E.3.1.d Mutual Learning (Study) / Tooling / Resourcing
Mutual Learning
Although the predominant forms for mutual learning in Arts Collaboratory are the Assembly and Banga, we are not limited to them and encourage Radical Imagination of on-going Tooling processes. Tooling can for example, take place through on-going, online requests for collective study or affinity meetings with AC partners (but self limitation here is important too).
What is Tooling?
The traditional reporting process will be replaced with Tools and Collective Study. Instead of hiding mistakes and showcasing ourselves in order to get more money, we will create Tools to honestly share what we learn between ourselves and others.
Tooling expresses what trans-local organisations can do well, without being subjected to agendas of productivism and self-exploitation. This concept is related to the existing and future resources found in each organization.
Tooling is a process of learning and sharing.
Tooling means the transformative and creative capacity to transmit a concept that belongs to one or a few, for others and many. It is a process where Radical Imagination is practiced.
Tooling is not synonymous with use-value. We challenge the concept of usefulness, instead of thinking of what moves us, what affects us. Can we imagine affective tools?
Examples of tools (that can replace reporting) are: Essays, edited transcripts of a conversation or interview, videos, photo-montages, comic strips, poems, recipe books, performance presentations. The key is that the Tool is linked, connected and complementary to our activities and to our experiences when running our programs and activities.
Tooling makes time by giving us tools for learning.
Tools as an Open Resource
All the tools generated will be posted on an online Resource Map. There will not be a selected editor, but the website is trusted as a co-editorial process, which runs by the principle of passion and capacity.
All the tools of Arts Collaboratory will be open source. (copyleft, anti-copyright).
The use of Arts Collaboratory common identity, not the logos of individual organisations, needs to be considered when sharing these tools.
(See Failures, validating (≠ celebrating failure)
Tools developed by AC
1/ Lifeline Guide
The Lifeline guide was thought as a manual, with a series of steps to follow in order for an organization to develop its 5-year lifeline plan.
Most organizations don’t have a long term vision of their budget and activities. Instead, planning depends on the resources they are able to generate. The Lifeline writing exercise pushes an organization to imagine a desirable self-sustainable future (as much as possible) and how they might reach that future given their current resources, while considering possible ways to obtain additional resources for the organization.
The Lifeline Guide is available in the Appendix.
2/ Harvesting Technique
First introduced during the Kyrgyzstan Assembly, this technique allows for a smooth and balanced facilitation of working sessions. Before starting each session, the group chooses a Host to lead the discussion, a Guardian of Process to keep track of the time, a Guardian of Intention to make sure the energy is still flowing and everyone is participating, and a Harvester taking notes and extracting the essence and outputs of the session.
3/ Cascade of Coherence
As explained by Stefano Harney, Tonika Sealy, and Valeria Graziano during the meeting in Casco in June 2015.
This is a useful tool that works for checking correspondence and coherence between rooted struggles, ethics, activities, delivery mechanism and resourcing (labour, affect, money, time). It is generally used to evaluate an activity and/or mechanism according to the values and vision of the group.
(1) The rooted struggles are the point of embarkation, the main reason behind our practices. The struggles can be identified as something that we want to tackle, for example: the prevalent neo-liberalist paradigm.
(2) Ethics is an open principle and an orientation, it serves as an objective that aims to shift the paradigm in our rooted struggle. Ethics should be the antithesis of our rooted struggles.
(3) Activities are the materialization of ethics through collective practices.
(4) Delivery Mechanisms detail the activities.
(5) Resourcing is the material and immaterial support for delivering activities. For example, if an exploitative oil company wanted to support our activities, the cascade of coherence will show that the resource contradicts our rooted struggles and ethics. Should resources follow ethics or ethics follow resources? Or, can resources and ethics create a productive conflict? When there’s a contradiction in the cascade of coherence, we will start to question all elements that interact in the cascade of coherence (and that’s good).
More information about the Cascade of Coherence can be found in the Experimental Tooling Projects Guidelines.
4/ How to reach a consensus
The following steps are used to reach consensus within AC:
A proposal is shared with all the members (usually after discussions).
Friendly amendments are suggested.
The proposal is re-presented with the friendly amendments.
Members can agree, stand-aside or block the proposal.
Stand-aside is used to express dissent.
Block is used to refuse a proposal and block its approval. A member blocking the decision would rather leave the group than see it through.
A consensus is reached when there is no block.
Within AC, a block is understood more loosely, and AC still has to determine its full meaning. A possibility would be for blocking members to leave the collective activities but still receive core funding.
5/ Other possible tools and/or suggestions
Collective Managerial Tool
We also propose to have a collective managerial tool to monitor expenses and allow for an up-to-date view on the budget (remaining funds).
This should allow for an easier overview of the budget and the expenses, more flexibility and facility in self-managing the collective pot, in particular in terms of time and coordination.
On a later stage, it could also allow for self-management of the collective pot by each member without previous request with a light overview of the expenses by attaya and consultation in case of needs and/ or advice, questions.
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