Harry Isra Muhammad: Jackpot, suddenly
When I played a roulette spin online called “Domino Higgs”, a game that has gained popularity in the last two years in Indonesia, my friend suddenly asked me, “If you hit the jackpot, how are you going to use the money?” Although I did not yet have an answer for my friend’s question, it led me to think the other way around. If it is for an individual, I think the answer might be easier. But what if a collective, which mostly consists of several people, unexpectedly receives a jackpot? How are they going to use the money? In other words, what I am looking for is a sort of radical imagination in using huge resources by posing two questions; what if the collectives are asked to spend the jackpot all at once i.e. think for the present? And what if the collectives are asked to save it for their future? Moreover, through this research I also want to look for the most radical decision-making processes in terms of sharing resources; how can the collective decide on the way they are going to use the resources (jackpot) democratically? The collectives I am going to have a conversation with are new emerging collectives, established in Indonesia over the past five years. Why newly initiated collectives? Based on my initial observation, the newly initiated collectives are still looking for the format and experimenting with many possibilities.
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It all started with a question a friend asked me when I was playing an online slot game: “If you hit the jackpot, how will you spend the money?” Instead of directly answering the question, I thought about something else. If it’s just me hitting a jackpot, it would not be difficult to imagine how I use the money, but what if a collective, consisting of people who might have different backgrounds, needs, and aspirations, hit the jackpot? How are they going to decide on how to use the money and which needs to prioritize?
These questions are the very foundations of my research. Through a game I call Jackpot Session, I use jackpot as an entry point to understand the future trajectory of several Indonesian collectives. The idea is inspired by an Indonesian television show titled “Uang Kaget” (Sudden Money), popular during the early 2000s, in which the host gave 10 million rupiahs to an ordinary person to spend it within an hour. The TV program helped me create the set of rules I apply during my Jackpot Sessions. First, the collective is supposedly given 50 billion rupiahs (3 million euros) to be spent within five years. To provide a sense of play and of thinking in urgency, the collective only has two hours to make decisions on how they are going to use the money. Lastly, the money can only be spent for collective purposes. This is to avoid the money being used for individual purposes that are not related to what the collective needs.
The collectives I chose to involve in the game are emerging, established during the last five years. Based on my initial observations, newly initiated collectives are still looking for a format and experimenting with many possibilities, especially when imagining or dreaming of their future. As a member of Riwanua, a collective in Makassar, South Sulawesi, whose practices and knowledge production are gravitating towards Eastern Indonesia, I selected collectives mainly from the same area because I wanted to establish bonds, connections, and possible collaborations in the future. I traveled to Kota Baru (South Kalimantan), Desa Huntu Selatan (Gorontalo), and Larantuka (East Nusa Tenggara) to meet the collectives in person, and conducted an online Jackpot Session with a collective from Banda Aceh.
After having Jackpot Sessions with all the groups, I realized that they started the game by discussing the space they imagine to be their future home, before discussing possible programs they can implement with the money. In other words, space is the priority for Indonesian collectives, predominantly because they lack the space to do what they believe deserves to be done. Space, in the words of these collectives, allows them to have a destination and somewhere to settle, as well as providing a playground to experiment.
What is also important is that the collectives did not aim to enjoy the jackpot themselves. They allocated their budget in ways that supported other communities to grow. Nong Kolektif in Kota Baru and SimpasiO Institute in Larantuka, for example, suggested open call programs for the communities in their respective area to apply for funding, in the hope that they can develop a long-term ecosystem of mutual support, extending after the jackpot’s five-year duration.
Sustainability was another repeated keyword in the Jackpot Sessions. All the collectives allocated funds to establish activities that would help them survive financially after the jackpot ends. Some decided to open a gallery to sell merchandise such as clothes, stickers, etc. Another collective decided to invest on agriculture to secure raw materials for their small traditional restaurants. An interesting case was Nong Kolektif, who planned to rent their space for wedding ceremonies and state and corporate events, but keep it free to use for community purposes.
“We need to imagine this money as a trigger and moment for us to think about how to be financially independent in the next five years. When we get funding one day, maybe not 50 billion rupiahs but 50 million, we will already know what we can possibly do”, said a member of SimpasiO Institute. This was something that I had not anticipated from the beginning; that the session allows a collective to imagine a doable program even without them hitting the jackpot.
