I just finished mentoring in a two week course in the Icelandic Academy of Arts. The name of the course is dialogue and idea of the course was to bring students from the whole school together, discuss art and issues and collaborate in some way. One of the concepts the school asked us to discuss was “New Iceland”. I had a lecture about words and meaning, how words can prevent us from thinking about important things because all the words are worn out. One of those words is actually “New Iceland”. There is a dream among many to rebuild Iceland in a new way. To find new ethics and values, new ways of doing business and politics. But there is quite a lot of disappointment. Those that have claimed to be the “New Iceland” have been making exactly the same mistakes as caused the fall of “Old Iceland”. So when the word comes up – the mind wants to reject it. Our group, with 10 students from visual arts, drama, music, design and architecture decided to address the issue by holding a rave in an abandoned power station. The idea was to make some kind of rain dance for the economy. Rave for the machine. The DJ read texts about investment from a Brian Tracy book improvised some prayers to the great god of the economy. The rave was quite fun. Pictures by Goddur are here. The video is here. The blog of the course is here, by Dori Gislason.
