Almaty Workshop 2021

Almaty, July 2021, Ruthia Jenrbekova

The workshop in Almaty took place on premise of the queer techno night club and consisted of five evenings (Tuesdays and Mondays), spanning five weeks in July and August 2021. Each meeting took approximately 3—4 hours long. The dates were: 20/07, 27/07, 03/08/, 16/08, 23/08.

Almaty DM_WS_1 July 20 2021
The first workshop was attended by 20 people. The first part was my long introduction with Q&A, and the second part included two free writing sessions followed by a discussion. The Dreamachine was present in the center of the room rather as a symbol, unfinished and inoperative.

Almaty DM_WS_2 July_27 2021
The second workshop was attended by 10 people. We were reading aloud what was written during the previous meeting, trying to identify the essential part — what was the topic of each particular piece of writing. Then I propose an exercise: we took a long round where everyone describes their idea and then the one sitting on the left side suggests a possible form for this idea could eventually take: a text, a video, etc. This exercise seemed to be a successful method to discuss and receive a feedback and collectively develop the initial idea towards it’s possible final form.

Almaty DM_WS_3 August_03 2021
The third workshop was attended by 4 people. We were discussing ideas and working together on constructing a Dreamachine.

Almaty DM_WS_4 August_16 2021
The fourth workshop was attended by 6 people, most of them came for the first time. I had to repeat my introduction, and then we conducted a series of free writing sessions.

Almaty DM_WS_5 August_23 2021

The fifth workshop was attended by 7 people, two of which were new. This time it was already dark enough in the room for a Dreamachine launch. We divided into groups: the new members were free writing, old members continued with discussing their projects. In the end I was collecting signed forms and handing over certificates that I printed out for participants, just for memories. In addition to these workshops we organized a meeting with bULTt friends and regular visitors, where I invited people to talk a bit about their music, their queerness and their club (there are some video and audio recordings).

While many expressed keen interest in the workshop, the overall “productivity” of it wasn’t high. After the first workshop there were at least ten people with their — verbally described — projects to be carried out. During the next meetings more people came up with project ideas (partly because this was what I continuously asked for—to share project ideas). However, most of the project ideas have remained just ideas until now.