Audience registration · RSVP
Join the audience
The eight presenters are confirmed — see the Assembly slate. We meet on Monday 9 November 2026 in the Lecture Hall of the Department of Journalism. Please reply by Friday 30 October, on this page or by e-mail to the FASS Graduate School at graduateschool@sun.ac.za. This page is for everyone else, and there is no such thing as only watching: you register for one of three positions, and you play it from the door at 09:00 until the positions are dissolved at the pending wall.
How the day is played
The Assembly argues that waiting is a relation of power: one party’s time is suspended pending another’s decision. So the room is divided the way a waiting room is — into those who wait, those who wait with them, and those who make them wait — and the seven devices between the papers (door, ticket, form, queue, canteen, hearing, wall) are played from those three sides. There are no points and no winner. Each position has one rule, and the day is what happens when all three rules are kept at once.
- The people who waitYou may ask. You may not be told.
- Their friends and familyYou may ask for someone else. Never for yourself.
- The government officialsYou may never say no, never say why, and never say when.
Position one · most of the room
The people who wait
The applicant. Everything the day administers, it administers to you. Presenters draw a ticket in this position too.
Your ruleYou may ask. You may not be told.
- 09:00
- The door. You queue, and draw a numbered ticket. Keep it: it is your name for the day.
- 10:20
- The ticket. Your questions for the presenters go on a numbered slip. It is marked RECEIVED. That is all that happens to it today.
- 10:35
- The form. Tea is by application. You file an Application to Be Heard at the slow desk. It comes back GRANTED or DEFERRED. No reason is given, and none exists.
- 12:00
- The silent queue. Ten minutes before a door marked OFFICE. No phone, no talk.
- 12:10
- The canteen. Your tray comes by lot, not by your place in the queue.
- 14:10
- The register. You hear your number read out, and its status.
- 15:50
- The hearing. You speak first — about the day you have actually had.
Position two · paired at the door
Their friends and family
The one in the corridor. Nothing is withheld from you — and nothing you are given is what you came for. Come with someone, or be paired with a stranger.
Your ruleYou may ask for someone else. Never for yourself.
- 09:00
- The door. You are given the counterfoil of another person’s ticket. That number is your person. You walk straight in; they do not.
- 10:20
- The ticket. You cannot file a question of your own. You may file one on your person’s behalf, or ask what became of theirs.
- 10:35
- The form. You are served at once, without a form. If your person is DEFERRED, what you do with your cup is up to you.
- 12:00
- The silent queue. You may not join it. You wait where you can see it.
- 12:10
- The canteen. You may trade your tray for your person’s. Nobody will tell you whether you should.
- 14:10
- The register. You may ask the clerk about your person’s number. You already know the answer.
- 15:50
- The hearing. You speak second — only about your person’s wait, never your own.
Position three · about one in six · limited
The government officials
The desk. You will discover how little the person at the desk decides. Arrive at 08:40 for a short briefing with the facilitator.
Your ruleYou may never say no, never say why, and never say when.
- 08:40
- Briefing. You receive a paper badge, a marker pen and an instruction card. You follow the card. You did not write it.
- 09:00
- The door. You hold it. The only sentence you have is “It will begin shortly.”
- 10:20
- The ticket. You mark each slip RECEIVED and enter it in the register. You answer nothing.
- 10:35
- The form. You staff the slow desk. The card tells you which applications to mark DEFERRED. You will not know why either.
- 12:00
- The silent queue. You keep the OFFICE door, and open it — on an empty room.
- 14:10
- The register. One of you reads it aloud: numbers and status. Every status is PENDING.
- 15:50
- The hearing. You answer last, and only in the passive voice: “a decision was not taken”.
How it ends, and what it will not do. At 16:40 the positions are dissolved: officials hand in their badges, and everyone — presenter, official, family, applicant — writes the same card for the pending wall: I am still waiting for ______. The waiting is staged, never punitive. Everyone is fed, whatever their form says; declared allergies and religious dietary needs are always met with labelled alternatives. Officials act only on their cards — nobody improvises unkindness. Anyone may step out of a position at any moment by turning their ticket face-down, without explaining. And there is no question time: questions for the presenters are filed on the debate wall, and wait there for an answer.