Certain ideas need to be allowed to persist, even if there is no evidence of their having any value. The reasons for doing this might not be immediately apparent but they need not be known for this allowance to be given. Ideas need to be allowed to continue on the basis of what they need. If they do not ask for attention, do not ask for money, do not ask for practitioners and do not ask for validation, what is the harm in letting them do what they need to do? Sanctuaries are structures that give such inert desires that do not require much a nestling space. A nestling space only means that a space to develop from a spark to a fire is available. Resources for adding fuel to the fire exist.

But what are the criteria of such an offer of nestling space? The criteria is purely instinctive. When we feel that a desire has yet not become enveloped in a puddle of cynicism, we include it in the sanctuary. Cynicism does not allow a desire to achieve its ends. The desire gets stuck in limbo, not being able to reset and not being able to go ahead and pursue its ends either. This sanctuary does not have only a personal implication for us. It has a wider implication even if you do not care about us or the Museum. We are not saying that culture is infectious so we indirectly and invariably have some influence on the way things will shape up. But we are stating that till the total annihilation of all the sanctuaries that offer nestling spaces is completed, there is no victory for either side. Sanctuaries are detested and their role in fermenting opposition is not easily tolerated.

But this depends on what the nestling space offered is able to trigger. Provided the nestling space is actually able to seed a drastic set of alternatives, it will really end up meaning something. The truth is that there are far fewer resources available for causes that are taking a bet on the future that might never be realised. There is a simple one-to-one correlation between investable futures and liveable realities. If an idea does not have the desperate desire to become investable, then it is an empty symbolic gesture and cannot be taken seriously. Not being take seriously means that there we retain no power and remain a benign entity on the landscape.

What do we see? And do we see it? It is true that we only experience the remnant flavour of the nature of our vision in our dreams. The quality of our dreams is very important. We seem to be able to choose what we see in a pretty simple way, but there seems to be no way to choose our dreams. Textbooks explain that dreams are only re-synthesized memories. In CINEMA we have already laid out an argument against that perspective.

And that is where the concept of a LENS helps us hold on to as well as walk away from the field as it exists. Our minds are lenses, if nothing else. Everything we manage to see is through the faculties of our minds. If our minds are programmed in specific ways, our experience will have that specific flavour. And there is no way to work on our minds directly. It is like shooting at a figure, when you can see them in a mirror. All the figures we can see are only reflections in the mirror.

We work on our mind only by applying it in specific directions. Practices are directions. Writing, Thinking, Walking - each is a practise because we can script the actions, but not the experience. Ways of performing practices can be gestured towards but the content has to emerge.

Exchange can only happen when there is an agreement on a common notion of value. Establishing this common notion is an important role and function of culture. This function is performed very slowly and sometimes take a whole generation. Because of the speed of this operation, any possible change of the common notion of value is almost impossible.

But still most of us hold on to their notions of value dearer than their notions of themselves.

I would like to design games (not digital, real-world civic games, games as a public activity) to be played by children, senior citizens, women, men, artists, others, scholars, the nonchalant. A set of rules to analyse the playtime of a given game will be made and analysis of all the sessions played will be done.

The games will be designed as a part of the classroom and workshop time. The games will be analysed publicly. Others can join if they find it interesting - but they can be sure that the analysis process is deeply transparent. In the mode of following symbols and their representations, the analysis will be able to tell the notions of value that groups possess. The groups will need t0 comprise of homogenous groups of people for this to work.

This game design and analysis will be prepared in collaboration with graphic designers there for exhibition and possible publication.

This game’s rules will be the laws governing the process of assigning value to organic activity. These laws will be studied in the second part of the process in another workshop. The motivations behind the will to frame a law are unknown. They are a curious mixture of morality, ethics and spirituality. This deeper understanding of social law will help participants in doing a deeper social analysis and work at the roots of that analysis.

Even if conversation never happens, the possibility exists.

Because of this possibility, we engage and participate in conversations all the time. But what is a conversation really?

A conversation is not just a dialogue with a multi-party contribution. Even if it says nothing, it happens as an outbreak of partnership. Even if no exchange happens, a partnership gets established. This partnership does not have any deep significance.

A contribution is not valuable by default.

That is where the script comes in.

If conversations were to be scripted dialogue and not mere speech with an unspecified intensity, then they could actually matter more.

Scripts are not static, pre-cast entities. Scripts are puddles of programmatic logic. They are algorithmic. Algorithms only define the structural basis of an entity and leave the content alone.

This is on the whole wise. Because a structure can accommodate multiplicities of content-types. There are no restrictions except the delivery of a certain reward. And rewards are only desirable. Actually as far as conversations are concerned, they are the only desirable outcomes.

Not having a script is not a sign of openness. It is a sign of disinterest. Openness has a value only if it offers a genuine possibility of escaping the conversation and the need to converse. And that is never going to be possible anyway. All claims of freedom from the entanglements of life are false.

The closest we can get to this freedom is having a closeted space for improvisation. Improvisation is a practical reflection of freedom. There is a scope for variation. And there are limits. That is all that is needed.

After the scripted conversation has taken place, the question can be: who spoke? The writer or the actor? And this is not a simple question. Both have contributed at different stages.

To pursue authorship in this case is futile. But authorship was never interesting anyway. Because no matter what the public declaration might be, the perception of a stake is another matter altogether. If an actor feels close to an experience that was scripted by someone else, that closeness cannot be either dismissed or questioned.

We hold on to the potential of conversation. And do not give up. We place it in the sanctuary. We do not get locked into a battle with the casual notions of conversation. Within the window of a conversation, you never know when a script kicks in. A script is too hidden a tool to be possible to defend against. It can be deployed anytime. And then no amount of analysis will help.

Freedom is not just a matter of degrees. It is about the constraints and also attempts to describe the negative space of the constraints. In this description resides the potential of the freedom. In the degree of the opening, the scope of the negative space of constraints is defined. Sometimes through narrow slits and gaps, passionate potentialities are demonstrated. Because how free we feel depends only partly on how free we are allowed to feel and depends in equal parts on the level of our own disinhibition. Disinhibition cannot be rendered as a condition of the external ecosystem. It has more to do with the actor’s persona and how she has framed and declared her persona. What is the pitch of the actor’s voice? What does it say? What kind of response becomes necessary? By configuring herself, the actor defines the dynamic of the field.

The dynamic of the field can be shaped by individual actors as the interpersonal is the truly emergent space that sets chain-reaction off. Zones of freedom are demonstrations of the potential of freedom. These zones are outbursts of the improvised self-configuration exercises of actors.

Actors can self-configure if they choose to. They can also be automatic mirrors to the flux that they witness. Starting to play the game is a consent.

Attention is concentrated focus that is applied towards the thinking of anything. If we have less attention, we are more distracted. If we have more attention, we are are less distracted.

But attention is the currency of interaction. If we do not have this currency, we are not able to play any significant part in the world.

To accumulate currency in a distracted way would mean that one becomes a channel and not a collector. A collector accumulates, a channel merely allows passage.

Allowing passage and accumulating attention only via the trace deposit of the process allows us to be distracted and at the same time accumulate attention.

We can be channels, we can be distracted and we can accumulate attention at the same time.

But what will we do with all the attention? Because we do not want to be focussed and we want to be distracted in the first place.

We will use attention only as leverage to get what we want. We are aware of the value of attention. The media conglomerate and the attention economy is based on their ability to deflect and absorb attention in desired ways.

But what do we want? We want to stick around. We want to manage.