November Chronicle by Zoi Moutsokou.
MONDAY 12/11. COOP Day 1: Transition evening, reading the “Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable” by Amitav Ghosh.
I had just passed a busy intersection called Maurice Nagar when I heard a rumbling sound somewhere above. Glancing over my shoulder I saw a grey, tube-like extrusion forming on the underside of a dark cloud: it grew rapidly as I watched, and then all of a sudden it turned and came whiplashing down to earth, heading in my direction. Across the street lay a large administrative building. I sprinted over and headed toward what seemed to be an entrance. But the gals-fronted doors were shut, and a small crowd stood huddled outside, in the shelter of an overhang. There was no room for me there so I ran around to the front of the building. Spotting a small balcony, I jumped over the parapet and crouched on the floor.
TUESDAY 13/11, COOL Day 2: Personal presentations and getting to know us.
The measurement of time and the feeling of time were the basis of our first workshop. we had to experiment in finding ways how to estimate a 10 minutes period without a clock and the solutions we came up with involved apples, knitting, meditation drawings, face masks aromatic sticks, water and trust. After inventing our own improvised “timers”, we paired the “time keeper” with the presenter and and started to get to know us and about our practices and interests.
WEDNESDAY 14/11. COOP Day 3: Waterline Museum and Introduction to the COOP tools.
Our visit to the Waterline Museum was an opportunity to learn more about the water management and its environmental, historical and social extensions in the Netherlands and reflect on climate issues and questions of networking and mediation. A presentation by James Bridle, group discussions and quality face to face time followed. At the end of our meeting we had an introduction to our information collection tools and exchanged information and opinions about our research process. We decided to work on an online direct publication platform, Are.na, we looked at alternative ways of communication and information exchange through the platforms riot and dat, and we started collecting our individual footprint data that we will be tracking down throughout the year.
THURSDAY 15/11 COOP Day 4: Wrap up
During the conclusion of the group meeting, we searched for the individual powers that will shape the group dynamics during our COOP gatherings until the final outcome of it. We talked about our interests and skills, started investigating possible forms of publication and planned the weeks ahead.