Locations

Arrangement can be anything co-experienced, such as an activity, a project, a relationship, an art piece. To Locate is the comprehensive act of seeking out, precising, discussing, sharing, sequencing, and brightening, to determine what indicates (pulse) a connective experience, together.

Locating is a part of generative (Earthen) artmaking. A Locating may precede, complement, sublimate, deburr, explode, or otherwise interact in planned and unplanned ways with “other” types of making. A Locating may generate other Locatings, such as locating specific tasks and comrades to complete a co-located project.

A fundamental task of the P.R.S. Locations Department is to facilitate locatings, in whatever form a Locating takes.

How to digest this primer

As described above, Locating can be understood in the general sense as an act that invites more connectivity and more freedom into a collaboration. The rest of this primer outlines specific examples and methods that you can reference when developing your own Locating process.
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Locating by Asking

At its simplest, Locating is asking (and answering.) For example, some things we may ask when:

Locating a Place– Does it have bathrooms? Does it have trees? Do comrades run it? Can it fit 1,000 people? Do people feel comfortable laughing there? Do people sleep there? Will it loudly announce people who arrive late? If it were a person, would that person be celebrated?

Locating a Comrade– Do they live in many places? Do they have a car? Will they happily talk to us about their “X”?

Locating a Task– Will this prevent a sleepless night? Does this sound fun to me? Do we need to bring in an expert comrade?

Generative questioning and connective answering encourages co-realization, without making a necessity of judgment or universal agreement in order to complete an arrangement.
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Example of A Locating

Locatings may be an in-person group experience. One such structured experience is called A Locating. The basic components of A Locating are Place, World, and comrades. Comrades participate as Worlder, Lookout, Inciter, or Locating Guide.

Place– The address where A Locating is happening. The Place collaborates with each participant in unconscious and conscious ways.

World– Something being shared and experienced at A Locating.

Worlder– The comrade(s) sharing the world that they’ve brought to the Place. The Worlder has a preallocated amount of time to share whatever form their world currently exists in (their body, instruments, text, etc.) During A Locating, The Worlder focuses solely on sharing and answering. The Worlder relies on the Lookout to handle tasks outside of this focus. Thus, the Worlder can move freely around their world when sharing (free to be obtuse, transparent, repetitive, self-contradictory, stumped, a genius, etc.)

Lookout– The comrade advocating for the Worlder and the world being shared during Locatings. The Lookout protects the world from judgment. The Lookout is a being that exists in both the shared world and the Place.

Inciter– Inciters are comrades that excite and discern the world by asking the most generative, motivating, naughty, and freshest questions possible. Inciters ask the Worlder about the world in a caring language that deepens the world. Thus, Inciters language the world in collaboration with the Lookout, Worlder, Place and Locating Guides.

Locating Guide– The comrade(s) facilitating the Locating by sharing the address of the Place, time to meet, and Locating primer materials.

Although we World & Incite ideas and Lookout for & Guide beings outside of an organized Locating, our awareness of such roles may be inflected by different ecosystems. Structured Locatings offer a place to train and deepen our skills in each role to become ever more exhilarating as co-creators. ☷