Funkin’ & Failin’
The P-Funk Mothership, National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC, USA, 2016. Fuzheado, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
If, like me, you're an avid funk enthusiast, you've probably seen Parliament-Funkadelic or want to (I've seen them twice, not that I'm bragging). They may have been around for decades, but with the inimitable Dr Funkenstein, George Clinton, still at the helm, their shows are just as exciting and unpredictable now as they were in their heyday in the 1970s, albeit with fewer spaceships.
If you're not a funkateer, let me try to describe what a Parliament-Funkadelic show is like: it's a heady blend of psychedelia, science fiction and, of course, some of the heaviest funk ever made on this planet or any other that we know of. The stage is typically bustling with artists, performers and musicians, resulting in an exhilarating mix of cosmic acoustics and intergalactic theatrics.
However, at the height of their popularity, Parliament-Funkadelic was concerned that its distinct sound, known as p-funk or pure funk, would be erased by the surge in popularity of disco. The anticipated extinction was attributed to what the band dubbed the Placebo Syndrome - the notion that disco was simply a commercially driven derivative of funk, drowning out every other groove.
Parliament-Funkadelic weren't the only artists to think this, but trust me when I say that there was some deep disco back then, just like there is now, the kind that I frequently find myself dancing to at a queer club at some ungodly hour of the morning. Nevertheless, the anxiety was understandable; record company executives had seemingly developed a formula for consistent sales and success, leaving limited leeway for artistic experimentation.
As it turned out, there was enough room on the airwaves for both funk and disco, as well as its plentiful offspring, and a trial-and-error-free music industry never materialised. This also applies to every other industry or sector, including the UK cultural sector (the trial-and-error part, not the dance floor cross-fertilisation). But it can be hard to admit when you’ve made a flop not a bop, so it's no surprise that the Placebo Syndrome is still so appealing.
Getting over the Placebo Syndrome is tough, especially in the UK culture sector, where organisations are under headache-inducing pressure to become hit factories, routinely delivering bigger and better projects without fail. But as Dr Funkenstein famously advised, “the bigger the headache, the bigger the pill”, and FailSpace is most definitely a big pill.
Like any medication, it's best to seek advice before taking it, and FailSpace offers a wealth of excellent guidance. As a cultural practitioner, it’s motivated me to encourage my clients and collaborators to think about the various ways that a cultural project could go wrong, ranging from minor mistakes to significant setbacks. This isn’t because I’m cold-blooded, but the vast majority of my work focuses on enabling a wider range of people to access and make decisions about culture, and bringing together diverse personalities and perspectives doesn’t always go as planned.
My co-creation training sessions usually bring together people from all sorts of backgrounds and organisations - and more often than not, things go as planned (famous last words). One reason for this is that I help participants let go of the need to project an image of success, which reduces any sense of competition. To facilitate this, I start with an exercise inspired by Failspace’s Wheel of Failure, inviting participants to reflect on varying degrees of failure and the lessons they offer - reminding us that outcomes rarely fit neatly into ‘success’ or ‘failure’, but instead fall along a spectrum.
So, when things don't go to plan, you can try to ignore them, conceal them or even stop the project altogether, but this would be to succumb to the cultural sector's own Placebo Syndrome. As an alternative - and there are always choices when it comes to how we handle failure - you could try a few adaptations or adjustments, using FailSpace's toolkit, to create a more responsive, realistic and robust project.
So the next time you expect failure, remember that there are plenty of us in the same boat, or ship, and I don't mean the seagoing variety, and instead of trying to style it out, simply "put a glide in your stride and a dip in your hip, and come on up to the Mother[FailSpace]ship." Mothership Connection (Star Child), Parliament-Funkadelic, 1975.