On August 8th, for a private dinner @ Delta Mityba the diners (participants of Experiments’ platform and Knowledgescapes of Urban Utopias, a project by ZK/U Berlin) were given a ‘parameters menu’, which they enacted. Each participant got to control a parameter, determining the value of (1-10) and reacting to it, for rounds of 16 minutes. The parameters included: documentation, mobility, communication, efficiency, order, appropriateness, social distancing, humour, predictability, speed, elegancy.

For the sauce, participants read a line each from Gillick’s text ‘Should Be: Organisational Pathways Restated’ every round. The text contains 84 lines, the 12 diners each get 7 lines, for a total of 7 rounds. Wow, perfect figures, I thought when preparing.

The dinner tested how the participants can direct the experience by managing the parameters of its own, as well as dealing with additional parameters occuring by chance. What had initially been an overcomplicated structure casted on the diners in a top-down manner, it developed into using the given tool as directing force of the evening.

The key!? – creating failing structures where people improvise and help themselves. Writing the protocol.

Menu: Erik Vojevodin. Host: Delta Mityba. Guests: Archfondas, Experiments’ Platform, Knowledgecapes of Urban Utopias