Garland (n.)
Garland as a word first appeared in c. 1300 , litterary meaning "wreath of flowers," also "crown of gold or silver," it came from the from Old French garlande "garland," probably from a Frankish frequentative form of *weron from *wiara-, *weara- "wire" (on the notion of "ornament of refined gold," properly "of twisted gold wire"), from Proto-Germanic *wira-, *wera-, suffixed form of PIE root *wei- "to turn, twist." Compare Middle High German wieren "adorn, bedeck." The word is found in many forms in the Romanic language, such as Old Spanish guarlanda, French guirlande, Italian ghirlanda, Portuguese guirnalda.

AMP’s use of the term 'Garland' arises from a layered perspective, both related to it’s content and on a formal level, with regard to the functioning of the different Quest Offices.

On the one hand, we can note that when we look at the different branches AMP generated as a company and the mutual connections that these branches interact with, makes that they are intertwined with each other and their environment. This intertwinement creates an infinite expanding movement. This movement is itself also "persistent" in the so-called endless liquid sea of intangible connections between the interpersonal entities.

On the other hand, we discern a continuous movement of the individual parts of the Garland itself, alternating positive and negative poles and as such creating a continuous up and down movement. This phenomenon appears at the cellular level but also at communal and even on cosmological levels. In this sense, scale is insignificant and the Garland serves as a model for a so-called; Hyper Object, which can inevitably be used and interpreted at all levels. It causes stories to be used on all scales.

The Garland Strategy is a methodology that allows the Possible Paradise to take place within the Potential Apocalypse, and this because it inherently requires the positively and negatively charged particles as a fundamental part of its existence. In that sense, it also eliminates the existence of a division because these so-called counterparts prove to be inextricably linked, they need and balance each other. In short, the Garland is a self-generating algorithm.

(...)

Becoming Future Proof in potential Apocalyptic Times

The Garland Strategy

Barbarian 1 : Eve
Barbarian 2 : The Snake
Civilized : The Apple

(E)​ ​The Barbarian Citizen
​​
This is a proposal to introduce the idea of the uncivilised (or barbarian) in the concept of the citizen. How to uncivilize yourself, or desophisticate, and use this as a perspective, ​a​s a mode of production?
So the title coud be: the uncivilised citizen - een uitburgerings cursus

(S) Imagine yoursssssself to be a Barbarian.
Bar bar bar barb burbb

(E) A Barbarian with a capital B.

(S) The civilizzzssed needsssss the Barbarian in order to exisssstt t t ttt, just to prooooove itssss own civilizssed-nessssssss
​...​.
I will be your barbarian, you can be minnnne….

The sssstory​:​

The story, our story, starts with a distinction. Instinction?
Barbarianhood, a state which returns to the center, to your core, the awakend state.

Yes, let’sss sssstart with the cccccccenter! It’s me, your center, that is calling you!

(​E) So the original-nature … or the natural-origin, the barbarian core, is not necessarily unrefined. As in ‘not-subtle’, non-human, un-developed
Unfinished
unflattened
unappreciated
unexpected
unclear
unfiltered
untrue
​unified....​​???​

the distinction: the barbarian might not be unrefined, but the barbarian is definitely
(infinitely)
unpolished
Burbs
It is about regrowing your Barbs
The barbs are always there, inside the barbarian, centered in your central center
but civilization polishes​, whipes away the Barbs​
true story, isn’t it, Apple?
(A)I would state that being a citizen is being connected to others​, without Barbs yes​
But the connection comes trough the Barb​s!!​
being polished is being like a snake,
Who ​can only slide next to the other but never connect!
​
​unless they are Barbarians themselvessss, the snake will be able to connect through the barbs

from now on you are a citizen of your own Barbarian sasstatttt tt e.
A state that manifests itself just at the same location as the civilized state. But it is a parallel world, another layer, invisible for anyone who does not know about the existence of the Barbarian.

(​between brackets: nevertheless Everyone is a Barbarian once in a while, but only little people know thisssss…..and even less accept thissssss…. and only the ones that start to accept their own Barbarism can use it in a productive way…
everybody IS a barbarian, in the core, in itself, and that
​ in itself​
might be a
​VERY ​
Barbaric thing to say...
The snake inside of you slips through the net of your conscious reasoning, and there you are again, in
​your​ barbarian state. ​​You are ​
not sleeping but not fully awake either, slipping in and out of reality. Changing position without knowing the difference.
​But let's face it:
​Who cares about ​R​eality anyway?
let’s talk about Reality…
the circular, the spiral, the …
Feel the snake inside of you
do you like it,
​A​pple?
Let it scroll along your Spinal Cord.
Awakening you.
That’s were the Barbs start to grow
you know?
You know!

(tekent slang)

​...​.

You can be forced in a Barbarian state, by law,
​or ​
by rules made by the so called
​""​
Civilized
​""​
.

Barbarians have no language.
No wordsssss can grasssssppp.
Try sssssomething elsssse
communication issss not only about wordssss
​BUT ​
Language is the structure by which we know and perceive reality!
Be able to disconnect from the structure! Look at the barbarian core of the word!
No, it is the magic, the spell connectssssss
Being a Barbarian you might read sometimes, but you read like a Barbarian, Googleling some bits and pieces of the work of academics hidden behind a paywall, you draw your conclusions from being incomplete. Digging into Facebook’s algorhythmn until you discover that you are spinning around without ever reaching the center. There is no center.

You are the center.
And because in physics in general a Spin is considered to be a body that turns (spins) around it’s own axis; that 'center being you’ ...
The theory of ’Spinexchange’ : cell recognition,
in-between entities

Sssssurfing upon algorythmsssss
The question remains: if the snake is the algorythm - your central axe - then, is this in harmony with your own inner cell rhythm?
In other wordsss s​s: do you find the algorrrrr ​rythm or does the algor​rr rythm find you?
Is this what Alessandro Barrico meant when he talks about the Barbarian? The Surfing Barbarian who has no time to go in depth and finds itself in a permanent state of distraction? Manipulated by the algorythm?
You are amusing yourself by imagining a Barbarian on a surfboard hitting the waves of knowledge.
(imagine Barri​c​o on a surfboard!)
Knowing that these waves will always be stronger, but ​that they ​never will​ be able to surf themselves.
​what a sorrow....​

The superiority of the Barbarian...How arrogant to think this way! How to speak about a book that you did not read?

Say to the civilized​,​ to shut up.

In a review Alessandro Barrico is put aside as an author who invokes Barbarism in itself: Literally: “Barrico’s Novels and short stories are havily criticized by literature critics but embraced by female and male readers - (in that order)” - end of citation
(-as if the fact that women tend to like his novels better, barbarize the quality of his work in general) -

we all recognizzzze sssssomething of the Barbarian in oursssself.
But the barbarian might be a productive state, in order to practice a different world and in that way rethink the civilized. Or even without the goal of becoming civilized
​. ​
ever
​.​
again.

Barbariansssss recognizes zze each other, even in a flassshhhh shh sh, it isss ssomething about the gazes zze, the
​ colour of theri eyes, or​the way they move vve, or connect to otherssssss sss.
so it is cell recognition

the harmony of chaosssss
( let's do a small exersize)
open your mouth and let the inner snake come out of you
feel it’s presence inside your throat
(...)

Adam’s apple?
Yessss, Eve, let’s not forget about Adam my dear, wasn’t it his Apple ​which made you fight for the Paradise?
do we have to kill the apple?
It’s not a question of killing, it’s a question of eating​!​

​A​nd in this particular case the question isssss :
who’sss ss eating who?
is the snake inside you eating the apple?
Or is the apple eaten by you?
eaten by your inner snake?
Are you eaten by your inner snake?
The snake eats it’s own tail! It’s the algorythm that always strikes back! You cannot escape it! If you don’t eat me, you’ll be lost and you’ll never find -
but this is an Uitburgeringscursus, remember? We’re not looking for sophistication!
Ok, so let's eat our center and let’s start with it’s tail
but you cannot find your center without reasoning, so use my slices to find you way
We should use both opposites and combine their forces. Let’s take one slice of Apple and one slice of Snake. Pile them.
I can be the perfect catalyzer

No, let’s get rid of the ‘ssssynthesssiss’, we have to find something elss ss see
don’t you see the snakes
there is no opposition, nor a regular order, everything is present at the same time
so take the slice of me, take the slice of apple, take Eve
(one drop is enough!)
the very act of eating is the realization that there’s no such thing as opposition
liniarity
beginning or ending

Apple, Eve & Snake, a ss sss sstory on Barbarism (The Garland Strategy, part1), 2017

The Garland Strategy, praxis

Turtles All The Way Down

Excerpt from presentation on The Garland Strategy for CCQO, Antwerp 2017
The Garland Strategy is used by AMP to describe it's business practice

The Garland Strategy, visualisation #1

The Garland Strategy is an ongoing research within the framework of the Cultural Commons Quest Office (part of Antwerp Research In the Arts (ARIA)). CCQO is a research platform consisting of eight PhD and Post-PhD Candidates and is initiated by Pascal Gielen. As part of this research group three artists are participating and defining their role and alternative research [strategy] under the title

They see The Garland Strategy as follows:

The Barbarian Citizen

* The Barbarian Citizen
* Turtles all the way down (ongoing research element)