interview about self organisation

Interview by Self-organisation symposium, within the 40th BITEF in Belgrade 2007 Catalogue of Questions by the Symposion
Name/title of organization? Legal status? What is the format/legal status of your organization? Geo-political territory:Where is your organization based? Is it local, regional, or international organization? Organizational structure: What are the rules of/in your organization?How do you produce these rules? Do you aim at creating a non- or less-organized organization? If yes, how do you do? Is there a core group? Is the core group flexible? Do you consider the structure of your organization utopian model? If yes, how? Decision making: How is the decision-making process organized? What are the practices of openness, transparency, sharing in your organization? Are these important? Economic situation: How do you ensure sustainability for your project? Are you funded from project to project or permanently? How do you deal with money: how do you write the applications; how do you re-distribute money? Is it possible that the founders don?t remain at the core of your organisation? Is this desirable? Content: In which field of art/culture/society do you work? Is your organization platform of projects, organizations/groups, or individuals? What do you produce: relationships or products? Do you want self-organization to support your art or do you want it to change society? Outside relationships/ representation: How do you decide on who is in / who is out? Do you accept memberships? Who can apply? Do you inform people about your organization models? If yes, whom and how? Who represents your organization? Is your organization based on principles of representation? Are you interested in networking/exchange with otherself-organizations in Europe?

Name/title of organization:

ausland

 Legal status / geo-political territory:

ausland is part of the non-profit association "projekt archiv e.V.", based in Berlin, Germany.

What is ausland?

ausland is a venue for music and performance and related public and non-public events. ausland is a workspace for local, national and international artists and projects. ausland holds on the average three shows a week.

Organizational structure:

ausland is run by a group of up to 6 people. Each "ausländer" (member of Ausland) has a high degree of autonomy in deciding how to use the space, which includes hosting any event he or she wishes. Most constraints come from the limited amount of money, the limited space and the limited number of people available to realize individual projects.

Most decisions that affect all ausländers are made on a consensus basis. Nonetheless, there are two different groups of ausländers: the maintainers and the programmers. All ausländers are programmers but only those people who are able to take responsibility for the venue as a whole are maintainers as well. Accordingly, maintainers decide on all questions regarding the infrastructure while ideally all ausländers decide on questions regarding the content/program together. But in fact  (and going along with the high autonomy of each member)  questions of content have not been discussed much lately.

Among the maintainers each person is responsible for a certain task, like upkeep of equipment, finances, public relations, etc.

The rules within ausland have been decided upon by the group and have proven themselves effective over time. We keep a document called "the bible" that consists of rules and how-to´s regarding the operation of ausland.

We think that the organizational structure of ausland is a pragmatic solution to the utopian idea of an artist-run venue.

Economic situation:

ausländers do not get paid.

As a rule of thumb, the money made from selling beverages finances the infrastructure of ausland. The door money goes to the performing artists. Public money (when available) goes into financing projects and, through this, to the ausländers.

For the last two years ausland has been receiving public money to cover operational costs, however, it could still work without these rather small amounts.

ausländers have been writing applications to realize specific projects. How these funds are distributed falls largely under the autonomy of the person(s) who applied.

 Content:

Since its opening in December 2000 ausland has gained profile as a venue for concerts, performances, readings, sound installations, film screenings, workshops and sociopolitical discussions. Furthermore ausland hosts thematic events or series, such as Salon acousmatique, Not on Air, Festival of Exiles, Berlin Cobra #4, and Erase & Reset, formats that combine the different genres.

The regular program of ausland is structured through series. Among others there is the Fernwärme: The Making of Performing Arts series which includes guest performances, co-productions and educational projects in the field of the performing arts. Biegungen is a series for experimental music.

Outside relationships/ representation:

Ausland is open to anybody who we like. In other words, anybody can become an ausländer or a maintainer as long as the current ausländers enjoy working with that person. The group of members has changed considerably since ausland was founded in 2000, but core members have remained largely the same.

While ausland is open to anybody it is not a transparent structure when seen from the outside. This is partly due to the fact that we handle money. We also haven´t put lots of effort into communicating internal discussions to the outside.

ausland is probably not based on principles of representation, however, we don´t know what that means exactly.

ausland is interested in networking with other artist-run initiatives/venues in Europe. Such networking could undermine the way established institutions and venues organize the music and performing arts markets.

Contact:

AUSLAND

Lychener Str. 60, 10437 Berlin, Germany

Phone +49 / 30 / 4477008

ausland@ausland-berlin.de

http://www.ausland-berlin.de/