The Beauty of Dirt and Imperfection
- Sven Stegemann
- 15. Aug.
- 4 Min. Lesezeit
Exactly ten years ago today one of the most intense experiments of my life began: the innovation campPOC21, initiated by Open State & Ouishare.
For five weeks, the crew turned an old castle near Paris into a futuristic microcosm full of wood dust, solder, ideas and the wild belief that open, sustainable technologies could change the world.
It was chaotic and wonderfully imperfect. In the end, it completely changed my life. Maybe the Transformation Design Academy would never have existed – or it would look very different today.
To mark the anniversary, I am republishing one of my original articles from the camp. It still captures the tone and feeling of this once-in-a-lifetime event for me.
The Beauty of Dirt and Imperfection
There are wild boars in the woods. They have piglets and are hungry, which makes them aggressive. This wouldn’t be too relevant if it didn’t influence the camp’s social dynamics and development. Everything here is dense, denser than the real world.
Our physical space is limited, and there are many of us at the château. I have moved my mattress to the lobby, after two sleepless nights in a crowded, noisy room. Ole from Wigwam has joined me there, and our little camp has become our first and last site of intense discussions. Time feels compressed; every day imprints itself with the weight of a week in our memories. Meetings, workshops, lectures, and a dense social atmosphere. Entering the communal space means talking to five people and getting involved in three tasks; there is little room for privacy.
While time and space are artificially altered, everything else appears real. This setting provides a unique frame for a social experiment. POC21, the proof of concept, is not solely
about technical solutions for basic human needs. This is a microcosm (although with a very special crew), running a simulation of a possible society. POC21 may or may not become a proof of concept of how a new or altered form of society could look like. POC21 models a society of grownups, where consumerism and infantile reliance on leaders has been
replaced by individuals who take responsibility and contribute to POC21’s existence.
For all of us, this has become a bigger challenge than we had anticipated. Let’s look back on what happened so far. The challenges of the first couple of days were partly established by our physical needs. A set-up team had built compost toilets, showers, a kitchen, and satellite internet. It was surprisingly cold at night, and there was no heating. The heater at the showers did not work, and single-digi water temperatures barely felt refreshing in the morning. The choice of food, although good, is limited compared to our overwhelming supermarket worlds. We are much more dependent on our direct social and physical environment.
The more interesting challenges, however, have been set on the higher levels of Maslow’s pyramid: integration, relationship, belonging, esteem. Whatever we brought to the
camp in terms of social self-understanding, has been challenged. Reputation, background and status magically lose their power in this setting. Even senior guests and visitors
seem to instantly feel the altered reality, and instinctively start cutting vegetables to help the kitchen team or get involved elsewhere. Peer pressure in its most positive form.
Naturally, the influence of this social “reset” reaches beyond the elimination of old school hierarchies. The POC21 system has its own logic and tricky artefacts. Plans and expectations have clashed with an agile, emerging and unpredictable reality. To mention just one example, the vacuum of hierarchies has partly been filled by informal new forms of power, which even came as an unpleasant surprise for those who hold it. We currently try to tackle and melt these unwanted symptoms through smart processes, which harnesses our collective intelligence and empowers every participant.
As I am writing from a meta-perspective, I may describe beauty and positive developments at large, even if they are partly fueled by pain at their roots. I actually had to gain some physical distance for the first time, in order to escape sleep deprivation, role challenges, and a general social overkill. I am sitting in a café in a village nearby, surrounded by some books and my laptop. And for the first time in days, I can afford my mind some much-needed
perspective.
From my coffee table, I find Nicholas Taleb’s idea of anti-fragile systems helpful, in order to make sense of what is going on at the camp. POC21 is an organism which is constantly disturbed by shocks, random events, and internal stress. All these influences may destroy an unresilient system. But POC21 is more than just resilient. An anti-fragile system gains stability from stress. Every disturbance causes an iteration of improved social practices, the
development of a new prototype.
I find that this outstanding anti-fragility at POC21 is one of the most important advantages over the macrocosm outside the château. The fact that nothing is leveled here as in our outside macrocosm, where we are lulled in acclimatized surroundings, clear distributions of responsibilities, irresponsibilities and a social roles, allows POC21 to develop solutions for
every upcoming challenge within the shortest amount of time.
From this perspective, many discomforts appear in a different light. Now I wonder: Do I understand the luxury of a fresh breeze of air while taking a shower? The ever-changing temperature of nature? The unfinished state of everything around, the beta version, even of the château itself, which provides me with creative space? As Friedensreich Hundertwasser is quoted on our compost toilets, “sterile cleanness is death, dirt is life”.
If Hundertwasser and Taleb are right, this is not a joke. If we want to survive our journey on spaceship Earth as a species, we will have to rediscover our anti-fragile nature. Let’s get rid of the protective shells we have established around our bodies and societies; let’s take in more of the healthy disturbances we need, to become capable of tackling the challenges of our time.
Kommentare