Aplicaciones para la Gestión de Objetos de Aprendizaje

Ziferblat’s socio-spatial hybridity, mixing different frameworks in one place, creates, to extend the above-cited reference to Lewis Carroll, the ‘Mad Tea Party’ effect: after a

109 _{One of Saint Petersburg’s Ziferblats, called Ziferburg, pushed their utopian imagination even further}

and became a literal architectural embodiment of this metaphor. While most Ziferblat branches are trying to be warm and cosy home-like spaces, this one, inspired by Lars von Trier’s Dogville, was designed as a theatrical imitation of a town. This 300 m2 _{open-plan property, painted in black, was}

divided into eight zones (‘church’, ‘lighthouse’, etc.) separated with white outlines painted on the floor.

110 _{User’s comment in Treehouse’s Vkontakte group (Treehouse, n.d.).} 111 _{User’s comment in Mitin’s blog (Mitin, 2013).}

112 _{Reader’s comment under the news article about the London’s Ziferblat opening (Baker 2014).} 113 _{Media report on Ziferblat’s opening in Manchester (Burns, 2016).}

114 _{This quote and the previous one are from a media report on Ziferblat’s opening in London}

few minutes of confusion about the location and/or access to the building, you enter a space that looks, smells and sounds like a coffeeshop; a staff member at the entrance says: ‘Do whatever you like, help yourself to whatever you find in the kitchen, please bring your dishes to the sink before leaving, we will charge you only for your time’, gives you a stopped alarm clock and writes down your name; you see people around you being engaged in all sorts of activities—working on laptops, chatting, eating, making crafts, taking photos, playing the piano, dancing; someone in the corner is taking a nap; after you find a seat, a complete stranger approaches you with a

watermelon and offers you a slice; you try to order a coffee from the person who talked to you at the entrance but she looks at you disapprovingly and says, ‘I’m here to help, not to serve. Come with me, I’ll show you how to make it.’ In some Ziferblats, this oddity is also represented in their interior design, which adds to the confusion: thus, Pokrovka branch has a coffee table, turned upside down and attached to the ceiling (figure 5), and a wardrobe, used as a doorframe.115

Figure 5. Heterotopic design in Pokrovka Photo taken by the author, December 2016

Such incongruity makes it difficult for a newcomer to answer the key question one faces when interpreting a social situation: ‘What is it that’s going on here?’ (Goffman, [1974] 1986: 8), which leads to errors in framing, or ‘misframings’ (Ibid.: 308). Notably, most media reports and visitors’ reviews on Ziferblat, as well as other anti-cafes,116

have an algorithmic structure, listing the sequence of actions in this new framework

115 _{Getting back to the Dogville inspired Ziferburg (see note 109), ‘There were some secret rules known} only to hosts and regulars—you could not step over a “wall”, you were supposed to enter and leave a “house” through its “door”’ (Tanya, Pokrovka’s host, interview, July 2016).

116 _{In a Russian documentary made in 2014 to introduce a wider public to the phenomenon of anti-cafes}

(Moskva24, 2014), a confused ‘guest’ is assisted by a character who looks and acts like a ‘magical helper’ from Vladimir Propp’s (1968) structuralist theory of fairytales, thereby representing one’s first visit to an anti-cafe as a rite of passage to a heterotopia. What is more, a few scenes were filmed at Moscow’s version of a globally popular attraction—an ‘upside-down house’, which is not even an anti-cafe

(e.g., Soares, 2014; Saad, 2016). As follows from my research, misframings are the everyday reality for all Ziferblat branches and their repercussions range from personal anxiety and awkwardness to open confrontations between staff and customers or even more severe conflicts involving authorities. In chapter 5, I will discuss this issue in more detail, including the origin, manifestations and consequences of such errors and

strategies typically used by Ziferblat’s staff and customers to overcome them. 4.3.2. From silliness to responsibility: the multifaceted concept of freedom Ideologically, the concept of loose space is based on the idea of freedom, which has multiple meanings in Ziferblat discourse. On the one hand, it is understood as ‘the liberation of human capacities of cognition, affect, volition, creativity, etc., from the normative constraints incumbent upon occupying a sequence of social statuses’ (Turner, 1982: 44). As Ziferblat Worldwide’s description of Ziferblat suggests, ‘People come to third places to be themselves—not a client, a mom or an employee’ (Ziferblat, 2017). ‘Freedom of individuality’ and ‘freedom of self-fulfillment’ are often claimed to be fundamental values of Ziferblat (Mitin’s direct speech in: Reid, 2014; Ekspert, 2012). Furthermore, in many staff and guests interviews, Ziferblat is represented as a space for freethinkers (‘dissidents, people who are able to think more freely’;117 _{‘the open-}

minded, those who see further than others’),118 _{rule-breakers and rebels (‘independent}

people who are not bothered by social norms or expectations, almost misfits’;119 _‘those

who believe in personal freedom, breaking the rules’).120

Suchlike statements, strikingly frequent in staff and guest interviews and media representations of Ziferblat, are often based on rather limiting assumptions which typically attribute one’s open-mindedness—unanimously considered the key prerequisite to being able to fully enjoy and appreciate this place—to their age, occupation, preferred pattern of using the space, or even appearance (see again Mitin’s quote about London’s ‘nice and peculiarly looking people’ as more desirable guests than Muscovites on p. 106). In some interviews, I explicitly challenged such assumptions with my own observations in order to get to the bottom of what prevents one from becoming a ‘Ziferblatter’:

T e d : I feel like if you explain this concept to the people from older generations, they’ll just: ‘Why?..’ I can’t imagine telling my dad about this place… he’ll just: ‘Why don’t you go to a regular cafe?’

A . K . : You know, I’ve seen a lot of elderly people here…

117 _{Artem, Pokrovka’s guest, interview, December 2016.} 118 _{Nina, Tverskaya’s guest, interview, March 2017.} 119 _{Byron, Edge Street’s guest, interview, February 2017.} 120 _{Evan, Old Street’s host, interview, July 2016.}

T e d : Oh, really? So, maybe, it’s just logical people… not logical… like, scientifically… mathematically…

A . K . : Ah, you mean, more structured? T e d : Yeah, exactly.

(Interview with an Edge Street’s guest, March 2017)

‘Logical’ people were mentioned as noncustomers in many other interviews even without my interventions. In Moscow and Manchester, participants typically linked this characteristic with one’s leisure preferences described as ‘structured’, ‘pragmatic’ or

‘traditional’ (e.g. ‘My husband wouldn’t get it—for him, going out means eating’121_),

which suggests that the idea of open-mindedness in relation to Ziferblat often boils down to the ability to understand and accept the post-functionalist urban culture. This assumption can be illustrated by the following quote: ‘That friend of mine… I didn’t really get his reaction—he is a kooky, I mean, a truly interesting person, but when I brought him here, he just wouldn’t stop whining: “T h e r e ’ s n o f r a m e w o r k , I d o n ’ t u n d e r s t a n d w h a t t o d o h e r e ! [emphasis added]”’ (Roman, Pokrovka’s guest, interview, December 2016).

Open-mindedness is expected not only from guests but also from staff members; this is, for instance, how Gareth, ZUKI’s COO, explained what kind of people would not fit their staff requirements:

You have to be absolutely flexible and very open-minded in Ziferblat. And if you have particularly strong beliefs, you probably won’t go on with people here. Because we are not extreme, there is nothing extreme about any of us. So, you know, I think, if you’re friendly and polite and open-minded and take everything as it comes, then, I think, you’ll be fine. (Interview, Edge Street, October 2016)

However, further research on the differences between ZUKI and Ziferblat Worldwide suggests that the former employer expects their staff to be open-minded and not to have strong beliefs simply due to the nature of their job which entails interacting with hundreds of people on a daily basis within a service framework,122 _{whereas the latter}

wants them to ‘stay themselves’ and use this selfhood as a placemaking instrument:

Everyone who has ever been to Ziferblat notes this unusual atmosphere of freedom, which comes from our thorough work with the team. It might seem that we simply hire cool dudes, but there is something more. The most important thing for us is to let our workers be themselves, put their best foot forward but not reduce themselves to their formal function. (Self-description by the Ziferblat Worldwide team, see in: Ziferblat, 2017)

In Old Street, the internal guidelines explicitly encourage hosts to behave oddly, i.e. ‘to make use of the materials in the space to have fun, and breakdown any idea of how people “should” be in the space’, which includes ‘riding the scooter to the kitchen, playing with a balloon, getting out the bubbles, sitting on tables, inventing a game, dancing, singing’, in order to give the guests ‘social permission to be themselves’

(ZLHG, 2015), or, as one of the hosts, Sara, phrased it, ‘to model it for them’ (interview, August 2016).123 _{The motive of personal freedom, sometimes self-depreciatingly}

interpreted as oddity, was also quite persistent in the self-identifying statements shared by the members of this team; they call themselves and their peers ‘proud to be weird’,

‘capable to be silly’, and ‘trying to find a way to live life not conforming to society’

(Interviews with Francesca, Sara, Kevin, August–September 2016).

Such ‘modelling’, accompanied by some other factors—predominantly spatial layout and design—indeed has a great impact on the guests’ behaviour. In Ziferblat, they can do some things that are not allowed or socially expected in other public places, e.g., unlike in cafes, one can bring and cook their own food or even share it with strangers without raising much suspicion.124 _{In their interviews, echoed by staff’s and my own}

observations, many guests described Ziferblat as a space where their inhibitions are lowered. As a result, they break from the civil inattention principle (Goffman, 1963; Lofland, 1998), which leads to their increased sociability; as Kevin, Old Street’s host, put it, Ziferblat ‘gives people a licence to speak to other people’ (interview, September 2016). Apart from that, this architecture of freedom has an impact on bodily practices in Ziferblat, as guests move around and interact with the space more freely than in other public places. In more detail, these effects will be discussed in chapters 5 and 7. Along with the freedom of thought and behaviour, freedom in Ziferblat is also

interpreted as the responsibility of communal awareness and the right to participate in placemaking:

We want to educate a little bit, to help people gain personal freedom, which also entails responsibility. (Mitin’s interview in: Gurova, 2014)

123 _{When announced explicitly, such permission might sound rather pretentious and patronising. For}

example, when I and my four friends once came to Ziferblat Nevsky in Saint Petersburg, the host started his welcoming speech with the following sentence: ‘It’s a loose space, we want people to feel free here. There is no need to play any roles, to pretend, it’s not an anti-cafe’, to which my friend immediately replied, ‘Are you trying to say that in anti-cafes people always pretend?’. The host, clearly confused and embarrassed, stumbled for a while and went on about how he always feels necessary to ‘play roles’

whenever he comes to Moscow (earlier my other friend mentioned that we just arrived from there), which, given the long-standing rivalry between these two Russian cities, might have provoked another unnecessary confrontation. That said, such ‘rites of passage’ into Ziferblat as a realm of freedom are very rare now (the issue of being patronised remains though—see pp. 164 and 166).

I want to invite people to practice freedom with us. We call Ziferblat a loose space because we are open and ready for people to integrate themselves into this space, to suggest their projects to us, or just play the piano, share their skills, whatever. (…) Paying by time, they become micro-tenants, micro-renters of this space; roughly speaking, here is the space, do whatever you want here. (…) But, unfortunately, not everyone is ready for this, so we have to moderate what is happening here, like, for example, if everyone is sitting and working quietly and someone comes in and starts playing the guitar and shouting like crazy, we will ask them to stop. (Mitin’s interview in: Sanduliak, 2013)

In his media comments on Ziferblat’s opening in London, Mitin emphasised that the UK guests, unlike Russians, do not need to be ‘moderated’, as they were raised in a different culture:

In Moscow, those who are over forty are the people born and raised in sovok, whereas here there was nothing like that, so you can see a bloke who rides a bike or a scooter and dresses like a hipster in his sixty or seventy. They are open to everything. (Mitin’s interview in: Ilyina, 2013) ‘[In London,] people understand the idea and atmosphere of Ziferblat much faster and deeper than it sometimes happens in Russia,’ Mitin says. ‘They don't bother each other with loud laughs when it's quiet, and they don't nearly make children in the corner as happens in my country. They

understand that they should help themselves with coffee and tea and they wash much more dishes afterwards.’125_{(Taylor, 2014)}

In London, there are more educated and intelligent people than in Russia, there are no vulgar caffs and liquor stores here. (Mitin’s interview in: Turovskiy, 2014)

As follows from these statements (as well as the people-watching scene cited on p. 106), Mitin seemed to have had in mind the image of an ideal Ziferblat’s guest— presumably, influenced by the ‘Imaginary West’ sentiment—which was only partially consistent with his Russian audience but finally materialised once Ziferblat came to the UK. On the other hand, his intention to ‘educate’ is nothing but an attempt to overcome the aftermath of Soviet social engineering, i.e. to reconstruct the suppressed sense of personal freedom and responsibility. On the other hand, the very assumption that freedom can and should be taught (and, what is more, taught through moderation) goes back precisely to the Constructivist idea of social condensers. In chapter 6, I will address this contradiction in more detail in the context of Ziferblat’s cultural policy. 4.3.3. Structure vs. anti-structure: the principle of flexibility

The idea of a loose space implies that Ziferblat does not belong to any specific category and therefore cannot be constrained by any rules or functional limitations:

There are no requirements for people coming here, you don’t have to do something, which is different from other places because you always have to

do something—you always have to buy a coffee, you’re always asked what are you doing, so I think it’s one of the few places where you’re not forced to do anything, you have more than one option what to do. (Kevin, Old Street’s host, interview, September 2016)

Nevertheless, even though the phrase ‘Here you can do whatever you like’ is used by all branches as one of the core elements of Ziferblat’s description, the freedom it promises is by no means absolute. In official communication, this motto is always followed by some variation of the phrase ‘as long as you respect other people around you’ (e.g., Kickstarter, 2014); in staff’s everyday interactions with newcomers, this message usually takes less direct forms (e.g., hosts’ typical comments when showing a newcomer around: ‘This is a quiet zone… this one is more lively… Once you’re done, could you please bring your dishes to the kitchen.’).126

Apart from that, Ziferblat has some explicit and implicit policies setting limits to this do- whatever-you-want principle. In most branches, such limitations concern alcohol consumption, noise nuisance, profanity, abuse and public display of affection; in some Ziferblats, like Tverskaya, guests are also forbidden from moving a chair or playing a certain song on the piano. As chapters 5 and 6 will demonstrate, Ziferblat spaces, albeit being positioned as loose, are in fact policed and in many ways orchestrated by staff, though the scope and the extent of this control varies across the chain and changes over time. For example, this is how Maya, the branch manager of Tverskaya, which is in many regards one of the most tightly-controlled Ziferblats, answered my question ‘How has this place changed since its opening in 2012?’:

It certainly grew up. A few years ago, we were so childish when making decisions sometimes… I think that radicalism about rules, which at the very beginning put Ziferblat together, has decreased now. If a few years ago a host had told me, ‘This guest put his jacket over there, we should probably go and tell him…’, I would have said ‘Yes, definitely’, but now I understand that everyone has their free will… We became wiser, and our standards became more clear—we do have standards now! On the one hand, we might have lost our spontaneity, we became more mature. But, I think, now Ziferblat has become capable of roadmapping. At the beginning, and for quite a long time, Ziferblat existed only for its own sake, like, we broke even, paid the rent or even set some money apart to buy cookies in the next month—well done. Whereas now, we have a plan. It is still far from being precise and neat, but there is a plan. (Interview, July 2016)

In a nutshell, the commercialisation of this project and turning it into a chain made Ziferblat more predictable and routinised and, as Maya put it, less ‘radical’. As it is stated in Ziferblat Worldwide’s partnership proposal,

126 _{When asked explicitly if this freedom has any limits, staff would typically say ‘The only limit is other} people’s freedom’ and make jokes like: ‘If someone decides to walk around in their undies, it won’t be permitted’ (interview with Maya, Tverskaya’s branch manager, July 2016) or ‘Striptease is a no’

The first Ziferblat emerged in 2011 as the next iteration of Treehouse—a public living room in Moscow city centre where everyone could pay for the entrance as much as they wanted. In Treehouse, people with very different backgrounds would do very different things—drink tea, talk, work and play sonatas. Ziferblat’s framework combines this freedom of a public living