Monstrous Agencies – Resisting precarisation in the arts through organisation of cooperation and authorship

"Monstrous Agencies - Resisting precarisation in the arts through the organisation of cooperation and authorship" is a study and series of experiments on monstrous and parasitic formations of economic relations, organisational protocols and their relationship with the conditions of production of art and knowledge.

The study is a combination of academic research and artistic processes, with results in the form of artefacts, performances and experimental organisational procedures based on monstrous and parasitic methodologies. I look at the emergence of representations of monstrosity in histories, the economic and moral rationalisations of sub/super/non-human projections and formations of political realities, reserving a special place for histories where positions and names of degradation are/were reclaimed to regain power. I discuss parasitism and the host/parasite relationship as an example of the corporally negotiated coexistence of asymmetrical entities and the exercise of power. Parasitic relationships challenge notions of accessibility, create unpredictable mutations and forms of exchange, and often catalyse change in larger structures. Both are capable of traversing the logic of hiding abuses of power in noise and confusion. These two terms, monstrous and parasitic, function as tools/methods that connect politics, theory and practice.

The results of the research project are Monsterference - a three-day international conference; We Bites Us, a short film; Parasitic Guide - a pocket-sized manual with scores for actions and Monstrous Agencies - Resisting Precarisation, the doctoral thesis.

mONSTERFERENCE, December 2020 was a hybrid collective event of sharing knowledge and exercising in practice the question of parasitism, monstrosity and slippage (glitch) as organisational tools. mONSTERFERENCE took place in the midst of the Covid lockdown in a ghostly space of the Theatre Academy of Uniarts Helsinki, in a specially built parasitic extension, in private apartments and public outdoor spaces of the city, Zoom, YouTube live stream and the website monsterference.org.

We Bites Us - 17'25'' film, is a story about the parasitic inhabitations and monstrous mutations that a group of people undergo during an exhausting journey through the contemporary form of "public" institution. The film is a hybrid of live action and animation. The film works through two cinematic devices, a cinematographer and a robot/camera, sometimes controlled by gyroscopes, attached to an actor's body. The idea of working with artificial intelligence was to allow a kind of minor perspective, a little lost "artificial stupidity" and clumsiness, instead of a dream of futuristic techno-luxury, but also to critically study an organisation of work that includes non-human factors. The short film is fast, a kind of punk dive into the complexity of the concept/tool/method of the monstrous and parasitic, already embodied by the form of collectivity.

Monstrous Agencies: Resisting Precarisation. Tools and models for cooperation in arts. (forthcoming)
The book printed in the Uniarts series Acta Scenica of about 250 pages. A work that combines fiction and academic theoretical essays. It contains an articulation of research methods and tools, their theoretical background, as well as research results. The writing is based on several series of interviews with artists and an experiment on alternative forms of collective formation. It also draws on artistic projects that were part of the research: 'The Story of Leaving' - an investigation into the shape-shifting models that define precarious working conditions for immigrant workers in Almeria; the aforementioned Monsterference; and the short film We Bites Us. Through pieces of auto-fiction, fiction and academic writing a two-headed concept/tool/method: Parasite and Monster unfolds into as a form of dignostics, but also as a proposal. Together they are designed to address both micro and macro levels of organisational question. The figure of the parasite helps to identify and redefine the power structure within existing relationships. A parasite is a tool for recognising interdependence and a way of disrupting the power structure of a working environment, conditions and format, including the human and non-human agencies involved. Parasitic tools are informed by a consideration of the cohabitation of bodies with parasites, the power structures and scientific narratives around parasite-host interaction, and the idea of minor resistance. The concept of the monstrous, monstrous ethics and monstrous authorship is used to understand collective mutability within the patched labour structure, and conditions the
restructuring of organisations based on multiple membership and mutability and minor personal resistance within the larger organisational body.

The Parasitic Guide (coming up) is a pocket manual of scores, protocols, and workshops to be used within organisational structures of art production such as artists' collectives, artist-run organisations, art education classes, departments, and
segments of art institutions. The tools in the book are intended to be an aid to understanding the dynamics, power structures, dependencies, and undercurrent narratives within collaborations. Such a toolbox is intended to facilitate a movement for a shift in perspective, a shift in hierarchy where necessary, and a process for the emergence of alternative organisational principles and structures. The guide is an art book. Not in the sense of the uniqueness of each copy, but through its performative quality.