The question of who or what has to be represented draws wider circles than most assemblies with their focus on humans. In his fundamental critique of modernity, the sociologist of science Bruno Latour sketched out a “parliament of things” as early as 1989, in which people, animals, plants, and objects jointly determine how they even could decide and how they want to live together. Thirty years later, Latour sums up, “The question is no longer to grand rights to non-humans, but to accept to be dependent on them.” But what does that actually mean? How can non-human representation look like, what would be a non-anthropocentric assembly? In the 15th edition of The Art of Assembly the theatre group andcompany&Co. praises the intelligence of insects and considers renaming itself ANTCOMPANY, while philosopher Eva von Redecker proposes a “revolution for life” in order to escape the prison of capitalism and find new forms of solidarity: Care instead of domination, regeneration instead of utilization, participation instead of exploitation.
