塊 (Katamari) with NEWS

塊 (Katamari) with NEWS
Name	塊 (Katamari) with NEWS
Location	De Bonte Zwaan
Date	2022/07/21-2022/07/22
Time	10:00-18:00
PeopleOrganisations	NEWS
Type	HDSA2022
Web	Yes
Print	No

Image Description: Grid-like structure with green glow and the words 塊 (Katamari) and NEWS. In the center a rectangular image of a Bulgarian man wearing bricolage heads-up display made of junk smartphones, bicycle helmet, corporate merch bluetooth speaker, oak chair leg, rusty rocket stove base, and bicycle inner tubes

塊 (Katamari) is a Japanese word which means agglomeration, aggregation - a whole lot of stuff stuck together - and the Katamari game-method resembles the Playstation 2 game Katamari Damacy by Namco, which involves (as Wikipedia tells us) “rolling a magical, highly adhesive ball called a katamari around various locations, collecting increasingly larger objects, ranging from thumbtacks to human beings to mountains, until the ball has grown large enough to become a star”.

What emerges in this game-method is simply a whole lot of stuff, brought together in a particular way, at a particular time, in a particular place, by particular (and often peculiar) people according to their desires and abilities. With what stuff will you become katamari? Remember, it does not only have to be physical stuff. What about sounds, joys, despair, software, frictions, bodily functions, liminal spaces, difficulties... or whatever!?

Like Claude Levi-Strauss’ bricoleur, in playing this game-method we can learn how to make do with whatever is at hand to create a poetry which is not (only) about accomplishment and execution but an expression of our lives and personalities through the choices we make with the stuff that we happen to bump into. “The ‘bricoleurs may not ever complete their purpose but they always put something of themselves into it.”

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The photos those days were taken by Sophie Allerding and Lina von Jaruntowski for Radio Echo

Listen back to that workshop's reflection by Radio Echo

Repository

Katamari Cart Method - Essential Script for an Essential Method

1. Katamari method - the idea of just starting with anything, anywhere, and rolling with it.
2. No expectations, no resources, just go for it!
3. It could go around the city, or it could simply roll around the room, expanding the feeling of the room by the katamari.
4. Yes, it could be text or software, or the sounds of our bodies and other stuff, or it could be the junk of the neighbourhood, or our anxieties and despairs, and joys.
5. Create hopeful encounters with the community.
6. Learn how to make the most of your urban environment.
7. Do not pick things that are still in use or seem useful to others. Focus on things that are discarded and seem either “out of order” or “useless”.
8. Try not to get arrested or in too much trouble. Protect yourself at all times, while keeping open minded and open hearted to any new encounters.
9. The Katamari Cart Method is not bricolage or collage. It is much more than that. It is a call to action, without too much thinking or theory behind, or expectation for a useful outcome. Just go with the flow and see what happens. The method can serve as a portal for hopeful new beginnings (or endings).
10. Document and share with others, if you wish.
11. Enjoy!

~About NEWS~

The Negative Emissions and Waste Studies (NEWS) Programme is a free self-learning environment that runs on streets, parks, private homes, community centres, public art galleries, department stores, public schools, in the sea, and anywhere else. It uses only things that have been thrown away or can be found for free. We then play and experiment with them to make fun, pleasurable and (sometimes) useful objects, services, activities, etc., in domains including but not limited to electronics, sewing, ceramics, sound/music, micromobility, gaming, landscaping, food/drink, poetry, and love.

A Place for Local Making is a shared space for inspiring imaginative and caring ways of making and living together in our multispecies entanglement. Through making and thinking with materials at hand, and tuning into the more-than-human companions around us, we wish to grow new stories and ideas about how we could better relate with our material and ecological surroundings. Small, slow and simple is beautiful. We host, co-produce, support and welcome ideas from others.

Watch the video document of HDSA2022 from NEWS

http://arecreative.org/ http://localmaking.org/