Play-doodle-draw, Purpose Cafe

I awoke in a strange room and took a moment to reorient myself, before dashing to the shower so as not to miss breakfast. I made my way up to where the others were and took a photo of the timetable for the day, so as not to forget:

07:00 – Optional morning practice

08:30 – Breakfast

10:00 – Session 1

12:15 – Merenda

13:00 – Session 2

16:00 – Lunch

18:00 – Session 3

20:00 – Meze

“A circle of chairs, at the centre a candle in vase, a mint plant and a small figure of an old lady which serves as a bell. Everybody has arrived early and we wait for 10:15 to arrive.” (Excerpt from field journal, 27.07.10)

As we waited for the first session to begin, I jotted a few notes down and realised how apprehensive I was, feeling a little (or a lot) like an outsider. Maja opened LG2010 with an introduction to both the theme and the structure of the event. Rather than trace the history of LG – it doesn’t really matter where it started, Maja argued – the day opened with a statement of intent: the tired concepts of conservation and sustainability would be discarded in favour of resilience. The plan was to have an open and participatory structure, where there would be a collection of hosts (and not facilitators). This structure would enable different modes, and different speeds, breaking the normal pattern of daily rhythms. We drew up a set of ground-rules – no mobiles are ringing, we like it; share your thoughts but don’t feel obliged to; be on time; be present to each other; bring our native languages – and Twitter (#LG2010) and Flickr (Luminous Green 2010) were mentioned as part of the harvesting, or collection, of ideas. Interestingly, there was a slight discomfort with the suggestion of twittering during the gathering, perhaps due to levels of attention, and we were also provided with an offline twitter pad: a set of post-it notes. Excellent! There were also intriguing comments in the introductory talk, as Maja explained that we had all been chosen to attend (there had been no open call), based on (1) our views and approaches to the world and (2) shared interests or characteristics with two other people at the event. As such, the group was engineered to remain flexible and robust, and LG was and is for and about the people involved. With no action points or particular goals for the gathering, it was hoped that we would make one meaningful connection, regardless of age, expertise, social standing or other artificial restrictions. For this reason, Maja argued, there were no celebrities and/or keynotes present at the gathering; instead, we were all experts and novices at the same time.

Postponing judgement

Next: a change of pace. We were asked to arrive in the room and focus. To become aware of ourselves for a moment. To sit comfortably. We were invited to notice that we were sitting. To feel the sensations in our feet, in our legs, in our spines. As we were sitting, we were told we might notice continuous movement in our bodies, our breathing, our heart beating. Much travelling, planning, emailing: you’ll go back to that soon, try to let go. There is nothing here that we need to do. Whilst breathing, Maja asked us some questions, which we did not need to try to answer but just notice. Who are you when you stop moving? How are you when you stop moving? To just notice the questions, then return back to our breathing, our places in the room, open our eyes, and stretch out a bit.

This gathering is a place to open up questions, together. Luminous Green, its name, is a place that f0.am would like to live in: a luminous green world which is rooted but not retreating into the past, curious but not blinded about the future. This then, is about looking for ways to begin cultivate this world now. Here imagination and creation are encouraged, the world literally and figuratively electrified and green. We were offered a mint leaf, and asked to imagine we had never seen one before, to take one leaf and hold it in our hands. To look at it, to really look at it, to notice the leaf. What do you see? You don’t have to answer it (everyone laughs). Try and touch it. Take it to your nose and smell it. Put it on your tongue, between your teeth. Chew it. What does it taste like? Now swallow it. And so I did, feeling the dry crumpled leaf catch in my throat on its way down. Perhaps you have postponed judgement? Become a little more patient? It is in this spirit that we were invited to take part in the workshop: openness, curiosity, and non-judgement. To be fully present.

The first activity was to start a conversation about personal encounters with resilience: turning a difficult situation into a chance to change yourself. These ‘Dialogue Walks’ were to be with someone you had not yet had the chance to talk to very much. Once paired up, we would each have ten minutes to tell the other person about just such a situation and talk through it. It was my task to listen first, and talk second. One thing that came up in conversation was that creating obstacles can be productive. This reminded me of the notion of generative or enabling constraints (Latham & McCormack, 2009; McCormack, 2008; Manning, 2009).

Juicy questions

The dialogues were to feed into the next activity: ‘Purpose Café’. We were told to get into groups of four or five around tables, and were to report back on some of the topics and themes that we had covered, and what sort of questions we had. For example, if resilience is dealing with uncertainity, how and why do we want to be resilient? At the tables, a large blank sheet of paper was provided, plenty of felt-tip pens, play-doh and string. I was struck by how similar this set-up was to how I imagined a management company might operate to try to get the best out of their employees. How might we borrow these techniques and we mutate them in order to avoid being re-appropriated by firms? Claire Colebrook in a recent review of Nigel Thrift’s (2007¹) book Non-Representational Theory, notes however that it happily refuses to “defend or apologize for the ways in which this theory might be hijacked by management theory or various other non-anticapitalist practices” (2010: 677). I’m not sure what to think. But back to the café: together we were trying to come up with, or select, a set of ‘juicy’ questions (questions which are energising and/or stimulating) which we would like to think about over the following day or so. In the first group, we discussed generating futures and developing luminous techniques, and so when we were told to split up and change tables (one person remaining, as a sort of table-holder), we would share these juicy questions with other people. At the second table, we were particularly interested in asking questions rather than searching for answers. Perhaps I am seeing connections where there are none, but again, I was reminded of Thrift’s book. In particular, his claim that social scientists “must share with philosophers like Deleuze one ambition at least and that is to render the world problematic by elaborating questions. To simply offer solutions is not enough” (2007: 18). And again, in an earlier text, where he describes his non-representational theory, or project, as: “A machine for multiplying questions, and thereby inventing new relations between thought and life” (2004: 82). We also talked about how we might live the here-and-now and what sort of techniques we might employ when presencing yourself. Moreover, we discussed how you might be able to hold on to, or be-with uncertainty.

Open spaces

We took a break: merenda (Latin for snack, or picnic) instead of lunch so that we would not be feeling sleepy in the early afternoon. This was a clear move to disrupt our routines, our habits of eating, and encourage us to think-do differently. Before I knew it, the next session was already underway. ‘Open Space’ was more of a self-organising mode, which was based around the question: what do we want to explore now together, that is at the edge of our current knowledge and experience? There were four different roles: (1) as a host, you choose a question or theme and a location; (2) as a participant, you attend and engage with the session; (3) as a bumble-bee, you move from one session to another and in doing so cross-fertilise; and (4) as a butterfly, you might choose to find a place on your own for a while. And there were four different principles: (1) when it starts, it starts; (2) whoever comes are the right people; (3) whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened; and (4) when it’s over, it’s over. Furthermore, there is a ‘law of two feet’ which states that it is rude to stay where you cannot contribute or learn; indeed, it is perfectly acceptable to get up and leave a session if it just isn’t interesting you. Although it was described as self-organisation, there was still a fair amount of supervision and those who wanted to be hosts had to justify the session they were planning. The Open Space was divided into three parts; below, I’ve listed the sessions I buzzed to and from:

14:00 – Tactics for intervention | Making a food installation | Systems Maps

14:45 – [Butterfly-time] | How do we give up being what we are to continue being?

15:30 – Feedback

I enjoyed discussing interventions and opening a space for speculation. I watched the ‘food’ group, which merged those who wanted to collect food with those who wanted to make something, standing outside, looking at an iPad app and getting excited (about the plants rather than the app, presumably). I attended the last few minutes of a session on diagramming, or mapping, but as I caught the end of it, it was mainly incomprehensible. I decided to take a break and sat outside in the sun, before venturing over to the group dealing with the philosophical question of being. I had a fair bit to say but most of all, I appreciated that there was no pressure to deliver, to produce an answer. We brainstormed and chose a few further questions to share in the feedback session, which was mainly a way of letting those who had been unable (or chosen not) to attend, what had been happening elsewhere.

Different mode of gathering: Urbanibalism

Lunch was next: it was a leisurely and delicious meal and we were left with a decent amount of time after eating to rest. It was rather strange to have ‘lunch’ at around 16:00 though! I went for a walk around the nearby lake and came back for the third session feeling refreshed. There, we were asked what new seeds of connections, ideas, or projects were we finding? Was there anything that we needed to prune, to let go of? We all were to go our separate ways, in silence, and think about these questions before sharing our thoughts. I felt a certain pressure to self-evaluate, to think about how we were thinking. Up until then, we had been encouraging questions, such as why we were there and what we wanted from LG. It was a long thirty minutes or so to spend on your own thinking about the day, and yourself, after so many group activities. But I realised that I had enjoyed thinking about obstacles, constraints and interruptions which afforded a chance to re-think and re-consider. So when we came back together, and when it was my turn to talk in the circle (indicated by holding the figure of a witch that was passed around), I spoke of the cultivation of thinking-spaces and the various rhythms at play in the format of the gathering. My comments were fairly broad and I mentioned that generating questions collectively was stimulating. Some of the comments I listened to that afternoon struck a chord: an appetite for uncertainty, re-phrasing questions, how to live outside of institutions, tangent machines… There were also two happenings which were unexpected. The first, one person in the circle spoke of how these events were more than research projects, with a fixed look in my direction. It was a little awkward and although I suppose there was a chance I was just looking interested, I felt it was aimed at my own work. The second, was more intense but I’m not sure it can be labelled. Maja let us know of some very intimate news when her turn came to speak and the atmosphere of the room was transformed. All of a sudden, I felt a part of the group of people who were in the room, all listening to this, surprised and touched to be have had something so personal shared with them. There was silence. Then we played a game together, which was to try and make us more aware of our different sensibilities (I think): the room, and the group, were to be divided up into men, women, perverts or priests. We would find different energies by moving around, feeling the space. I was rather sceptical but enjoyed the game’s comedic aspects and the chance to be a pervert (obviously, the most popular choice). What changed my opinion of this game, led by one of the participants and not the hosts, was what happened right at the end. We were asked to form a circle once more, and hold hands with those on either side of us. In the circle was the person running the game (Vinay) and Maja. He put his hands on her shoulders and then asked us to give our energy to her. I focused on doing just that and, so it seemed to me, so did everyone else. The room was electric. Vinay pulled Maja close and held her. The following day Maja told me she had been unable to sleep she had felt so strange after the event.

We all headed outside on to the terrace for a drink and some snacks. I was feeling a bit hungry and was lucky enough that Annabel, our excellent chef for the gathering, took pity on me! It was very satisfying to end the day with a glass of wine, some nice cheese and good conversation. A little later on, I ran back to my room to collect my swimwear and ventured into the ‘wellness’ area where I was practically pulled into the Jacuzzi. Unbelievably, although meant for two people, there were sixteen people with at least a part of their body in the water! It was unexpectedly intimate and was one of most memorable parts of the event. I asked if this always happened, but was assured by several that it did not. I popped into the sauna, chatted some more, showered and headed to bed.

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References

Colebrook, C. (2010) Non-Representational Theory: Space|Politics|Affect, by Nigel Thrift. Journal of Regional Science, 50(2): 675-678

Latham, A. & McCormack, D.P. (2009) Thinking with images in non-representational cities: vignettes from Berlin. Area, 41(3): 252–262

McCormack, D. (2008) Thinking space for research creation. Inflexions, 1

Manning, E. (2009) Relationscapes: Movement, Art, Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Thrift, N. (2007) Non-Representational Theory: Space|Politics|Affect. London: Routledge

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Utopia: 13,960 (?), Edinburgh

Day 3. A change to the tiemtable due to ash clouds and so onwards, always onwards, to another aritst: Louise K Wilson. Louise gave a presentation, ‘Listening to spaces, looking at spaces: site-specific audio and video’, where she showcased some of her recent projects. Being an artist opens doors, she argued, and she explained how she had gained access to scientific laboratories, and been fascinated by the theatre of the laboratory. Part of her work was interested in re-staging the laboratory in the gallery and how that might (not) be possible. Louise’s ‘inadvertent collaborations’ (her description, not mine!) resonated with her determination to unnerve herself. This made me think, once again of Isabelle Stenger’s writing on ‘risky research’ and her hope that you allow your work to quite literally work against your ideas, questions and theories. Louise was very open about the sorts of materials she generates – much serves as an aide memoire – and she has experimented with privileging different media. For example, for one short film, she developed the soundtrack prior to shooting the video. More recently, Louise has been attempting to record what cannot be heard. Here, I immediately thought of Chris Salter’s work on Just Noticeable Difference (JND)¹. Throughout the presentation there was an overwhelming emphasis on process, and much less on the end-piece. She mentioned that she had started doing some writing to allow her work to be something else (to transform perhaps?) but when I looked online, I found a much earlier piece, written for Angelaki called ‘Stories from the research labs’²!

The rest of the day did not have quite the same structure (or feel) to it as the rest of the week; in fact, it was a little disjointed. The next session was, and there was a choice, either video analysis or build-your-own contact microphones. I chose the former, led by the geographer Eric Laurier. I have to admit I was a little sceptical of the session, perhaps partly due to my distrust of the word ‘analysis’, but found it very stimulating and interesting. Eric told us how he regularly runs ‘data sessions’ where a group of people get together to watch a video over and over (and over) to see what happens in it. He was keen to stress that the aim is to get at what is going on, at what people are doing, and was anti-CSI in the sense that you are not looking for something hidden. So, it is ‘just’ what happens, with no hidden agenda. At the sessions, the person who brings the video will also have produced a transcript, which serves as a document to think with, as well as to annotate. The transcript we were handed seemed rather different to any others  I had seen before and included far more information and a greater sense of the temporality of the actions. We were shown a video (not quite 3 minutes long)  of two men chatting in a car several times and asked to pay particular attention to sequences and categories, to bring out what we were noticing, in the hope that collectively we might give life to the script.We took it in turns to make a few comments and/or observations; I found it remarkable that although many of the gestures and actions were notated, there was no much of the many instances of leg-rubbing and was curious as to where/when the transcription is finished. Eric explained that the technique had been developed about 40 years ago and served both as an apparatus for making more visible and as a reminder of what happens, what they are doing, and how they do what it is they are doing. The protocol was fairly complicated: ((non-verbal)), +[overlap], °more quietly°, emphatically, >faster<, <more slowly>, were just a few.

In the afternoon there was free time and so I nipped over to the Fruitmarket Gallery, and ended up bumping into another participant from the workshop! So that was nice and relaxed. Later on, we reconvened at the annexe at the Geography Institute for a talk by Nigel Thrift, provisionally titled ‘Experimental methodologies’. I met Nigel and he apologised, explaining that he would be re-presenting a paper that he gave at CRASSH a few months earlier on. ‘LIFEWORLD INC. – And what to do about it’ was just as good the second time, although slightly altered, perhaps for the different audience. The paper was concerned with new forms of power and of interrogating power, traced a shift from epistemology to ontology, and explored movement-space (becoming in to existence, Erin Manning’s resonant-grid) rather than simple displacement (actual; movement already taken). The talk was broadly divided into two main parts, ‘Empirical economy’ and ‘Empirical turn’; the first dealing with socio-technical happenings and the second pointing to areas which might be re-worked. It was perhaps the second part which interested me the most, as Nigel discussed ways of re-figuring parts of  social science methodology: re-working what is meant by the case study, faster modes of proceeding which keep up with some of the things going on (cross between social science and journalism), social science fiction (conjuring up of dramatised analyses of social structures and situations, e.g. The Wire). He asked us to think of social science much less as a way of gathering data all the time, but much more of ways of using data that are associative, and pointed towards ways of re-working spaces, moment-by-moment. The first two points were brief (1. Re-working of phenomenology; 2. Biopolitics of space – the use of biological metaphors as ways of proceeding) but the last, 3. Writing, was more substantial. Nigel contended that writing is starting to change its form and hoped that social science might induce and produce new forms of notation, which would mix different registers of experience together. Although I think this is an important point, I was left wondering how we might do this, and was unsure if Nigel’s comment about the chase for a 27th letter was said tongue-in-cheek or meant rather literally. In this case, is more better? He gave the example of maps as a means of re-working the familiar, of “not just re-naming but re-worlding”. Writing the world differently.

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Hanging thread, Black Box

Patrick Harrop and his group of students from the University of Manitoba have recently left Montreal, having spent just over a week here visiting various studios and working on a couple of projects down in the Black Box. I was able to join them on a few of their trips, including a visit to Chris Salter’s studio, and was made to feel welcome in the basement. The students had been working on recordings, comprised of of eight different channels, and were able to experiment with the high-quality speakers provided by Hexagram. Projects included recordings of: the vibrations of a window, water pipes (using an ultrasonic recorder!), an underground intersection and a moving car. These compositions were presented to Patrick, Shannon (a PhD student at Concordia), Gerard (an improvisational musician) and myself. We would listen to the arrangements, then hear how it had been done (and why!), before listening to it once more. What I found most interesting was the way in which these architecture students were thinking about sound and space through resonance. They were looking at how buildings move, vibrate, change.

A different kind of scaffolding? Black Box

Patrick also had a project he was working on in the Black Box with Annie Lebel, an architect herself, also with an interest in resonance. We set up a kind of scaffolding, hanging wiring from the ‘grid’ (the patchwork of cables just below the ceiling, fom which you can attach things). We did this by filling ballons with marbles (four or five small ones) and then throwing them so that they would go through, and back down, the grid. The wiring was a translucent green and very hard to see; most of us ambled into some of the suspended wires and pulled them right out. It was very much a hit-and-miss exercise, with several attempts needed to throw a balloon hard (and high) enough to reach the grid and then go through it, but it made for an elegant randomness. From this simple infrastrucutre, other (yellow and orange) wires were attached to run across the green wires and were connected to small motors. These motors would then give life to the transversal wires, creating oscillations and a flurry of movement.

These experiments are very exploratory and were not set up with a hope to ‘find out’ something, other than to play with wiring and see what might happen. Patrick hopes to continue this project, on a smaller scale, within the TML when he returns in mid-November. I’ll be interested to see whether he looks to re-create what he has already done (a miniature replica?) or whether he continues to experiment and push what is possible with just wires, balloons and marbles.

As for myself, I’ve been experimenting with visual methods and include a short video shot in the Black Box. I would recommend you watch it in HD, available if you move your mouse over to the top right-hand corner of the video; the music is from Murumari’s Pathscrubber EP (which, incidentally, is free). Let me know what you think – I’m still learning how to operate my camera (Kodak Zi8) and software (Adobe Premiere Elements 8), as well as the vast array of possible video formats you can produce… I feel that it has taken up quite a lot of time and I’m not too sure what it ‘adds’ to my work. Still, if I’m not prepared to fail then I’m probably not being (becoming?) experimental. Please let me know what you think.

I also include some other photos, which were kindly shared by Justin – one of the architecture students – who has a lovely SLR camera. He climbed a ladder to take a photo of the tables in the centre of the room, and later on, photographed me getting in on the action, throwing a (marble-filled) balloon up to the grid.

The hub from above, Black Box

Throwing and hoping, Black Box