Excuse me, but we have a knot in our brain! Situations that almost every creative professional has experienced in group work and collaboration. This phenomenon is often accompanied by tough discussions, frustration, despair, and a clear instinct to flee—why have I done this to myself?

The project ‘Mental Reverse Gear. A catalogue of methods for the way out of swarm stupidity is precisely for such moments and stalemates. A tool to help you playfully untangle creative knots and disagreements. You can always shift into mental reverse gear when you find yourself at a dead end in collective creative work. One of the drivers of these impasses is an entrenched hierarchical or democratic structure that can push groups to their creative limits.

So why do we stick to it when a redistribution of roles could lead to a breakthrough? Why not take an unconventional route to a decision? Break out of your usual structures and dare to do something different—we'll show you how: Inspired by systems of organization and order from politics, technology, culture, and nature, we offer interventions that will free you from your current group dynamics and help you to achieve completely new results. Are you more of an introvert and don't get involved in discussions? No problem! With a bit of luck, you can take the reins as an absolute ruler and finally decide everything yourself. Ha!

All your designs are absolutely fabulous, and you don't know how to do them all justice? No problem! Artificial intelligence will take care of it: Morph your results together and avoid ugly bickering and bruised egos. In addition to these two examples, this publication offers you a total of 29 methods to try out, each illustrated with an example poster. The development process is recorded to make it easier to follow.

The publication is accompanied by a website which, in addition to the methods and information, contains recordings of our processes in real time.