Having great fun and deep conversations this week with Elizabeth Streb, who’s a guest speaker to my class and other public events in Madison. More thoughts to come to this blog, after I successfully get her on the plane home.
In the meanwhile, I thought I’d share some of her ‘new rules of conduct’ she’s working to follow in her Brooklyn facility – the Streb Lab for Action Mechanics (SLAM) – built on the frustrations she’s had with traditional cultural venues:
- No start times
- Question necessary duration
- Noise/keep outside in/inside out
- House lights on
- Eat drink and be merry
- Do whatever you want whenever you can
- Have all ages/races/classes together for common purpose
- Change use groups
- Switch around/mingle buildings that vary in age and condition so they vary in the economic yield they must produce
- Multitask, no doors.
- Offer something someone needs, like bathrooms, water…
- Drop idea of beginning middle and end
- Forget the idea that events have some intended meaning
- Lose idea of ordained behavior
- What is a new cultural paradigm
- Subjects are dead – it’s all verbs
Fascinating, almost spiritual ideas, so open ended. Someone else might use the word vague, but I can see how a concert approach would change dramatically keeping these rules in mind. Thanks for posting.
David T