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| ibex:radmin [2019-03-05 10:06] – katerich | ibex:radmin [2019-03-06 07:32] – katerich |
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| RADMIN was also and specifically a festival in, of and about the Cube Cinema, crucible of much of this thinking. The Cube is programmed, staffed and governed by approximately 150 volunteers. A founding intention for RADMIN was to open out the infrastructure, processes and organisation of the Cube, how it is managed and administered, as programme content. An internal operating memo in the form of a festival. | RADMIN was also and specifically a festival in, of and about the Cube Cinema, crucible of much of this thinking. The Cube is programmed, staffed and governed by approximately 150 volunteers. A founding intention for RADMIN was to open out the infrastructure, processes and organisation of the Cube, how it is managed and administered, as programme content. An internal operating memo in the form of a festival. |
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| A more practical trigger was the Feral Business Research Network (FBRN) an academic networking project for artists thinking with business, that despite being unselected for funding played out across two workshop gatherings in [[http://companydrinks.info/event/feral-business-research-network|London]] and [[http://laforesta.net/feral-business-research-network|Rovereto, Italy]] in 2018. RADMIN was the third and final network-building event in this series. | Another more practical trigger was the Feral Business Research Network (FBRN) an academic networking project for artists thinking with business, that despite being unselected for funding played out across two workshop gatherings in [[http://companydrinks.info/event/feral-business-research-network|London]] and [[http://laforesta.net/feral-business-research-network|Rovereto, Italy]] in 2018. RADMIN was the third and final network-building event in this series. |
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| //Production// | //Production// |
| //Organising through a RADMIN lens// | //Organising through a RADMIN lens// |
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| The container of RADMIN had the fun side of rendering the usual stumbling blocks and dull administrative grooves vivid and poignant, even if just a performance to ourselves. This included getting caught in each others' spam filters, the online ticket-seller software hardcoding Valentine's Day into the event description, and our out of business hours email habits triggering a starburst of out of office autoresponders. | The container of RADMIN had the upside of rendering the usual stumbling blocks and dull administrative grooves vivid and poignant, even if just a performance to ourselves. This included getting caught in each others' spam filters, the online ticket-seller software hardcoding Valentine's Day into the event description, and our out of business hours email habits triggering a starburst of out of office autoresponders. Questions of //how to be handbuilt and powerful// were vividly rendered in the sub-project of the [[https://feraltrade.org/radmin/RADMIN_READER_FINAL.pdf|RADMIN reader]], a zine-like collection of short texts and a DIY endeavour by design. Graphics students from the University contributed the design and layout as part of their professional practice module. However when it came to print, fold and staple, not passing the 70-unit job over to University Print Services (a design decision, not budget-driven) caused an operating logjam played out in the art department printer queue, where I spent almost two entire days negotiating with (supportive) IT support technicians, network log-in protocols, office supply enclaves, line-management protocols, irate institutional hierarchies, beneficial staplers and the whole situated process of production which was really the entire point. |
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| Questions of //how to be handbuilt and powerful// were vividly rendered in the sub-project of the [[https://feraltrade.org/radmin/RADMIN_READER_FINAL.pdf|RADMIN reader]], a zine-like collection of short texts and a DIY endeavour by design. Graphics students from the University contributed the design and layout as part of their professional practice module. However when it came to print, fold and staple, not passing the 70-unit job over to University Print Services (a design decision, not budget-driven) caused an operating logjam played out in the art department printer queue, where I spent almost two entire days negotiating with (supportive) IT support technicians, network log-in protocols, office supply enclaves, line-management protocols, irate institutional hierarchies, beneficial staplers and the whole situated process of production which was really the entire point. | |
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| //Logistics// | //Logistics// |
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| Working across two venues served to extend the concept of the Cube, its operations, administration and self-image, well beyond the building. It also stretched our organising capacity and human energies to the limits. As a determinedly all-volunteer workforce with a proud tradition of attention to detail, this was woven into and around other occupations (painting and decorating, lecturing, telephone sales, archiving, public speaking, parenting and not ironically admin roles). | Working across two venues served to extend the concept of the Cube, its operations, administration and self-image, well beyond the building. It also stretched our organising capacity and human energies to the limits. As a determinedly all-volunteer workforce, this was woven into and around other occupations: painting and decorating, lecturing, telephone sales, archiving, public speaking, parenting and not ironically admin roles. |
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| //The Money// | //The Money// |
| I | I |
| The budget is the content. | The budget is the content. |
| [[https://feraltrade.org/radmin/RADMIN_Budget_V4.pdf|The budget]] was both an organising input and a featured programme output of the event, printed and distributed as an A3 poster. In accordance with the economy of the Cube, the event was run entirely on ticket sales, supplemented with substantial personal/organisational resources. This budget decision (keeping the ticket price low and not seeking project funding) was central to the event design. | [[https://feraltrade.org/radmin/RADMIN_Budget_V4.pdf|The budget]] was both an organising input and a featured programme output of the event, printed and distributed as an A3 poster. In accordance with the economy of the Cube, the event was run entirely on ticket sales, supplemented with substantial personal/organisational resources. This budget decision (keeping ticket prices low, not paying fees to the many contributors/presenters and not seeking project funding) was central to the event design. |
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| II | II |
| The festival performed a demonstration of a wealth of resources which ran counter to a litany of monetary scarcity that surges through many conversations in the arts (as elsewhere). These included a feast, a mansion, several repositories of cash and the richness of innumerable projects and lives' works. In the end, life rather than money loomed over the event as the scarce resource. A slew of largely health-related reasons caused a number of last minute cancellations. Conversely, two days of brilliant winter sun set the scene well beyond our ability to stage-manage. | The festival performed a demonstration of a wealth of resources that ran counter to a litany of monetary scarcity that surges through many conversations in the arts (as elsewhere). These included a feast, a mansion, several repositories of cash and the richness of innumerable projects and lives' works. In the end, life rather than money loomed over the event as the scarce resource as a slew of largely health-related reasons caused a number of last minute cancellations. Conversely, two days of brilliant winter sun set the scene well beyond our ability to stage-manage. |
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| {{https://feraltrade.org/radmin/radmin_ashton_court.jpg?300}} {{https://feraltrade.org/radmin/radmin_convention_lunch.jpg?300}} | |
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| III | III |
| The Viriconium Palace money experiment, which opened the festival, inflected proceedings more than expected. The reactions, some of them quite [[https://www.less-stuff.co.uk/bucket-cash-radmin-2019/|strong]] ran a pervasive seam of discord and disturbance through the event. In part this responded to a determinedly decentring impulse in its organisation, where organisers did not seek to issue explanations or reassuring commentary. | The Viriconium Palace money experiment, which opened the festival, inflected proceedings more than expected. The reactions, some of them quite [[https://www.less-stuff.co.uk/bucket-cash-radmin-2019/|strong]] ran a pervasive seam of discord and disturbance through the event. In part this responded to a determinedly decentring impulse in its organisation, where organisers (both from the Viriconium and from RADMIN) did not seek to issue explanations or reassuring commentary. |
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| IV | IV |
| The Business Experiment Raffle, announced at the gala dinner, a raffle with one ticket available to each RADMIN delegation. A manouever in dissociative funding: entry was gated by requirement to be present at the Day 3 draw and to deliver a 30-second plan or dream for a business experiment to the assembled rom, after which the £2,500 prize was randomly drawn and issued to the winner with no strings attached. | The Business Experiment Raffle, announced at the gala dinner, a raffle with one ticket available to each RADMIN delegation. A manouever in dissociative funding: entry was gated by requirement to be present at the Day 3 raffle draw, where each entrant was obliged to deliver a 30-second plan or dream for a business experiment to the assembled room, after which the £2,500 prize was randomly drawn and issued to the winner with no strings attached. |
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| {{https://feraltrade.org/radmin/RADMIN_Raffle_winning_ticket_39.jpg?4500}} | {{https://feraltrade.org/radmin/RADMIN_Raffle_winning_ticket_39.jpg?4500}} |
| //What was learnt// | //What was learnt// |
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| From the hindsight of debriefing, the following points came into focus. | From the hindsight of an array of debriefings, the following points came into focus. |
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| A general sense that some felt fed with a vast array of inspiring inputs while for others that the programme was nowhere near hard, deep or business enough, crystallising a desire for deeper work to follow. | There was something enabling about the event that encouraged many to feed back their reactions and highly individual criticisms in great detail! |
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| Converging desires, how to still speak to the street, bring in business, not alienate those already 20 years in to the the process and still keep the peripheries open. | A general division in reception, wherein some were fed with a vast array of inspiring inputs while for others - mainly those thinking for decades in these areas already - that the programme was nowhere near hard, deep or business enough, crystallising a desire for deeper work to follow. It also provokes questions of how to still speak to the street, bring in business, not alienate those already 20 years in to the the process and still keep the peripheries open. |
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| How to engage (or not) with lines of conversation that circled back to 'privilege', 'struggle', ' exploitation', 'clique', body, money and politics. | How to engage (or not) with lines of conversation that circled back to 'privilege', 'struggle', ' exploitation', 'clique' and money. And how the psychological/ spiritual level may trip up politics (and aesthetics) and how that collision could be managed/valued. |
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| How the psychological/ spiritual level may trip up politics (and aesthetics) and how that could be valuaed. | How to get the right kinds of diversity in the room, in recognition of the different forms diversity can take, while not stretching the consensus so far as to breach the possibilities of communications, Having seen who a bonfire-lighting approach brings in, how to organise the next stage of the conversation. Recognising how deeply embedded assumptions about 'business' are. |
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| A programme constituting actual research - not content delivery for an audience - is contributory, where it doesn't work smoothly is the open opportunity for learning. | A programme constituted by actual research - rather than content delivery for an audience - is contributory also in that where it fails to work smoothly, it offers up opportunities for collective learning. Along similar lines, radical decentring as an organising technique, instinctively adopted by RADMIN organisers (in part through experience from running the Cube), will throw people off balance but likewise opens up real space for conversation. |
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| //Next steps// | //Next steps// |
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| A switch from a network/spectacle phase to deeper workgroups for day long investigations. | A switch from a network/spectacle phase to deeper workgroups for day long investigations. |
| | Potential schedule: A 3-5 day event in Summer 2020. |
| Lines of enquiry to include: | Lines of enquiry to include: |
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| b) Administrative | b) Administrative |
| c) Vegetal | c) Vegetal |
| d) Pscyhological | d) Pscyhological / coaching |
| e) Enterprise imaging | e) Enterprise imaging |
| f) Creative accounting (not present at RADMIN, but critical) | f) Creative accounting (not present at RADMIN, but critical) |
| g) Activities for translating administrative thinking into other realms | g) Activities for translating administrative thinking into other realms (personal training, hitchhiking etc) |
| h) Artist and tradesperson | h) And critically the role of artist/practitioner in all this. How to both be resourced and have agency, which brings themes of scarcity and abundance questions together. Lines of enquiry from RADMIN that lead into this include the artist-tradesperson double identity (PlumbMaid, Feral Trade), the history of the Incidental Person from APG, and an understanding of the value the art practitioner in a interdisciplinary research context. |
| i) And critically the role of artist/practitioner in all this. How to both be resourced and have agency, which brings the scarcity and abundance questions together. | |
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| An immediate task to organise around, the post-RADMIN reader | An immediate task to organise around, the post-RADMIN reader. |
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| Assemble the raffle pitches | Assemble the raffle pitches |
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