A decelerator ritual is designed to slow down advancement from one state or phase to another. Language and other structures of thought make our minds work along existing pathways. By slowing time down, new pathways can become more apparent. If time is not slowed down, these particular avenues can be easily overlooked. Chanting simple words such as ‘La’, ‘Leh’ or ‘Lo’ can act as a disruption to language and, when used in conjunction with other tools and principles, enable us to examine alternate possibilities.
Protocols:
a) Hold an image of a diamond forming in your head
b) Produce a continuous drone
c) Beat out a rhythm on a drum
d) Chant in the same rhythm to create a collective noise
e) Decrease in speed
f) Once time has slowed down sit quietly and relax
We were invited to take part in the Flux Factory event Congress of Collectives in New York, which included a lot of the collectives we had already worked with or met at The Tent Show
Congress of Collectives is designed to unite collectives, individuals who choose to work collaboratively, and audience members. The three week-long series of events will examine the many forms of collaboration, participation, and self-organization and will provide a platform to generate new works, discussions, and enduring relationships. Congress of Collectives will include formal programming such as panels, talks, screenings, and performances, and informal programing, including dinners, impromptu discussions and actions.
The Congress was a forum for addressing key concepts, frameworks, and problems of working collectively; for sharing strategies; and for creating new platforms for future projects. Perhaps most importantly, The Congress was intended to promote enduring relationships between participants, and lead to an international exchange program between collectives.
This project was shaped during planning dinner discussions, in which over fifteen other local and international collectives participated. The Congress was developed collaboratively by artists, city planners, architects, arts administrators, film makers, and activists representing collectives from the US, Europe, and the Middle East.
Congress of the Collectives events took the forms of artistic production, workshops, panel discussions, film screenings, interventions, performances, and parties—all of which were open to the public.
We’d thought it would be good for AAS and Reactor to meet during Congress of Collectives and make something together. Groups from The Congress had been invited by Chad Stayrook from Bronx River Arts Centre to use the custom built round table made by J&J for discussions, meetings and conferences, so this seemed a good place to meet up and talk about making a video together.
The table was a bit large for 6 people, so we took out the YES slice and used that to sit around, and chatted about some places and points of significance that had come up over the last few days in New York.
We decided to go somewhere that we all wanted to go and to do something we all wanted to do: this might sound obvious but it’s an important part of making a collaboration fruitful.
The plan was made to go to Coney Island and make a short film in one take that required no editing, partly for practical reasons, but also because it seemed a good way of making something that had a lot of energy and wasn’t overthought.
When we got to Coney Island, it was off season so the amusements were closed, and it was gorgeously bleak. We acclimatised by eating at Coney Islands finest culinary delight ‘Nathan’s Famous’, home of the annual hot dog eating competition.
Walking down the boardwalk we looked for inspiration to develop some of the ideas we would include in the film. We saw a man with cardboard signs who told us we had an appointment with God, a T-shirt with a label that said ‘Next Level’ and an action figure of Carl Jung. The more we walked the more amazing things we saw.
On the main high street we discovered a flower shop with two figures of Roman soldiers and a clown girl.
To find out if any of these made it onto the film, watch it here:
Protocols:
