13 February 2015
Laura González
6.30pm: The doors to Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art close, immersing 85 participants into what the artist Ellie Harrison called Dark Days. The title of the work refers to the theatre, explaining the feeling in the period between shows. Of course, it also resonates of climate and social change, of revolution, especially if one is familiar with Ellie’s other work. The doors are completely closed.
6.45pm: After choosing a corner of the gallery’s great hall, I set up my temporary home and drop the sleeping bag, mat, food, drink (but not alcohol), cutlery (but not knives) clothes (but not pyjamas), entertainment, and cup—helpfully listed in the camp manual I get after being one of the 10% selected. I congregate with my fellow participants for the briefing and introductions. On a quick scan, two things are apparent: I know a few people and there are far fewer chairs than participants (more on this later).
7.00pm: Ellie Harrison devises the night, GoMA hosts the event, and Tripod, a small workers’ cooperative supporting social and environmental justice through training, facilitates it. We are, naturally, all rather petrified and expectant. As an ice breaker, we circulate, forming groups of 3, 5 and 5 and trying to find things we may have in common before learning about consensus and how it differs from majority based approaches, its histories in communities, campaigns, and social movements, its use for decision making and its hand techniques.
Most importantly, we get to practice before our big decision of the evening. Divided into two big groups, we each select 8 people who will need to reach a decision on an issue: someone, a friend of a participant, has come into Dark Days unauthorised. This person is keen, interested and has nowhere to go for the night. The group of 8 knows about it, and so does the friend, but no one else is aware. What should they do? I am an observer of the process, and focus on one person, which I try to listen to attentively. It is difficult, though, as the acoustics of the great hall at GoMA drown sounds. Still, there is far more to listen than voice.
The exercise is controversial. There are so many unspoken rules it is difficult not to allow prejudices or social norms to set in. There is some upset as someone breaks the turn of contributions. Yet, no one has said that a clockwise circle is the order. The decision is reached in 10 minutes: the intruder and the friend are to leave. In the ensuing analysis, we acknowledge that not everyone was heard, that facts were not sought, that creative responses had not been explored, that the decision had been taken with respect for safety and for the rules of the majority. Is this the best we can do? I need a break.
8.30pm: Swift dinner (provided by participants). I brought cold pizza.
9.00pm: If you are wondering why we, as a group of people, would we put ourselves through all of this so far on a Friday night and out of our own volition, this is the session that contains the answer. The purpose of the evening is to decide, by consensus, how would we live together, what we would do with the rest of our time that night. This is a decision most families and groups face everyday, but how do you make it? And what happens when it involves 85 people (or more)? The previous exercise has not filled me with confidence that this will be a nice and easy process. To scale up, we use the technique of the spokes council. After some brainstorming for activities, we break into groups by affinity. He have the following choices: tower of awesome (!), games, quiz, make something (a fort), skills sharing, music and dance, dark days discussion, no set plan. The process is fast-paced, but lengthy. After discussion in groups, we select a spokes person who represents the views of the group in a spokes council. Our task is to explain what we propose and, if we need anything, ask it of the group. The first problems are articulation and succinctness. These don’t come easy to many people, especially with only 10 minutes to prepare. Then there is the issue of resources: we discuss space, schedule (some people wanted sleep) and chairs. There is a fair amount of time dedicated to chairs and their use in negotiations. This might seem trivial but chairs represent the fight over whatever common resources we have available. We don’t have much that night, so we fight over chairs. It is well-meant and the Tower of Awesome group tries to provide the entertainment for the evening at the spokes council with what can only be termed a surreal political ode to the chair. They almost have my vote, but I decide to stick to no set plan, demanding freedom, anarchy and being allowed not to have to address my commitment issues. After the first round, we are asked to go back into our groups and push for a decision, or not. I was the second spokes person. We have no set plan (people broke into laughter when I uttered this, no idea why) and therefore we do not need a decision. Of course, this is exactly what happens: no decision is reached. Yet, where was the dissent? We have mechanisms to block and stand aside in the event of disagreement but no one uses them much. We are self-selecting people, all happy to sleep on the cold concrete floor for a night as we had other comforts beyond that, all healthy and mobile to do so, all trusting of art. Are these really dark days? Where is the threat? What would happen if one of the choices was adopted without consensus?
Decision fatigue sets in. We are desperate for something to happen that is not sitting, trying to reach a decision. So when a charming and spontaneous leader proposes an opening ceremony, there were not even hand gestures, just a shuffling of feet, a limbering to get into action. Trust my thespian friends for a good time.
10.00pm: This opening ceremony consisted on body contact in a circle, standing very close to each other so that when we bent out knees, we would sit on the person behind, without effort, without strain. It is magic. We then proceed, in groups of 15 or so, to run the length of the great hall and turn back straight away to feel the breeze we create. Lastly, we crowd surf. Oh yes we do.
Having reached no consensus, each of the groups takes its turn and I roam for the rest of the evening, teaching the chorus to Bey’s Single Ladies to a silent disco, listening in to the discussion of dark days, resting my eyes under the lovely fort supported by a tower of chairs, and observing games of ninja, wink murder and some strange elephant washing machine happening I cannot work out the rules of. People are really fascinating and have strange skills to share. Never underestimate what you can learn.
2.00am: The only decision we took before 10pm was to keep the switching off of lights at 3am, adding a quiet, wind down time from 2am onwards. While this is happening, I muse on the fact that some of us are fitter for survival than others and are better at assessing unknown situations. Trying to settle into my sleeping bag, someone was hanging a hammock. A game of Frisbee went on in the background. Would I be able to survive real dark days being so ill prepared?
3.00am: The camp is powered down and we get varying degrees of sleep.
***
9.00am: Before packing, and after breakfast (provided by participants) and hot beverages (provided by GoMA but in our own cups, which brought out everyone’s personality) we settle to evaluate. To warm up, we problem solve: in groups of 10, we get 15 feet and 8 hands onto the floor in under one minute. The evaluation, in groups of 7 each taking the floor for 30 seconds, brings echoes of the night. Repeated inward looking circles show what a long way we need to go to be inclusive, but provide good summaries of the event.
11.00am: I am one of the last to leave. As I stand on the steps of GoMA, I cannot help but think I have been released into the world. I am not sure I want to. What I step into from Dark Days are, perhaps, more accurate in their darkness, somewhere between capitalism and something beyond it. I don’t know how long they will last, or what we will be released into.