A ‘less-used’ toolbox

 

 

The instrument of Instability

When circumstances of collective, collaborative art making recognise the importance of the physical space as a seminal ‘teammate’ to which the collective should both listen and respond there is a greater tendency to significantly shift what exists in the minds eye of individuals in the room into what might exist for the collective once those thoughts have been made vulnerable by being manifest as actions in the room. This physical, spacial recognition has the tendency to demand a rigour which sharpens and simultaneously complexifies, it loosens the boundaries between an idea and an action, the inside and the outside, it sets in motion a necessary destabilising force which can make the experience of collective making much richer.

 

The displacement device

When circumstances of collective, collaborative art making seek to displace the components in the room, be they the individuals, the spaces, the ideas or the approaches, new possibilities arise. A deliberate and well held process of displacing can make visible peripheral thinking; formulated and clear questions become foggy, developed and confident structures reveal cracks, authorities in the room slip towards not knowing, these new states can reveal tensions, inspire risk-taking and ultimately notice the full presence of each individual as an equal maker.

 

The mechanism of disorganisation

When circumstances of collective, collaborative art making appreciate that assumed and inherited structures and procedures are not always generative, fertile or apt is allows for the kind of experimenting with organising that comes from thinking through doing, it opens a gap for the unexpected to slip inside and it turns it’s focus from the central to the marginal.

 

The implement that is unknown

When circumstances of collective, collaborative art making welcome the unknown and even the unknown that is never knowable the acts of ranking and grading become absurd and might dissolve, in turn unpredictable partnerships form and with it simultaneous,  seemingly serendipitous discoveries are made.