alt.SPACE Meeting June 26 (Tuesday Potluck): Summaries and Thoughts

Here is a summary of the meeting that took place last night (Tuesday June 26) to discuss alt.SPACE events:

People present: Scott, Sammetria, Jason, Anna

One of the first and perhaps most important things we discussed was the number of events we should put together. We decided that it would probably be best not to undertake more than we can adequately follow through on, so a few events done very well, as opposed to many less developed or less thoughtful ones, should be our focus. We didn't decide on a specific number yet (2? 3? 4?), but it will likely depend on what we think up and how quickly we do so, as well as how much time we have to execute everything.

Another important issue was the status of people involved -- how to determine the roles different people would/should have when varying schedules make it difficult to accommodate everyone. We were thinking that in order to get things accomplished we will have to designate certain dates for meetings and decision-making deadlines, and whoever can contribute to these will be able to have their say and those who cannot will "waive their rights" in this part of the process. This does not mean, however, that those in the latter group cannot still participate in the events. I believe we decided that this Saturday would be a meeting to finalize certain things.

It was also noted that we should decide where the events will take place . Will they be at/inside Basekamp? Outside Basekamp? At other artist spaces? We didn't really figure this out yet, though so far the ideas we've thrown around involve a variety of locations outside of Basekamp (I'll get to these next). I think it's kind of nice to do things outside of bk, and even outside of other artist spaces. There are also a lot of reasons to do things in those spaces, though, so maybe we should determine what the "benefits" of doing things at Basekamp and/or at other artist spaces might be, in order to help us decide how to use or not use those venues.

And now the fun part... here are some of the "event" ideas that came up. In one of the other forums, Erica expressed her interest in doing some kind of walk or exploration of Philly to go along with the cartography aspect of the project. Scott responded with an idea about holding meetings on trains that were traveling through areas of the city that we don't see as much. For a better sense of this, you can read about it here: http://basekamp.aharonic.net/drupal/altspace-workgroup-what-when-how#com...

We also thought of another way to do the "walk" when Scott mentioned a place that was giving away old office furniture, including a large number of "office chairs": each of us rolling down the street in office chairs while having some sort of meeting or discussion. This also goes back to the theme of using/misusing corporate strategies/items (discussed in one or two of the other forums).

We then thought about some other unusual meeting places and how this could be sort of a theme -- holding meetings in a variety of locations, each with a different "feel." Two places we added to the list were the Wanamaker Building and the Ben Franklin Hotel lobby across the street. We ended up walking over to the hotel lobby to check it out. We were looking at the fountain in the middle and thought about how people bathe in fountains in Philly, so it would be really funny to go to the lobby with towels and robes (matching and bk monogrammed?) to bathe in the fountain.

On our walk over to the hotel we also noticed the uniform store and discussed how it would be interesting to go there and get the proper outfits to go join a road service crew or some other work group.

These are all the main points that I can remember. I have some stuff to add that wasn't necessarily part of the meeting, so I will do that in another post. Thoughts, questions, or ideas about any of this? Please respond below!

Thanks for reading,
Anna