Notes from a day in Portslade with The Book. Began to work my way along Boundary rd, the main shopping area, in a long black coat, armed with my big red Book of Debts and flyers.
‘No-one owes me anything and I don’t owe anyone anything – that’s one advantage of being alone I guess. There you go.’
Note to self: The absence of debt as the absence of relationship to society? Do we need it? Though debt is often seen as something that binds one person to another /an institution in a negative way, it does perform the function of creating relationship. In earlier times this was seen as a positive way of guaranteeing interdependence and interconnectedness in ancient societies (See David Graeber’s ‘Debt: the first 5000 years’ for examples and brilliant thinking around this).
‘I’ll ask the boss’
I’ll put it on the bosses desk’
“I’ll hand it around and people might be interested’
‘I’ll take it home and have a look. This needs time to think about’
Note to self: Taking the mountain to Moses wasn’t always going to be easy.
One person looked so perplexed at what I was proposing (Does it cost anything?), their mouth literally dropped and they edged sideward to attract the attention of their co -worker, as if to point out the Crazy Person in the shop. But eventually they warmed and at least agreed to accept the flyer. I
Eventually, on about the 7th pit stop, I came across someone who immediately and gleefully took to the project and put £100million in The Book – go to the bookmarks page on the website to read it! From this came an exchange on the difference between gratitude and indebtedness – because it was contributed as a debt of gratitude, and I wonder, is this a contradiction in terms?
A couple of people with access to computers or tablets in their shops went straight online and were intrigued… and I will be returning to the hair dressers who was very open and interested. I have to remember it’s early days and a lot can happen in three weeks.
I returned to Grate Fireplaces, who are very friendly and around the corner from Blank and whose front courtyard is the perfect place for the burning. Talk about sent from heaven theme-wise. Will know next Tuesday if this is confirmed. Patience.
Then returned to Blank and had in depth conversations around specific aspects of debt with a couple of members there, as situations had arisen that day which were on-subject and we compared notes. Can’t say much more.
Finally got access to the back end of the site and found a few debts waiting – very moving and so beautifully expressed. I remembered how it takes time and space and connection to contribute to something like this, and I have to allow for that and watch for which contexts work and which don’t, which is why I am in R+D. So far feedback on the site is positive… with a few changes to make and notes for future development already.
The Gertu turned up, who is an intern at Blank and on a Leonardo scholarship from Estonia and SO the perfect person to help support during these next few weeks. Very into exploring the subject, got the concept and seems very organized and tuned in, tapped on etc. Flyers start to go out properly at end of week, social media slowly starting, they have been working on de-bugging the site and so have been waiting til it’s in as fully functioning form as possible before sending it out widely.
This is the most exciting part of the work, when it starts to line up with the outside world, and you sense it creating its own relationship and opening up conversations in the everyday which wouldn’t have happened otherwise and go in unexpected directions.
