B.3 Collective Study instead of Bureaucracy and Demonstration

Study and tooling is like a breathing activity for Arts Collaboratory. Breathing is a natural process which does not require the need for approval and evaluation of others. Accountability, as imposed and defined by external systems, produces the process of bureaucracy and multiplies time for administration. A regular, major activity of art organisations these days lies in representation, demonstration and writing reports, which mostly attempts to prove one’s success and strength, and hides failure and vulnerability, or falls into the trap of ’pornomiseria’ - a commodification of misery.

Instead, Arts Collaboratory turns every mode of activity into a self-mutual-(un)learning process where conversation is taken as the most basic and important mode. This way, the time and labor used for the existing form of accountability will be instead used for enriching the self and collectively enriching the process of learning. Based on this new use of time we open the space to different forms of study that are tools to let us create a real praxis. Furthermore, based on the Ethical Principles (see Section C), we commit to sharing our learning beyond ’us in the room’, by transforming part of our learning process into common tools, that we make available to others, and into mechanisms for building affinity and studying diversity of strategies that in turn enrich our commonwealths. Those mechanisms are reflected in Mutual Learning, Triangles, Banga Meetings, Experimental Tooling Projects (ETPs) and Assembly (see Section E).

The recognition of ‘failure‘ next to success is key here as it provides essential knowledge that is neither overly optimistic nor pessimistic, but practice-oriented. Failure may in fact provide more creative, more collaborative, more surprising ways of insights into the organisational being, and thus lead to tools for productivity beyond the dominant narrative of progress.