It's a week ago now that I returned from Hamburg, where Gavin and I went to an event called "The Art of Being Many".

"The Art of Being Many" was a two day mega assembly, organised by Geheimagentur, Kampnagel and Graduiertenkolleg and was part of their PhD program.

We spent all Saturday and Sunday from noon til midnight in an old warehouse, which decoration style I'd place somewhere between "Coriolan/us" and "Praxis Makes Perfect". We had 12 hours each day to discuss different aspects of assembling, of coming together. The days were structured by seven different panels, starting by materiality and decision and ending at real fictions. The organisers of the event invited around 50 international artists, who came together a few days before the Saturday and prepared a discussion and some performance elements around the theme of their panel and presented it to us, the audience, on Saturday and Sunday. 

We saw artists arguing about why some of them got paid and others didn't, we heard heartbreaking stories about people protesting and fighting for their right to live freely and autonomously, we saw shocking video material of people getting hurt by the police, people dying and we had melon and onion salad and we danced. 

As I said, it's a week ago I came back to Berlin and I hoped that by now I'd know exactly what I want to say to you all. The truth is, I'm still not sure what exactly happened to me. I know I went there thinking I'd learn about how to organise and lead an assembly most effectively. I know I went there thinking that, you know, those horrible moments of sitting through a session, in which someone desperately tries to engage the audience but fails, will have ended forever because from now on I could always jump up and say "HEY! DON'T DESPAIR, I know what to do!"  I don't!

I went through a lot of emotions that weekend, mostly ranging from boredom to despair to anger. I'm sorry about that Gavin, I'm usually not this grumpy... well... that might be a lie. Haha ( can you write 'haha' in a blog post?)

I definitely wouldn't say that going there was a waste of time since I really enjoyed hearing about other people's art and their approach to art in activism and I think I learned a lot.However, I have to say that I believe the whole event was poorly organised and it lacked in focus and objective. If you asked me why I went there, I couldn't tell you. Why was I listening to those panels? Why did they need an audience? Some of the panels merrily presented their ideas through a performance or a talk and others tried to engage the audience by suddenly, out of nowhere asking them for their opinion. Everyone who's ever been to a similar event knows that you can't talk for an hour and a half and then suddenly ask someone else to say something, what will follow is silence because no one is prepared to participate, because no one knows why they should. 

The event was supposed to be an assembly, but it wasn't. It was 50 people talking and 300 listening, through headphones, which I experienced as one of the most isolating factors. It was a conference. It didn't come from a place of anger, passion, motivation, of being together. I believe that an assembly doesn't happen when you bring many people together, it happens once these many people have found a common ground, something that binds them together, something worth discussing and fighting for, together! The reason for being there has to come from within and you can't put it upon a group from the outside.

I felt interested and I wanted to learn. I felt intrigued by people's life stories and their art and I felt angry at the organisers. I felt let down and left alone in trying to find out why I was there. I felt there was a lack of communication between the artists and organisers. I felt happy to be in Hamburg and excited to be part of something they'd worked on for years. I felt alienated. I felt bored and confused. 

You can see, the whole weekend is a little, tangled pile of thought string in my brain, that's how I imagine it. But on my journey from Hamburg to Berlin, I made a list of things to remember when you try to engage an audience, when you assemble people. It's in no particular order and I really made it for myself but I guess there's no harm in sharing it here. After all, I don't want my blog post to be a mini version of the event, so maybe this list can give it some purpose.
So feel free to disagree or agree, or never read any of my blog posts again, since this one is, once again, way too long. Damn it!

1. Always have an overall aim, as well as small aims for every little task. Make yourself a list: Objective and Action.
    And keep going back to it. Ask yourself how your overall aim benefits from the small tasks and aims you set.

2. Ask yourself "Why?" Make someone else ask you "Why?" You can't question enough. Ever.

3. Let thoughts, ideas, actions go. You might love them, they might be genius but if you can't justify them, let them go.
    It might not be their time yet.

4. Create a safe environment. Let people know that whatever they want to do and say, it's okay. 

5. Facilitate. Learn how to politely and trustworthy stir a discussion back on track.

6. Don't force people to participate. Don't stand in silence for 10 minutes until someone breaks and
    says something because they can no longer take the awkwardness.

7. When you prepare for your event imagine the shyest person you know and think about how you could engage them.
    Always assume that people won't want to participate and remember that there are more ways to participate than talking
    into a microphone, 350 sets of eyes aimed at you.

8. Create an environment that makes clear, from the very beginning, that this is a participatory event, be kind, be warm,
    make sure they know that there is no right or wrong. Support them. You made this event, you're responsible, not the 
    participants.

9. Give them a reason for being there. Better: let them create their own reason, as a group together.

10. Be brave, give off some control and let the group determine the outcome of the assembly/event. Be a guide, not a 
      dictator.

11. Think about how your event changes when you ask the participants to pay for the event.

12. Try to make it an experience for everyone involved, don't underestimate the value of entertainment. 

13. Communicate. Make sure you have a good overall view of what's going to happen.
 
Okay, I also changed the colour of the list, that's how exciting it gets with me. Here is a link to the event if you wanted to know more and you can also find some tweets if you search for #theArtofBeingMany. You will also find some angry tweets of mine there. 

Bye!