The other day I watched a 25-minute video about taking apart & recycling a Boeing 747 airplane; the movie is Hollywood style, with plenty of dramatic music & quoting lots of numbers – how heavy things are, how much money the recycled parts will sell for, what wind-speeds the nose of the plane can withstand and so on. The men doing the work (yes, all men) are interviewed about how dangerous their work is (no-one is wearing a hard-hat – but perhaps that would be a bit ineffective if a jet engine fell on you). I had never previously given much thought to what happens to retired planes, and it seems not many other people have either, since apparently most of them simply get left to rust and rot on old runways in places like Arizona. Only recently has the airline industry begun to recognise the value in recycling the planes, and this video documents the first Boeing to be recycled. more »

Nantes Situation: Recycle a Boeing!

9-12 April 2013
Public event: Friday 12 April, 19.30 CET
(find your local time here)

More information here.

I am back in Munich, fighting off a cold and slowly digesting the first situation after a very intense week in London. I am tired but satisfied, energised by the people and the process, and inspired to improve on things with the next situation – in Nantes, 9-12 April. more »

London Situation: Working with Electronic Waste

19-23 March 2013
Public event: Saturday 23 March, 2pm GMT, 3pm CET

+See images of the event on Flickr.

Research material from the workshop available here.

we are about to start day 2 of the workshop here in london so i thought i would send you all a quick update about how it's going, for those of you who aren't here with us. things are going well! more »

I am preparing for London, and the first “situation”; I'll arrive a few days before the workshop begins, in order to meet participants and be sure that we have everything ready. At Furtherfield, Ale is busy getting everything ready for the workshop (19-22nd) and the performance on the 23rd, and in Augsburg Martin is slaving over a smoking keyboard, putting the finishing touches on audio-video streaming in UpStage. more »

We have a situation! formally began over the weekend of 10-11 November 2011, when the four partner organisations and collaborators met for a planning meeting in Linz, Austria. more »

We Have a Situation! – a series of live, trans-border, online-offline participatory performances addressing current cross-cultural European issues.