huntington81@gmail.com – Page 2

The New New Gothenburg Spirit

The New New Gothenburg Spirit (Den nya nya Göteborgsandan) is a performance work that is based on Göteborg Konsthalls own administrative everyday routines, and highlights the systems and phenomena that pervade a completely ordinary working day in the service of the municipal residents. Small-scale examples from a silent tug-of-war are presented: a sometimes painful wrestling match between judgment and structure that takes place behind the facades of all municipal institutions around in the city districts. These acrobatic maneuvers are intertwined with the city’s tunnel vision on economic growth and the contemporary manic acceleration rate that perforates us citizens on all levels.

In the performance, alternative methods are sought out, new ceremonial tactics expand from the basements of administration, strange measures are developed and leads up to a gloomy ritual – a joint exorcism of both new and old ghosts of thought.

The performance was 25 minutes long, and here you can see the last three minutes, the ceremonial finale.

Ten employees from the City of Gothenburg participated in the ritual: Matias, Henrik, Mikael, Kajsa, Petra, Jenny, Katarina, Fredrik, Niina and Linda. They where dressed in ceremonial outfits made out of discarded paper and cardboard: leftovers from municipal operations. The participants uphold different positions and are working for various departments of the municipality.

The performance took place to the tunes of Arvsmassan.

More about the event at the website of Göteborg Konsthall

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Black Metal Art Bar

As part of Art Week Copenhagen 2023, I am participating in Black Metal Art bar, produced by Live Art Denmark, held at Friisland in Copenhagen. Three separate performance occasions with a new version of The Dark Administrator, and then there is an exhibition up until 30th of June.

More information:

Black metal meets public administration meets German beer!

John Huntington (SE) is accompanied by the apocalyptic sounds by Dödsvarg (SE) in THE DARK ADMINISTRATOR, a performance which demonstrates the darkest rituals of the public administration of the welfare state!

Black’n’Grove band ILLA and Claus Haxholm’s Black Metal project Grev Trold play live outside FRIISLAND.

All events are free of charge.

Lots of cheap German beer!

PROGRAM:

Saturday June 3rd 2023
18:00 The Dark Administrator (limited access)
19:00 ILLA
19:30 The Dark Administrator (limited access)
20:30 Grev Trold

Sunday June 4th 2023
19:00 The Dark Administrator (limited access)

Tickets for The Dark Administrator at https://www.cphstage.dk/shows/the-dark-administrator

The first version of The Dark Administrator was coproduced together with Skogen in Gothenburg.

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Kanslibyrådagarna 2023

This year’s conference will take place in the five towns of Jönköping, Tranås, Boxholm, Mjölby och Linköping 4-6 May. There are three intensive program items on the agenda, where irrational support structures and an alternative set of measures are being developed.

Welcome to take part in the conference’s activities on Kanslibyråns Instagram account. The conference applies a variable schedule and the program items will be announced gradually. Stay updated on Thursday – Saturday to experience the gathering digitally.

Image: Climb a mountain in shirt and tie (2022)

Instagram: @kanslibyran

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Survey of the Fossil Fuel Industry (2021)

Me and artist Ilona Huss Walin mapped the aesthetics and vocabulary of the fossil fuel industry using painting as a medium. The approach in the paintings is playful, no special prior knowledge is required to produce the images. The paintings thus become an accessible way of approaching the issue of the public pension funds problematic shareholding, an issue that concerns us all. We cannot escape the fact that everyone who works becomes a shareholder in the fossil fuel industry.

Survey of the Fossil Fuel Industry was a part of the project “Artists interpret the Public Pension Funds”

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An Inner Journey at 13-festivalen

Kanslibyrån is performing the work “The Phantom Administration – Proposal No. 147: An Inner Journey” at 13festivalen on January 6th 2023. The work is a guided meditation with Kanslibyrån. Participants are taken on a mental journey among the details of everyday life, where our immediate environments are charged with warmth and the workplace becomes a path to enlightenment. The work is in swedish, 20 minutes long and for a maximum of 20 participants.

13festivalen is taking place on Konstepidemin in Gothenburg 5-7 January 2023.

Here you can read the whole program for the festival

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The Twilight Bureaucracy

Anna, Case Officer, The County Administrative Board
Fredrik, Systems Analyst, City of Gothenburg
Ylva, Regional Developer, Region Västra Götaland
The Potato Economy

The Twilight Bureaucracy is a collection of events, objects and strategies that explore the undercurrents of bureaucracy and the alternative sides of administration.

The project is based on experiences from professional groups that have clear functions directed towards general citizens: employees in both public and private businesses that in some way provide a community service and where everyday work is characterized by administrative labour. In these occupational groups, certain psychological phenomena recur, such as for example an occupational stress of being responsible for other people’s well-being and powerlessness and alienation in regards to how the system of the institution is designed. The Twilight Bureaucracy describes a counter-movement, a community of acting officials, who invent various strategies and techniques to escape frustration, create sanctuaries, and pour warmth into the spaces in between.

The project is resulting in many different works and series of works where performative, dialogical and image-based practices constantly overlap. For example in performance works such as The Dark Administrator, The New New Gothenburg Spirit and The Potato economy. The youtube-channel The Twilight Bureaucracy consists of video works about the alternative side of administration.

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The Nothern Office is open

Frihetsförmedlingens local office at Havremagasinet in Boden is activated by the agencys initators Lars Noväng and John Huntington on 11-12 november 2022.

On Friday 11 November we are hosting the workshop “Together we can quit” where we follow a carefully structured and playful method where we develop new methods to stop everything from small-scale everyday habits to institutionalized behavioral patterns, with the overall goal to rid ourselves of constant employment, activity and consumption.

Saturday, 12 November 12.00-15.00 all freedom seekers are welcome to drop by to get a freedom permit issued, evaluate their freedom needs and freedom opportunities, or just meet Frihetsförmedlingens initators to discuss.

The Third Cerebral Hemisphere

Kanslibyråns exhibition titled “The Third Cerebral Hemisphere” is opening on Galleri 54 in Gothenburg Friday 4 November 2022 at 18.00-21.00

For almost fifteen years, Kanslibyrån (The Secretariat Bureau) has waged a small-scale and persistent struggle in everyday life where society’s ideals of rationality, obedience and efficiency are questioned on both a public and personal level.

“We live in a fragmented and polarized reality where cold and seemingly rational mechanisms such as market forces, bureaucratic processes and social hierarchies shape our surroundings, at the same time as emotion, irrationality and imagination are twisted beyond recognition in a medialized and digitalized reality full of post truths and outrage.”

Here, Kanslibyrån believes that it is important to carefully nurture the irrational and consciously embrace a curious and naive gaze on our surroundings. Everyday interventions, tentative gestures and micro-resistance become a form of mental long-distance training. Kanslibyrån’s organization and collection of various actions constitute a body of ritual protective measures against our current production-oriented and socially divisive paradigm.

At Galleri 54, Kanslibyrån exhibits a large selection of photographs documenting objects and actions as well as text based works.

At 19.00 on the day of the opening, Kanslibyrån will read from its Program Statement that was published earlier this year. The reading is in Swedish.

For more information see: Galleri 54

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Together we can quit

The Swedish Public Freedom Service invites you to the workshop “Together we can quit!” in Jönköping, a practical guide in the art of quitting under the guidance of our newly started unit for termination management.

The demands of our time to constantly start anew, accelerate, consume and in various ways increase growth and speed is creating a climate collapse. At the same time, it prevents society from developing in the direction of greater care, empathy and thoughtfulness.

Learning to quit is therefore necessary. Together we need to rid ourselves of constant employment, activity and consumption.

In the workshop, we follow a carefully structured and playful method where we develop new methods to stop everything from small-scale everyday habits to institutionalized behavioral patterns. The workshop is about 90 minutes long and relates to permaculture principle number six “Create no waste”. No pre-registration or preparation is needed. The workshop is part of the project “Jorddyrkare” held at Österängen konsthall.

For more information visit Jordyrkare at Österängen Konsthall

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Nationwide working groups

During the spring and summer of 2022, we have summoned more people to Kanslibyråns operations. Now approx. 1200 people, or 0.12 per thousand of Sweden’s population, is a members of one of the bureaus working groups. Each group is assigned a task and consists of about a hundred participants. Membership can be seen as an honorary assignment, a call to action or a break in the daily routine.

Participation is entirely on a voluntary basis, all group members are anonymous and there is no requirement or expectation of feedback or documentation.The purpose of performing each group’s task is to create an opportunity for the participants to get a different view of their own everyday life. The task creates space for irrational kinds of actions that may directly or indirectly affect people in the members’ environment.