maybe it's also about unpacking what we mean by trust - do we mean the same thing?

ELENA P: i was listening about this, i didn't find it so helpful for my work. Why are we immediately talking about having to have this intimate relation of trust, for example in institutions? I'd like to introduce the words expectations and assumptions. If we can all learn to be very explicit about our expectations of each other and our assumptions of what the other is going to do for us, or we're gonna do for them, then that starts to build a basis that will be clear. And then there's no disappointments happening. Because how is the other person supposed to know what my needs are? it's a little bit more of a non emotional, pragmatic approach. trust is this huge thing... it's a little bit more pragmatic, and it's about negotiating. i would like to shift that as a possibility - not immediately going to trust relationships.

RONI: it's about being trustworthy - there are actions that need to be taken in order for me to trust.

ELENA P: if you have a negotiation of expectations and assumptions, and then they agree to something and don't fulfill that, yes, then we're moving on to the next discussion about trust. but it's not immediately on the table. I want this, I give this - there is going to be a gap in there all the time. Talk about the gap openly, people become trustworthy to your emotions.

ALICE: in this example of the workshop we talked about - there were two young artists - how do you present your work and gain interest from the theatre? so before there was even the possibility that they would want your work, the question was "how to make them see you and be interested". and then the one collaborator was like "we just go pretend and feel very self assured", and then the other was: "I can't. you know, they will not listen to me in the way they do to you". it's another modality that is not accessible to me in the same way. And it's very concrete.

ELENA P: from what you're saying, I don't hear the fault immediately, automatically with the institution. I don't think it's anybody's fault. it needs a lot more spaces that we don't have currently to acknowledge that there is racial trauma, there is gender inequality, there's all kinds of things which inhibit people's ability to just say here I am. obviously, they've had experiences where they think, and probably rightfully so in an American context, that they will not be heard. They also haven't first found out if the institution does it, it's completely different if they've been there before and already experienced an actual bad behavior, and then they react, I think that's a difference.

SIEGMAR: But this is again pointing towards victim and doer, and what I really think - the responsibility is how to develop cultures of all the ones in the space of the witnessing. and then there's another term i want to bring in - its used by somatic evolutionism, but also adrienne maree brown, it's called the Speed of Trust. I find that super interesting, because it doesn't see trust as a quantifiable identifiable thing. But it says, there is a temporality to it. And there is practices that need repetition. it's also not enough to do one round of consent and say, oh, now we all consent to the situation. But to actually find out, on how many different corners do we actually have to check in again? so I'm trying to avoid the word trust, which means that people, everybody in the room can ask, I need a check-in or I would like to suggest a check-in, maybe I don't need it, but maybe I'm wondering whether somebody else needs it? And then what is this format of the check in? first of all it's about how to find the repertoire of practices that are good for this group. Because it's different in every group. so we don't need to have a generalized universal facilitator thing, it's just for this people in the room and then to start practicing them in repetition.

MARIA: i wonder... these things really changed my life, its about practice practice practice. But I'm very skeptical when we are talking about the art context, I think it's a change that I wouldn't see in my lifetime. I'm negative in that sense. that's probably what fuels me or my relationship to art making per se. I feel that there is a field of good intentions, but it is not possible within the freelance lifestyle, like cycles of exhaustion and overwhelm of trying to make these collective things, but the collective is unbearable, if you're not very well resourced. so I wonder, I come in and out of this. what are my expectations? once I go and work with (name of choreogrpaher) I’m like, forget about it. Doesn't exist here. but other things exist that can compensate for some sense of belonging, leaning in, but I have to negotiate with myself a lot, and then find two good colleagues, that I can have that. but it's not the thing.

SIEGMAR: i agree, but I don't think it has to be universal. its like, I know, I'm not gonna get there. And yet, if I do want to keep making work, how do I negotiate my being in this thing? the arts scene has so many different layers - like i can be okay with this layer, engage with this language like that? but I do need people and things that resource me.

RONI: exactly. maybe you have another circle where these things do happen, this can also feed you and then when you go to your other spaces, like another professional context where the things happen, this gives faith.

ELENA P: for me it's a problem of scalability. Can you do it within 20 people, we can do the 60? where's the breaking point? I would almost call it where it starts to dissolve again. and then, as a person who's able to trust, how can i also open space for ppl who don't have this ability to trust? like somebody who's young and says, based on my past experience, I'm not able to trust anybody anymore. I can't get past a certain trauma or something, or am super introverted. but then, how do I make communities and spaces that also include people that I don't even know how to find them? how do I reach out my hand blindly into the dark?

MARIA

says sth about saving

ELENA P: it's not about saving, though. It's literally like opening a door. I was thinking a lot about my own closeness or not. It's not wanting to save anybody. how do I make the community in a way that everybody inside, including myself feel safe, while also making sure it's open enough that people feel okay. Coming in, for example, in a community that's already existed for two years, which has its own little internal talk, and then it's hard to enter.

BARBARA: this also relates to personal relationships in institutions, you are working with people you do not necessarily have personal relationships. how do you establish a certain culture of trust? Or how do you establish concept of openness? you need to establish different means, like evaluate your action. it gets harder in an institution, I think. that's why there's always this conflict: the dramaturgical team can be very aware and open and then you engage with the administrators team, and they have a very different approach of how to speak with you.

RONI: i did racism last year.

laughter

ELENA P: That was great example of our small group that had an internal joke. So let's open up the jokes that everybody hears them. i was telling the story from the stitching textile art community, where one woman randomly said, oh, yeah, I did my anti racism work last year. first i left it there. And then very gently later spoke about how I believe my own anti-racism work to take years and it's ongoing and it's continually repetitive and the problems keep happening and you just stay with it if you're white enough to stay with it. And she did hear that, I could see her face. that's a story about being accountable for each other with gentle reminders and compassion. But yeah, I did my racism work last year.

FAKE THERAPY

ALICE: wow, the room is full of unsolved, at least processable, issues. today we want to bring in a practice developed by a group of people, which Valentina Desideri has been developing and carrying around, and it is called political therapy. So we propose to practice that for ethical therapy, since that is our word here today. the basic form is actually a one-on-one thing, and there's a few underlying assumptions. First, the patient does not actually need to be healed. Second, the therapist does not have particular powers. The third i can't remember. now this is a card deck for fake therapy. its online, you can print a pdf and glue your cards. we gonna do it in a group.

SHEENA: where do you find it online?

ALICE: Fake Therapy

what we need is a problem. in a group like this it could take some time, but we need this one problem. that will be the first step that we will aim for: to define together in the most concise formulation possible a problem that we want to engage with, something that we identify as an ethical problem...

SIEGMAR: ...in the form of a question.

ALICE: the one playing therapist plays the deck, uses it about guidance. the guidelines are: enhance what's already happening, constraints about time, relax your whole body, become a channel of energy and keep your spine long, keep the back of your neck open and relaxed. the person who has brought the problem lies down and embodies the problem, the other person uses the card as guidelines to give an intuitive treatment, focuses not on the specific person but as a carrier of the problem. So the main focus is not so much the problem, but what's actually happening between these two bodies, and to pay attention towards whatever is happening, for duration of at least 10 minutes. then the therapist decides when its done, and then discuss what happens, and then have a discussion what happens, always based on the experience. And then both will discuss what happened? When was the experience? where did you feel sth, at which moment is something passing your mind? that is a long discussion that can go in many, many directions, but always encouraged to read it through the experience of the treatment.

SIEGMAR: normally we do it 1:1, we split up in groups of two, do it, then we come back, with the embodied experience we speak to the person. it doesn't have to be that you have to think how am I embodying all the social injustices of the world, but what has does it feel like and where. so for example, if there is heat accumulating or blockages, so how do you speak from what you actually physically experienced to the question in the room? we see what that does.

ALICE: and we will all use the same four cards?

SIEGMAR: no, different ones.

ALICE: the biggest challenge will probably be to articulate the problem, or the question.

SIEGMAR:

shuffles cards

ALICE: in the meantime, we could talk about positive examples. i had Agnes Quackels in mind, she is now the director of kaaitheater in Brussels, but she also used to be a producer. and i also want to mention Jacopo [Lanteri]. for me these are people who are really at work, who want to find ethical relations with the artist, with the people they work with. with Agnes its really interesting and amazing, we are quite friendly, but she never programmed me, and it was never weird. that because I always could feel there is a natural, genuine interest. And there's zero problems. thinking of yesterday, we were also experimenting with receiving a no, and that it is so much easier if the no is very clear.

RONI: also, am i my work? there's a difference between you and your work. sometimes people are interested in you and they're not interested in your work. And how do you sit with that? what can grow from that? What can happen from that place?

ALICE: And then it's also possible that something becomes really interesting. there can be redirection. then instead of being in a seller-buyer relation, which can be really flat, it becomes a collaboration, as being being in the scene together. but it takes time. our job is not only to make deals, it is to actually nourish an interest that we all share and then to understand where it is and in which way.

CLEMENT: how could we ask a question here that goes towards sustainability? I don't know how to formulate it, but it is interesting.

ALICE: whatever you identify as a political problem.

CLEMENT but then it's lack of sustainability for me. Because this feeling of floating constantly, you never know, if something's gonna happen, or not.

ALICE: I wonder about precarity, precariousness now. I know both problems, but then for me, they're not exactly the same. precarity is existential somehow, whereas sustainability is about the possibility to build and to develop and also to pass on. maybe precarity tends to be very personal, it's experienced individually. Whereas sustainability is something that is more collective, sth that is not dependent on your individual conditions. but let's do some rounds of questions now.

RONI: maybe people need time to think about their questions?

ALICE: maybe we do several rounds with questions, where we circle back, and people can also repeat questions, so maybe we arrive like this?

ELENA P: can i propose a visual for this? everyone writes down a word and puts it in the middle, so things can be mapped, moved, removed, added etc. its more physical like this, we would build a map.

people are writing down their questions, putting them on a giant piece of cardboard, walking around, looking at the proposals, chat

RONI: let's continue.

ALICE: we do rounds, while we repeat our questions, or reformulate it, or take over another questions.

RONI: how can we develop trustworthy relationships in different temporality and scales?

ELENA P: i'd love to hear every question once.

SHEENA: my three key words: expectations, sustainability, community accountability - and the constant feeling of being alone in collective work - what do we really share, what are we committed to, how can we be accountable?

LAURIE: what is Backbone? how can we build truly intersectional spaces?

SIEGMAR: what kinds of supports are needed - without assuming it? how can i develop practices of accountability towards others, but also towards myself?

BARBARA: what about responsibility - my own one, but also towards groups?

ELENA P: i determine my own identity. to explain that: i feel this relates to lauries desire - i like spaces that allow that I do not make assumptions about the person entering about who they are. so thinking about processes of inclusion and exclusion.

ALICE: how can individual experience and collective practice inform each other? this brings the question of institutionalization - should individual practice be institutionalized?

JULIA: how to be more radical with ones personal ethics, that they could be expanded towards a collective?

MARIA: i thought of precarity - what is the expectation towards art from where you come from? how does exhaustion get acknowledged? we are embracing the glitch as normal. how to refuse flow as a sign that things are going well? the non-flow is maybe a symptom to recognize that things are not being normalized. it's like a holding of a paradox between particular symptoms.

SABINE: i wrote down generosity and / in clarity - how to maneuver clarity - and how to utter things that are not clear yet to be formulated? this goes in the direction of sustainability in the long run.

ALICE i like it, and i want to ask: how can we actually build a truly intersectional space? also in relation to language?

ELENA P: something that constantly disturbs me in our spaces, that we need to have a need to agree in a language. And this isn't actually everybody's language, and that's not okay. And English has its own history and its limitations, whereas other languages would open up other's hearts first. we also have german, french, italian, japanese, spanish... if somebody has a different word that more aptly brings in aspects that the English language is not capable of expressing?

SABINE: maybe even saying things in your own language?

CLEMENT: i put sustainability - everything is uncertain, but can we build structures underneath that counter this feeling of lack of sustainability?

ALICE: can i ask if it is a question of artistic growth, finances, or general wellbeing?

CLEMENT: i had a lot of traumatic experiences in the last years, never knowing what will happen, it creates a feeling of unsettlement. for me, it's a lot about creating. Yes, relations that create stability.

ELENA P: i hear two questions: lauries question around intersectional spaces, and the question of sustainability & accountability.

SIEGMAR: some people haven't even said their questions.

GRETCHEN: my question is very much related to accountability and responsibility - how to invite it, but not police it?

ALICE: invite accountability without policing it?

GRETCHEN: yes, exactly - touching on it but also not touching on it - both micro macro.

MARIA: i feel super stressed about this thing of raising a question - i need people to ramble in order to understand the backstory of the experience.

ALICE: maybe we can "re-flesh" the questions into concrete cases.

SHEENA: the case-studies and concrete scenarios really help.

ALICE: lets pretend we know what the question is, and after lunch we come back and embody it...

SHEENA: ...and the question is?

ALICE: sth is forming itself around there... aller lets go to lunch.

LUNCH BREAK

again, super amazing food by neue häute, and super amazing casual talks about housing in berlin
PART II OF POLITICAL FAKE THERAPY

ALICE: so we know what the problem is, we gonna get past it, can some of you come with a concrete case? then i suggest we pair up, one person explains it to the other, then we embody it, and then we pull four cards, lets all have the same cards, and then the patients will lay down. And then we will come back together and draw a map where we will be talking from our experience of either receiving or giving the treatment and through through this start to find ways of thinking about the problem.

LAURIE: what is the actual exchange between the two people?

ALICE: let's say you have a concrete problem, then you lie down, let it fill your body, and the therapist then looks at the four cards, connects with their intuition, and gives intuitive advice.

RONI: so we share the concrete examples in the pairs.

TIPHAINE: each group will have their own example.

PAIRS

roni+alice
sheena+laurie+maria
sabine+elena
barbara+tiphaine
gretchen+julia

CARDS

keep your spine long and the back of your neck open and relaxed

relax to the point that you might be falling asleep

become aware of your energy in the centre of your body

pass your hand a centimeter away from your partners body and notice the shifts of temperature

people are gathering in pairs. the patient explains their problem/situation, then lies down on a blanket, the therapist starts to apply the treatment
things that are happening: passing the hands a centimeter away from the partners body and notice the shifts of temperature, stroking the limbs, covering the head with a hand, massaging the feet, pulling the feet, laying on the patients shoulder/arm/neck, patient gets rocked on the hips/arms/upper body, touching feet/hips/legs/ankles/knees/fingers/calves, shaking and stretching the arms, softly rocking the legs, applying pressure on the hips/shoulders/legs/knees, bending the knees and softly moving them, putting hands under the shoulder blades
also the therapists are laying down on their backs, doing some relaxation, while the patients stretch

people are gathering in a circle again, alice arranges the notes on the cardboard

COLLECTING THE EXPERIENCES

ALICE: in the classical form, we would write the question in the middle, but we can stay in our pace. describe specific things that you perceived, and we will see where this leads us.

SABINE: do we name the question, the concrete experience?

ALICE: if you want to... we will just invent something now.

SABINE: there was a physical situation where i felt... there's a german term, "sich dazugesellen", for me it corresponded to what has been addressed, it was very physical: i'm here, but also myself. it felt like i was "mich dazugesellen" to the situation she described.

ALICE: as a physical process?

SABINE: yeah, it was a physical situation... and it felt like i can "mich dazugesellen" in that situation.

ALICE: it's interesting you were not laying in the same direction.

SABINE: yes... it had a different bodily direction, the configuration looks very different.

ALICE: it's not an instrumental relation.

SABINE: yes, it's more like a chain, they go like this

sabine illustrates something
elena shows the thing she's knitting on, its a perfect illustration of what sabine described

ELENA P: i'm following up on this...

describes the knitting process, and what happens if you pull on it

ALICE: So whenever it's constructed, it's a volume. The moment you undo it, it's just a line left.

ELENA

continues to elaborate on the knitting process
when i was laying there, i began thinking about my way of mending. theres two common ways to mend a hole. first, you can put a patch on top, then you hide the problem underneath. the only way to see what was originally the hole is if you would turn the garment inside out. So actually you're subverting its intention, or also its actual use. I don't like that. I like to do the second, more labor intensive process of building up the fabric, again from itself so you're weaving into it so that the mend is not on top as a layer, it is in it which allows that you could see the previous hole and it is somehow a strengthening of the original fabric. It's much more intense, like a much more exhausting process. I was thinking about these two while being held.

ALICE: whatever you hear, you can write it down on the map.

MARIA: in italian it's called rammendare. it's from a profession which doesn't exist anymore, my mother used to work as one. she had a laundry and we had all of these different people who would do certain fabrics and put them in pairs... i received the hands and holding, and the question was "how to change the paradigm from one-ness and flow to disruption", but also how to learn to find it revitalizing rather than frustrating or exhausting. and then the topic of friends and lovers come up, or strangers in dance workshops, and how dependent i am.

people are writing things on the map

ALICE: i kept coming to the question of adjusting in relation to comfort. [...] first there was a lot of adjusting, towards myself and also roni, and then i decided to stop doing that. adjusting in relation to my understanding of comfort, and in relation to what the other person is comfortable with - and how to make that truly intersectional. it was interesting for me that comfort became an important physical path in this exercise.

ELENA: it reminds me that the words safety and security didn't come up yesterday...

ALICE: ...but they came up, in the smaller sessions in the afterwards.

ELENA: it's just observing where they surface, and in what discussion.

ALICE: it's about a possibility with comfort and adaption, not a beauty or so.

people are writing, others are walking around and looking at the things written

ELENA: may i add one more? while i was laying there, i and others had a desire to be held, which could be called mother/parenting, and it is not a contradiction that at the same time they resist that, and accept that, and also hold space that it is ok to not expect others to do that for you. it's a mix of accepting the need, while not necessarily fulfilling it. i used the word mother not in a gendered way. its a certain behavior that everyone has, benevolent and nurturing energy, accepting that we all have that need, we need it fulfilled from the outside, but the question is where to place it.

SABINE: i recognized i need some kind of being hold, and sometimes i catch myself thinking what am i thinking here, can't there be someone who will just hold me, never knowing if sth could be over by tomorrow already... but also, recognizing we live in a neoliberal world, so this is how things are. the good news is we made it that far, the bad news is this is the world we live in. but accepting the need is something else and accepting the structures.

ELENA: it's about accepting the need, and also accepting that it applies to everyone. when someone can provide sth, this only applies to the now.

ALICE: i am encouraging you to go back to the physical exploration, and continue the same conversation from there.

JULIA: i was trying to articulate the problem, or the question, and i recognized i couldn't get to sth. and suddenly sth happened, i kept having conversations with myself, but then also thought that maybe Gretchen is having an internal conversation too. where i want to go is what was really nice is, the need to hold on to language and operation wasn't operating fully, because sth else was happening. And I was not directing that towards sth like she's taking care of my problem, what gretchen was doing could apply to any body. it was a way of unfocusing. and i came up with two words, urgency and connection.

ALICE: do you remember what gretchen was doing when those words clarified?

JULIA: one came when she didn't had her hands on me, the other came in the middle, it had sth to do with the knees.

GRETCHEN: from my side, there were two topics, first it was rather meta, but then it became very concrete and allowed me to focus my energy more clearly, and the meta was more of a holding, trying to hover with that. i feel we're speaking a lot about this hovering together. And then the more concrete the examples get it allows us to connect.

ALICE: i wrote "connection through concrete situations", i also heard "in the general state", it were two kinds of connections.

ELENA: i want to add "hovering together".

ALICE: the connection with these individual situations happen when they get collectivized.

LAURIE: i was thinking about the word flow while i was with maria, what bodies can flow through space, when is flow interrupted, met with resistance, but i was also hovering, i couldn't really land, because she was thinking in polyrhythms laughter so i always returned to the feet, to feel grounded, land, trying to understand the relationship to the ground.

ALICE: it's interesting that you just returned to the feet as the place that grounds. you said through which you can feel the rhythms. it's not that first you need to be grounded and then you can go and sense it, but from the ground you can sense it.

BARBARA: i can connect to a couple of those things, this thing of having the feet on the ground, in safety situations, holding, stretching, making your body grow, and on the other side holding your head. how can we create this safe spaces, situations when we feel insecure?

TIPHAINE: I felt with this practice in the room and this moment in time, that opened space for healing in that moment in relation to everything that we are busy with all the time. maybe the power of being there, not doing anything, balancing the risks. just feeling your intention - it doesn't have to be perfect, but being intended was already good. it was recovery time.

ALICE: you were the therapist?

TIPHAINE: i was the receiver.

ALICE: can you describe this again?

TIPHAINE: the feeling that i was intended, not having to do anything, going back to my body, allowing me recover. maybe it doesn't solve my initial problem, but there was sth else that was good enough.

BARBARA: i could make a lot of money, by a ten-minute session.

laughter

ELENA: i want to pick up on a very calm statement - you said, it wasn't really therapy. but also the therapist is not always right, they have good and bad days. and institutions are the same. so accepting that even structures are right sometimes, and wrong sometimes.

ALICE: but this is why it's called fake therapy: it's both calling in an intention and pushing away the idea that sth needs to be fixed. there is no diagnosis, theres nothing wrong, and also taking away the power relation. in professional situations there's also the trust in skills, which is not happening here, we just make good relationships. it's like playing those positions, and in the same time holding back from playing too well.

ELENA: in our relationship to institutions, we do this every day: we assume they have certain skills, but in my experience they often don't. And they're much more sick than I am. so I'm wondering about this and these desires, and how we build different structures that we wish ourselves to be more helpful than the ones we're surrounded by. it's extreme to say, but the sickness from the institutions keep seeping into us.

SABINE: i'm wondering about the container, the 3D of a thread thats being woven, a container thats being prochained, the thread could be undone, it doesn't have to stay in the container, thats the problem with institutions, all the disappointment that comes along with that. i'm also wondering about the sustainability of this, if this can be in the process of changing, gets undone, instead of being "verknotet".

ALICE: to stay with that metaphor, but change the perspective: it has a predetermined volume. but what if the institution is a membrane, that adapts through that what one's go through. then the membrane might be like a chain of of people and relationships, and it can still be an institution. The reason why I always bring this word again and again and again, is because I'm becoming tired in this moment in my biography with the labor that's at the very beautiful but short life of collective self organization. can we hold each other without all of this that is really draining? you see it on the face, the people who are very engaged in these kinds of things, everybody is exhausted. can we turn around and think okay, then maybe it is not that we have to stop working towards the collective as well? there must be a form that becomes a little bit less of a matter of who has the good strong shoulders and the hooked elbows. can we create that chain with more...air...? I have no idea. But these are the desires.

ELENA: I wouldn't think about that word because I live in a continual collective working structure, with the difference that it is one of the few collectives that does not consider itself artistic. I wonder sometimes if this is the difference, there is something about artistic and ego.

ALICE: can i jump on your boat? i'm also engaged in a house project, and the people who put on the most stress are the artists! it's all skill from building projects. its relaxing when it's often not the entire group. And then when you just have people who go to their work in the morning, there's a very different call, which doesn't mean they do nothing, but they have very little ideas to inject into really making things different.

BARBARA: that brings in the question of functionality.

ALICE: exactly: functionality, and what is good enough?

BARBARA: is it very clear what you're doing?

ELENA P: actually not anymore - its very open, its very sustainable. its including even artist members meanwhile. the membrane is getting stretched. On top of that, we didn't have revolutionary ideas and structures. is there a story we need to let go, or re-tell? like with marias case, that collective work is always so exhausting? where can we find joy?

EVERYONE: we dance!

RONI: going back to the body.

EVERYONE: yes absolutely!

ELENA: i'll leave this resource here.

puts a book in the circle

OUTLOOK LAST DAY

ALICE: there is no plan for tomorrow, just options, but there's so much in the room from these days. and repetition is always great. everyone have that in mind to figure out about what we will do tomorrow.

BARBARA: it's a preparation. we can also think about how to bridge to the next session in september.

ALICE: thats a really good point. we thought about this in the preparation: how can it be more sustainable? what are we even preparing for?

LAURIE: my question was genuin: what is Backbone?

ELENA P: i would like to hear your answer, barbara.

RONI: i find your answer not so interesting anymore, barbara.

laughing

BARBARA

agrees

RONI: no, i don't mean it that way. it was about making space. and now it's not about that anymore. what do we want Backbone to be?

BARBARA: it turned more towards this question now.

RONI: what is actually needed?

ALICE: experiencing these two days was already super interesting. collectivizing what is my organic community. we've all met at once before, it's different relations. in fact, it's not about choosing each other, we choose the community. i find that really relieving, i like my chosen community. that already helps in feeling much less alone. i don't know you personally, i don't know you're private life. but there are some issues that we can care about together.

BARBARA: that's why i find this question of laurie so relevant. because it's a very diverse group in the sense of not knowing each other.

ELENA P: there's been other spaces like this, and i have a strong desire to link those already existing bodies of work. there has been "Working Utopias" by Christina Ciupke and Anke Strauß, i had a conversation with Ming Poon, and there's Maria's Social Pleasure Center. I want to link somehow or at least acknowledge each other's existence in a way that builds larger resources.

ALICE: what i want for this is a journal, that can be passed around for other people, to be inspired, maybe a blog? a resource that might lead to other people joining.

TIPHAINE: today i thought of the calendar on the website, to share all of our events.

ELENA P: i love blogs and zines and thinks. AND it brings me back to my major problem: when i have to write it down, i always wonder with this translation, it feels like a limitation, a flattening.

ALICE: i will try to remember and find and bring "walking theory" from the early 2000s on self organization. they asked many different organizations and groups all the same questions, like how are you structured? How is decision making going, you have money, where does it come from? what do you do, what is shared? just to see this as a panorama is already so inspiring.

ELENA: i would love to ask institutions more of the same questions, so to continue that role.

ALICE: yes, let's make a new issue of this. maybe tomorrow we can ask all these questions tomorrow, what Backbone is? For me at the moment Backbone is this being... it is the promise that it becomes this and that.

ELENA P: i got that funding for a series of talks on the subject of degrowth and desire, and I really wished to integrate that here. I really want to somehow at least have some connecting threads to each other. How we can keep each other's integrity intact. [...] it's very random that I came here.

BARBARA: yes, there's so many different projects happening altogether.

DAY 3

25.05.2022

PARTICIPANTS

Barbara, Clement, Elena-P, Julia, Micha, Roni, Sabine, Sarah, Sheena, Siegmar, Xenia

STRUCTURE AS PLANNED

10h00 - 10h30 coffee + arrival
10h30 - 10:50 Intimate micro lectures (2 x 10min) - invitation to process (Siegmar)
10:50 - 11:10 Plenum summary on what the burning issues are now, each reporting on issues told them by their lecturer (2' each)
11:10-12h plenum continues
12h00 - 13h00 lunch break
13:00 - 13:10 make the groups on burning issues
(13:10-13:25 Touching as a way of listening?)
13:25-14:30 smaller groups on selected burning issues - draft plans to work on those issues

COFFEE + ARRIVAL

INTIMATE MICRO LECTURES - INVITATION TO PROCESS

facilitated by siegmar

BARBARA: welcome back. we kept the last day quite open, let's discuss what to do. we thought of the micro lectures, but yesterday we didn't find the big question, so it's all open again how to continue. how do you feel to continue?

ELENA P :there was one big question from laurie: what is Backbone?

CLEMENT: for this, I would like to hear from different perspectives what are the needs in relation to ethics? it would be a good step for me to see how to move on.

SHEENA: for me concretely that would be great, there were things like meeting points, a reunion, support systems, calling in and out, for me it would be great to have sth concrete. maybe using the micro lecture for this?

SIEGMAR: i can explain what the format is. it's called the intimate micro lecture, and its about, for example, talking about your next project, and you have a certain language around, and you keep repeating repeating repeating. and the question is how can i learn other words, and how can I do that in relation to somebody else? the proposal is simple: one person speaks, the other listens, and the person who listens decides where they wanna be spoken to. the mouth should not be further away than 20cm. but it can also be much closer. for example speaking to the knee, or the neck. what's also important is that the person who listens, doesn't say anything, not even hmmm-hmmm, because the body will speak anyway. So then you start speaking in relation to this body. the other thing is, its gonna last 10', which is a long time, so at some point you have to figure out how to continue. try to focus on one topic, one need. and then when we gather, the person who listened will present it. so it's a way to collect needs and possible support structures. and then we can make cluster groups. topics like unions, support clusters, pr for other people, and then in the group situation we could dive into it.

XENIA: that made me think of another proposal that we didn't do, the bag of needs. maybe it would be interesting to have a step before that. the bag of needs is basically a format to use in every kind of collaborative situation where you encounter or are about to work with someone else. And everyone takes a certain amount of time to write down what they need, what their intentions are, also what they bring and what their boundaries are, in relation to this particular situation that you are envisioning. it's less about lunch break, but more about what do you need from...

SIEGMAR: ...what do you need from Backbone?

XENIA: ...yes, from Backbone, but is specifically in relationship to this ethical framework? so that there is, before we go, a kind of pathway from the individual, starting from the individual needs.

RONI: maybe i have a need that Backbone doesn't want fulfill, does it have space here?

SIEGMAR: absolutely.

XENIA: i think thats why it's nice to start individually.

SIEGMAR: exactly. let's do both, but i would really encourage you to chose one need, even though i have more.

XENIA: my proposal was to have some introspection before, like 5' of brainstorming, as a supportive round. i find it really helpful to bring the three together: needs, intentions, boundaries, because I feel they're very tightly interwoven.

BARBARA: it's just speaking, the listener doesn't take notes?

SIEGMAR: you offering yourself as a listening body.

SHEENA: let's do it!

INTROSPECTION SESSION

GROUPS

siegmar+sheena
xenia+julia
sabine+barbara
roni+clement
elena+sarah

SARAH: 10' is an enormous amount of time, should we make it shorter?

SIEGMAR: thats the point... it's an enormous amount of time to get lost in your thoughts and kind of figure out what else comes up. but should we make it shorter? ok, let's do 7'.

micha gives sarah a recap from day1+2
sheena is laying on her back, siegmar are laying behind her and speaking to her head
sabine is sitting with her face on her knees, barbara is sitting behind her and talking to her back
roni is sitting against the wall, clement is sitting next to her and speaking to her shoulder
julia is laying on her back, xenia are laying next to her on their stomach, speaking to her ear
sarah and elena are sitting next to each other on the sofa, sarah is talking
people are whispering intimately, its hard to understand anything from afar, and it feels intruding to get too close

timer

SIEGMAR: now the listener decides what do they wanna be spoken to.

siegmar are laying down, sheena speaking, laying with her head on their chest
sabine laying on her side, barbara speaking from behind her back, with her head on her hands
clement sitting against the wall, roni sitting next to him, speaking to his shoulder
xenia laying on their back, julia laying behind them on the side, speaking to their head
sarah and elena are sitting next to each other on the sofa, elena is talking

timer

SIEGMAR: how should we do it? should we put another paper, and collect it there? or just put in on the cardboard here?

RONI: i think the other paper is too small. its nice to have the mapping option.

SARAH: i have an idea. maybe we have similar needs, and then you get a longer piece of paper.

SIEGMAR: but we could just shift them together.

SARAH: my brain is really badly working.

laughing

XENIA: it's like a graph, a mural board.

CLEMENT: there was sth huge in the response of my body. it just came to my mind, we could also shape the words into a thing that feels like homemade material.

SIEGMAR: should we just collect them, and then arrange them later?

ELENA P: i just wanna add this to clements idea, i really liked it.

starts to walk on the map

XENIA: it would be very nice to hear everyone just say it first.

RONI: that's what will happen.

SIEGMAR: the person who listened just gives a short summary of what they heard and puts it on paper. And then we look at them. And then we start making clusters and put them to [...] whatever we wanted.

ELENA: I would find it helpful if I'm only repeating what I heard and somebody else can help me to make notes.

SIEGMAR: great.

SIEGMAR: it's a huge responsibility. i can start with what i heard from sheena. two main words were world building and loneliness. how to find ways to speak and articulate this sense of loneliness, especially in collective processes, where might that come from, what it would need to not feel it. this would be a commitment, but different ways of commitment to collective world making, but also how this world making can be bigger than a project, go beyond it, imagining a future together.

SHEENA: the main word i heard was accountability. siegmar came with a concrete need, a frame of whoever shows up, coming together, to come together around these questions of how to be accountable as a person, how can you be accountable for yourself, how to be in this complexity of decision making, saying yes or no to sth, how to hold the space for each other, as sth regular, a practice, a practice of being accountable for one another.

XENIA: the tow big words of julia were continuity and gathering. gathering, as in which way it is different to community, like coming together in a regular basis, for example coming together for dinner once a month, that there is a continuity of coming together, asking of what we have in common, of what brings us together, and at the same time not knowing exactly what this is.

JULIA: wow!

XENIA: gathering, continuity, unknown - asking a question and not knowing the answer, an unknown common.

JULIA: what i heard from xenia - i heard that they were talking about a structure that can happen in a long term, and that the beginning, the entrance to make this happen could be by putting more attention to spending time together, also this time is spent together through the practices we can share, and thinking about it as sth that goes beyond one year, a structure that is connected to specific people, but also that can open up to another constellation. what was also quite present was the word commitment, a commitment to a common ethos, practice, that could lead to a collective. 

RONI: i will continue with sth similar, with clement, what i heard. the words were sustainable, and collective, and the wish is for a sustainable collective structure, that is somewhat independent of funding bodies, so you can continue working independent on funding, in terms of space, administration, and then something like collective success rather than individual success, and another thing is working longterm and continuous, without getting stuck, but rather also opening up, inviting.

CLEMENT: can i add sth, is that part of the game?

SIEGMAR: no, no.

laughter

XENIA: can i add sth? can you also put "opening up" please.

SARAH: i love this.

CLEMENT: i would correct it...

SIEMGAR: ..its on the table already.

laughter

XENIA: we're responsible for your success.

CLEMENT: im relieved.

laughter

CLEMENT: what i heard, she was talking to my heart, my diaphragm, it was about creating a context for her work to be in, to not be an isolated artist, which is due to the pandemic, but also before that, both supporting and responding to that context, she mentioned a community based project with an afghan woman where she would have liked to have more support, and where i could relate to was a need for a sense of dialogue.

XENIA: i also wrote down "a context to make work in".

RONI: thats good.

SIEGMAR: sarah should just write what she writes, and then the others could add.

as sarah is making posters for everything that is stated

SABINE: maybe we continue. barbara was picking up on... feeling isolated, feeling like the one that shoulders things, and then i remembered she asked me to speak to her shoulder, starting from a situation were she wants to change sth, but not being part of a collective of producers, so it's about finding a way to create a structure where it's not that you have the feeling that you shoulder everything, and that it breaks in the moment when you don't shoulder it anymore...

mobile phone interruption

SABINE: ...i remember there was a moment when i physically felt my own structures, and then there was a moment when it was liquidized a bit, which was when she talked about the function of Backbone, the concrete things, related to the question of yesterday, how stretchy can the membrane be. Is this structure about aesthetics? Or does it not matter? Is it even healthy, that it's not about aesthetics, any aesthetics that are shared? then we can actually come back to the relationship question. Is it maybe also very good that it's not based on personal relationships? is it about a big number of people or is it about a very small number of people so that it can be hold? what what does it hold? And how can it still stay extremely flexible? and one thing that is also very important: what can we exchange? it's not about producing and being an artist, this should not be the border, the membrane.

[...]

ELENA: I would like to also include people that do all the other practices that also involve the art that we make. It just incidentally happened to a bunch of producers and a bunch of people who happen to stand on stage are the people who do the admin of this here.

XENIA

summarizing her paper
it says membrane stretching / flexible including all / different practices of making.

BARBARA: what sabine talked into my shoulder connected very well to my needs, being responsible by oneself, being the one who is always initiating things, and she brought many examples of doing things by herself, the fear of putting all the energy that is left in the structure and not having energy for own projects, this discrepancy, not having energy for the things that are needed, wanted, like art. also being in this space, even though she knows people from that context, she doesn't know many people, it's not a chosen community, she felt a healing process in that regards. sharing intimate things in a round where you're not friends.

SIEGMAR: a community of practice rather than of chosen friends.

ELENA P: sarah told me she likes having lots of needs, but then she decided to speak about one of them: sophisticating communication, to have more awareness of how oneself and others communicate, communicating and performing kindness. Not only in our work environment, but also for example in a post office, not only with other people, just genuinely with things around us and how we approach things.

BARBARA: performing kindness?

RONI: that's not a need.

BARBARA: just kindness.

ELENA P: i also have to say we didn't keep to the rules, it was more a dialogue.

SARAH: yeah, its true. elena spoke excessively about the need to slow down, in a sense of facilitating the possibility of either extending yourself into a practice that you don't know or extracting yourself from a practice that you need to look at from the outside. so it can be listening to yourself in the sense of, actually, what do I want to eat for dinner? or stopping something because the capacity is not there anymore. To hold things together. if I have to focus on what was the need that was named, it was the need of having this ability, which had a strong time element to it. So I would say slowing down, and at the same time the need to manage one's own capacity.

ELENA P: i like it, i like the wording a lot.

XENIA: i wrote "slowing down (extending yourself into a desired practice and extracting yourself from others)".

ELENA P: can i add sth, like the word reduce?

RONI: adjustment?

XENIA: attunement to individual capacities.

ELENA P: on first day i was saying that I was observing why we didn't use the word safe and security. And I just realized afterwards i said the word subversive, that nobody needed to say subversive or guerrilla or any of this, it hasn't happened. just an observation, somehow it wasn't in the space. And I find this really interesting, because it often is in similar discussions.

XENIA: i want to throw in one more word, it's the word of autonomy, which is really huge for me. this thing of being autonomous and in community, or being autonomous and interdependent is something that I heard a lot, because it really addresses this topic of loneliness. And this paradox of how to be autonomous and also be part of something. So I was wondering if I could write it on another paper?

ELENA: it has also a relation to kindness?

XENIA: i really feel it's belonging?

RONI: do it!

SIEGMAR: ten more min to lunch. we can look at them and then make groups for when we come back.

RONI: should we do the silent mapping? creating islands without talking?

everyone looks at the words, they get arranged silently

ELENA P: i removed myself because the trickster energy is gonna carry me away.

discussions around how to structure the things, how to put them together

SHEENA: so there is three groups? so then after lunch we go into these groups?

RONI: and it would be good to share before we leave.

SIEGMAR: I have the need to really think of concrete examples of what could that be. when I am just gonna take my example, accountability. I'm thinking within all layers, so from the macro Union Building - fair practice guidelines - to what is it actually to practice commitment in a group that we know is not going to show up every month? And how can we find ways to sense this commitment? Or what are the possibilities of thinking them, even for people who have, for example, not showed up until today? I think, for me it's really a continuous rehearsal of that. what are ways of communication? how do we address things? How do we bring them to the group? it's not like there's an accountability group that starts policing everybody, but what else is that? also, because next time we have governance, and accountability? So hopefully it gets more and more practical. And concrete.

SARAH: lets maybe try to be really sharp and come up with a practical proposal, for example for the next six months...

SHEENA: ...or longer.

SIEGMAR: also in relation to people who didn't come, where i might build up not so nice feelings, what could be commitment in this group that is practical and real, and feeds into the group even though I'm not here?

CLEMENT

asking about what Fortuna could be

ELENA

asking about these meetings and other people involved
I'm noticing how I'm emotionally confused about it. And how I feel about it. You're saying there's people in the mailing list and i've got an email so on. This is me having a fun weekend, i guess it would be nice to be more expansive.
some people are stating that it's confusing for them as well

SIEGMAR: it's very typical when we come in and think we are not part of the group. how can we take these questions seriously and resolve them for the time being together?

ELENA P: related to what, we also talked about this question of trust and presence. How do you build a certain presence in the space, if people are changing on a daily basis, they have to leave. And at the same time, wanting to give people maximum freedom that of course, they have other shit to do and other responsibilities - like how to balance that?

SHEENA: its all of those things here on paper - it's a shifting landscape, what to lean on?

BARBARA: it's not only about trust, but trustworthy relationships, which are not necessarily based on personal relationship or friendship, but on a different level of commitment.

ELENA P: and also acknowledge that they are personal relationshops in that place, which do inhibit what you're saying, because you might feel if I just say sometimes what I say off the record, it will maybe come out wrong in a way that somebody takes it weird. I really noticed that yesterday, I had this myself in a moment. I noticed it really came up when we were talking about racism. do I start to censor and police my language based on who's in the space and I don't want to be known as an asshole - on the other hand, it's good if we can openly talk about these things.

[...]

ELENA P: may i add one? honoring the anxiety?

SHEENA: this thing connected to commitment, that I'm starting to not feel so kind towards others. how do we practice other forms of commitment? Or how do we understand commitment, is commitment only based on presence? I think about that in relation to these other connected projects that I have. Is it only about showing up? And that means that you're there? You're trustworthy? You're present? Or what other forms or value can you install? If you don't show up, but you put in money? what do we recognize as commitment? And then how is that connected to value? and how is that connected to judgment, expectations, assumptions within also this group. it was set up here, but now we have these entanglements, we're working towards more autonomous structures within it outside of Barbara and Sarah. But then, can we start to name what what we expect in terms of commitment?

SIEGMAR: it's also important that we can bring, test, and let down things again, but it's important to keep the loop going.

CLEMENT: i had an experience in a collective situation like this. it depends how the resources of the collective, how are they used by individuals. and then there's this thing, I see someone is personally using it, some others might also feel that I don't trust anymore.

SHEENA: What do you mean, I feel like I am totally personally using this?

CLEMENT: what is the relation to the artistic success as an individual versus the collective trying to build something that is long lasting? why do I choose to be here and not with my work?

SHEENA: you're making a decision that this is not your work? Or this is?

SIEGMAR: How can it be as well as? How do I use it for my personal idea of success, and contribute to the practicing of collective success? for that it has to have some kind of critical mass already. that's what is interesting for me, because I have a lot of collective things that crumble every time because of these premises that we have of what productivity is. i fear that if we base it on the same premises, it's going to crumble. so I'm really interested in finding out, what are the new, the other ways of articulation?

SABINE: And for me, this is where the membrane comes, and the long term. for me, it was a long term trust and that things don't have to be named all the time, but can also be there.

ELENA P: how can i radically think of everything i do as desire? for example taxes. and what to do when i recognize i don't desire sth? shifting from the responsibility to choice. My desire is to eat something now. is it time?

BARBARA: it's absolutely time to eat something!

LUNCH BREAK

video link

SAME CONSTELLATION OF PEOPLE CONTINUES

ALTERNATIVE STRUCTURE

SARAH'S PROPOSAL

SARAH: let's get closer to the board in relation to the questions. as a mood board, like how much am i feeling represented.

SIEGMAR: can we start really far away?

people start from the periphery of the space, slowly approaching the board, rearranging a bit

SARAH: nice, let's make a quick mental picture.

SIEGMAR: let's do the same with the single topics, so we have the groups?

SARAH: let's step on the groups.

roni enters

BARBARA: we just positioned ourselves...

RONI: ...in the groups we wanna work on?

CLEMENT: i haven't decided because i need to leave.

XENIA: let's stick to the things, the wording on the paper.

people are gathering on the different topics

GROUP I sarah, julia, sheena, siegmar, xenia

GROUP II elena p, barbara, roni, clement

GLIMPSES INTO GROUP I

PAPER 1 gathering & continuity investigation, unknown common

PAPER 2 commit to imagine future together

PAPER 3 long term trajectory / commitment of togetherness

PAPER 4 work continuity guarantee thanks to common support / solidarity

PAPER 5 balance energy management between individual practice and support structure practice

PAPER 6 not being the only one, holding things together thanks to a new structure

XENIA: i might need to leave the group. or i will stay, to look at one side of the equation, which is the the commitment and the building.

SHEENA: there's a lot of individual work within building a community based structure. And I think that is always a negotiation on these questions around commitment. And what do we understand as work? I cannot think myself out of it either. That's why I brought up this question about loneliness. maybe loneliness is not the correct wording in this, but I think the individual is always negotiated within that somehow.

XENIA: for me it's about individual practices. and then there's another practice which is the world building practice.

SARAH_ another way of phrasing it could be the WHAT - HOW - WHAT COMES NEXT.

points to papers
because the commitment you have defines the purpose.

SHEENA: what is it that we are really practicing? is it a practice of togetherness? Is it a practice of support and solidarity?

XENIA: what's the basis of us coming together?

SARAH: i don't need to come together just to come together.

MOST OTHER PEOPLE: no.

SARAH: the group doesn't have a relevance just as a group. i would do things in order to achieve sth, for example basic income.

SIEGMAR: no, that’s not what we're talking about.

XENIA: so maybe we really have to define it what brings us together.

SIEGMAR: on the one hand, that can be an individual case, that is that somebody has a need to have somebody to bounce back a tricky situation that they're in, which could be negotiation with collaborators, negotiation with producers, with institutions, or law. Or then, for example, the basic income, or the fair practice guidelines, something beyond the individual case study, something that we want to start developing for Berlin. but that is not something that we can solve immediately. That's a long term thing, building, lobbying, making policies. Understanding.

SARAH: maybe here's the misunderstanding. the way Backbone is proposed is to offer resources where usually no resources are there for. the more money we have, the more we can achieve - for example three months completely off work. another option: we come and pay for research when someone is out of production. or we share skills, people learn how to do admin, or be in the studio etc. its very much about narrowing the focus, and understanding what is actually a need, and what is a proposal. for example this points to papers 5/6 is something i relate to, but am not interested in.

SIEGMAR: it's interesting how you frame Backbone - as sth that realizes things. but this is just one understanding, other people need it to be sth else. one proposal is for example: lets make it a structure that equalizes the lacks. basic income or invest in sharing skills are two very specific proposals. but what i've heard was much more mixed than what you said. it can be really interesting to differentiate between a project and a container.

XENIA: this is interesting because it helps me to understand my relationship to it. for me this is not about a project, but about building a structure. usually we come together, build something, and then leave it. so i'm personally much more interested in building something more longterm, some commitment. another aspect is - its not just about building, but also maintaining this structure. the goal is to build a non-institutional support structure.

SHEENA: but what do we mean as commitment? in that structure, how do we identify it? is it about showing up? Is it saying, Okay, you can only miss two meetings? for me this is interesting.

XENIA: I guess there's always some people who will be more active than others and building and maintaining structures. That's just how society works.

SIEGMAR: the two examples of sarah - a basic income or a research support - for me the two are very different pillars, and do we wanna think through them, or imagining a third?

SARAH: there is a third, which is a research centre. something that is not dedicated to a need, but dedicated to the need of investigation. it's to do this unknown, common and imagining a future together.

XENIA: i feel for me its always all three.

SARAH: continuity is everything above five years. everything else is just "we like each other". we need to address this.

JULIA: i have the sensation that its also about figuring out about what do we wanna commit. and this is sth we need to figure out together. for me its about understanding commit to what?

SIEGMAR: staying with the money business: this has been realized through funding. what kind of resources do we actually want to address? is it always sarah + barbara applying? is it a cut of 10% from everyone? how to make it sustainable?

SARAH: but again, for me it's to make what last? there was this idea of the shop, you're sharing your practice with a diverse range of skills and that those skills can contaminate your practice and give other resources. now we are doing this black and white thing, the artist comes and asks the admin for advice, is this interesting? there needs to be a meta investigation motivation. thats me. everyone is building a bag of things that are relevant, while we are having these conversations. at some point we'll be drawn more or less towards different directions. for today we could imagine a practice for the next months. personally i don't have a stress with continuity.

JULIA: for me, i'll do my best to come to the other meetings, and these meetings really affect me.

SARAH: but then let's build sth around this.

XENIA: but the question is - continuity towards what? work - basic income - meta level?

SHEENA: i'm missing the what - what are we gathering for, what are we committing to, is it goal oriented, what actually is the desire and the pull to be committed towards sth? i just feel like i'm missing sth of the flesh?

SIEGMAR: what is it that you are in for?

SHEENA: i'm in for more sustainable working structures.

SIEGMAR: i'll translate that in my words: for me what's needed is on the one hand a project towards creating (like basic income), and on the other hand what is the structure to share research. i have a lot of experience with the second. i'm in for the research ways, of how to be together in a more political way.

XENIA: i always wanna ask what's your individual practice right now?

SIEGMAR: i know how to build shared research, i am really interested in basic income. 2000€ is not a basic income, but it makes sth possible.

SARAH: let's do a round with that kind of reflections.

SHEENA: what are you in for?

SARAH: i am in for the more sustainable working structure. i have a dream. i want to turn the arts into a seasonal thing.

SIEGMAR: what does that mean?

SARAH: like coffee or fruit picking. i wanna work in the arts half a year. for me it's just another way of saying I need to figure out a way to relate income and time in a sustainable way. and this is something that's impossible to do by yourself. i want to do it either with the state or with a self organized group of people. this is what i want for my life, and for my friends.

JULIA: this resonates for me, too.

XENIA: i'm in for more sustainable working conditions, community, and not so much for arts as a seasonal thing, more about living and working both.

GLIMPSES INTO GROUP II

PAPER 1 slowing down, extending yourself into a desired practice and extracting yourself from others

PAPER 2 reducing

PAPER 3 autonomy and belonging / interdependence / togetherness

PAPER 4 break isolation around making / thinking norm

PAPER 5 overcome loneliness

PAPER 6 a context to make work within

PAPER 7 collective success

talking about signal groups

BARBARA: should we gather?

COLLECTING THE RESULTS

collecting the sheets of papers in the middle

SARAH: so we do a presentation?

RONI: we can start. we have a very concrete, simple proposal: a regular weekly meeting in Fortuna, minimum two hours, possibility of having lunch, and then extended based on the present desires.

ELENA P: this is a model that sheena might recognize. it was developed towards the end of Agora, but we never implemented it. the idea is that it is organized not by roles, but by tasks of the people who are in there. boundaries are permeable, and being part of one of the circles is a time based thing. there's the red circle, which means people were willing to be all in and do this semi full time for whatever the structure is. those are also the people who like to take on the tasks that are necessary for the survival of that structure. it needs to be enough people in the red circle, but that structure also allows for other people to be closely associated. maybe they want to come by often and support things, but they don't want to be fully responsible. And then there's people who are loosely associated, maybe they think it's a good thing but they only want to give money once a year. And that they also feel belonging, it's like a structure of belonging to a structure. And the idea is that you can for years being the loose corner, and then suddenly, you decide that you want to spend two years in the deep insides of a structure. And there are consciously not concentric circles or anything, because it's not hierarchical. So what's in, those things are different tasks, is that they sometimes intersect. somebody who's loosely associated could also be doing the tasks that are essential for the survival of the structure because they decide to, for example, doing the taxes. you only come in once a year and do the taxes, which is super essential for the structure, but not all in in any way.

BARBARA: how flexible, how stretched can people can come in?

RONI: the proposal also came from realizing the importance of a physical space and a kind of home or a nest, and then realizing that this space already exists for this group in Fortuna, and thinking of how to fill up that space. Mondays are not being used for example. and with the needs, there came up the common wallet example again, where they just share breakfast every week. because we're talking about commitment, and this is where the commitment is also being expressed just by being present. 

BARBARA: we started very ambitious with form, practice, function: the slowing down, reducing as the practice, the membrane is the form, and this proposal is the function.

RONI: we also kind of did it.

ELENA P: we went from like meta-meta to super specific.

SARAH: ok, thank you. who wants to do the recap of our acrobatics?

JULIA: for example towards this once a week thing, the question arose what are we committing for, practicing, gathering for? there was a round of what that individually could be, and somehow it landed into "more sustainable working structures" / "relate income and time in a sustainable way". it went back to the question of what Backbone is proposing - like how could that be possible, and what kind of practices, structures are needed for that?

XENIA: then we almost circled out, we also made a three group cluster, and then we landed at the initial idea of Backbone, and then checking what is going on now, and checking what is the continuity.

SHEENA: all of this proposed a temporality, a goal, a trajectory, a commitment. we missed a bit the flesh, the reasons to come together, to show up for each other, it was oriented around money, sustainability, working structures. but we didn't come up with a regular meeting, like how to do it.

ELENA P: everyone puts in 10€.

SHEENA: what perspective does that give us? it took us a moment to really land. these community based needs, what are they really? a structure that provides all of those things.

SIEGMAR: we could meet every monday and talk about it, but the question is, do we need to have the structure or the purpose first? and if we meet, then we could figure this out.

RONI: it could be also a container for the burning issues.

SIEGMAR: it just might need different, parallel structures for other things, which are not in the "fire pot".

XENIA: we were a small group figuring out what the group wants, and we came to a kind of common conclusion - sustainable working structures, but then... the structure would be the one of a working group, in my personal reading, it fulfills different kinds of needs, and the needs are not excluding each other. so then people know what they are coming for.

RONI: initially i thought you know what will every monday be about. But then I like the metaphor, when you read the newspaper, and then you're interested in this article, but then your eyes drawn to something else that you weren't sure you were interested in - as opposed to just a Facebook algorithm that you just get what you're interested in. that's also the commitment. like in a relationship, I'm committed to the thing, not to this specific part only.

BARBARA: bring your own topic into the space.

XENIA: choose maybe not so much the topic, but the way of relating.

RONI: there was this practice of the mycelium workgroup during MärzMusik, where the people facilitating it came every day and had to think of their own intentions for that session of that day. and that was what facilitated that session, rather than having a long preparation meeting. that was interesting.

ELENA P: another check in: not "how are you", but "what's alive in you"? another statement for the intention.

long pause

SHEENA: so is this fantasy, or is it happening?

BARBARA: the monday for Backbone is still blocked, we can discuss if we can have it every week from 10-12. sarah?

SARAH: yes, it's possible.

ELENA P: let's do it. for me its far, for others as well, but i would still do it.

BARBARA: we also spoke about communication, there's a signal group that is sharing information on these kinds of things.

figuring out who's in the group already, who isn't, and you might wanna join

BARBARA: we can open up the space in Fortuna.

SHEENA: i could join online.

RONI: how are peoples experiences with these hybrid formats? does it works?

BARBARA: no. in Fortuna we said no to it.

XENIA: it works when the person is a witness. if the person is speaking, it creates a very strong hierarchy.

RONI: should we do a check-in?

SHEENA: i have jour-fixes on tuesday or wednesday, not sure if i can commit to one more.

SIEGMAR: i also want to check-in about summer. we talked about this meeting as a prep meeting, not as a meeting that's important for the rest of our lives.

SARAH: actually what happened is that there was a weekly Backbone meeting so far already, to prepare things. so i'm surprised to hear it should be formalized more. my idea was to launch next week the call for those who want to take part to the reflection between now and September. And it's usually weekly, and it can happen on Monday, if that's something that we want to decide now, it stays Monday because it's just clear, and then maybe shifts throughout the day, according to those who actually want to show up. We do have the flexibility to do that.

RONI: for me these are two very different sessions, to speak about needs and desires vs. prepare the next session, i would not join the latter.

SIEGMAR: there are not miles apart from each other?

SHEENA: are people in town during summer?

SARAH: there is a strange rigidity here that we can just break through very easily. preparing a session doesn't mean anything. we can do whatever we want. this are invitations to gather and reflect. there is a misunderstanding: if there is a level of productivity that is expected from the meetings in September? there is no such a thing. we can also say, September is not dedicated to governance. It's just the group start now every week together, and keep thinking, and then simply in September there is an intensification. that's what the project is for - not to keep plan as proposed a year ago, by just two people, not 25.

BARBARA: it helps to imagine when the group meets again. in september we meet as a group again.

ELENA P: and that helps each person how to intersect that with all the other elements of what they're doing in their lives.

SIEGMAR: i find this idea good, to say "it is governance", but let's see what happens in between, like it happened with this session too. its nice to keep it stronger connected to the practice and where things can grow out of.

XENIA: i like a diversification of ways of spending time, i think its really great to allow for different ways to spend time together, that attracts me, even though you don't wanna prepare things but wanna be in touch with the others. it could be a nice solution to put those meetings together in the same space.

ELENA P: my heart feels really warm right now. Because I can totally identify with this. my summers are planned for family. And at the same time feeling a really strong desire to stay in connection to the process, having enjoyed the last few days and wanting to also contribute into the longer term of it.

SARAH: let's try, whatever. 

SHEENA: i wanna ask who can commit to that, otherwise we're talking clouds.

SARAH: just to remind everybody that this process has happened already. if you remember, at the beginning of the year, you more or less organized, I hope, your agenda around these four appointments. And as you can see over the year, there's people that show up in certain periods of the year and then disappear in other periods of the year. And this is actually something that we already know, who is committing to be present around Backbone subjects for this third part of the year, we know, it's in the notes. So a lot of people already made themselves available for the process in chunks, meaning that they said no to showing up every week in other chunks.

XENIA: this check-in is only about the weekly meeting.

SARAH: i'm just bringing in the capital of the other ten people.

JULIA: what happens to the rest of the people who are not here?

SIEGMAR: everything that we have here will be communicated to everybody. From the people in the room, I've heard how different people, including me, from mid June till mid August, are not even in Berlin. So for example that's just something that we could communicate on signal also. Or we just say, whoever comes comes, and then... then probably we have the thing with the shoulders again.

RONI: who can commit?

SARAH: there's a bunch of people who are willing to join from next week on.

XENIA: what if it's organized in a more loose proposal?

SARAH: i have an idea. why don't we do breakfast every wednesday? me and barbara will be there, and everyone can just join? me and barbara will not work for the first 1,5h.

XENIA: there's at least two participants

SIEGMAR: just to finish it together - thats great to take the tensions away in the room, the more practical we get the better we can address them.

everyone gives a big thank you to everyone