AdO/Aptive:
a-/o-holics groups
Workshop
26/09 at 12:30
27/09 at 18:00
Pogon Jedinstvo
a-/o-holics groups
Anonymous, Obstructive, Affluent, Operations
When thinking about addiction in pathological terms, one quickly associates pharmacological responses: cures, support groups, abstinence. But, what is it that fuels addictions? Is it really only sugar, golf, work, drugs that make us o- or aholics? Does sustainable addiction treatment lie in sobering up or in a conscious dosage of the “substance”?
In the frame of the a-/o-holics groups we would like to think of these relationships as markers of sociological, political and even philosophical standpoints or tendencies and repurpose them to obtain a critical view on compulsive and disorderly relations. We will employ techniques and methods borrowed from popular addiction treatments (like support groups and 12-step-programs) to deal with four relevant concepts:
Hope, Topology, Surplus and Conspiracy.
At the start of the two-day workshop we’ll gather Hope’aholics, Topo’holics, Surplus’aholics & Conspire’aholics in working groups based on the results of a personality test. Each group will be led by a “Metaholic”, a group member dedicated to act out certain instructions. The -a/-oholics clubs will gather and operate in different locations around the Organ Vida festival area in Zagreb to work on their common addictions in the format of a role-play game. Each working group will physically manifest their process on collective mood-boards and mind maps, collecting objects, polaroid photos, traces and texts they found during their engagement with their own special compulsion. As a conclusion of the workshop all four a-/o-holic clubs come together again to present and talk about their journeys, revelations and challenges together with the other groups.
AdO/Aptive
is a collective based in Vienna and active around central Europe. It foments critical thinking, potential action, communication and Otherness by adopting poetic and performative techniques to situate adaptive processes. It was founded in 2019 as a reading group circle. Since then, adO/Aptive has organised events like symposia, workshops or lectures and worked on collective art projects at the intersection of performance, theory and speculation.