An ongoing project that functions as a chain game. One person invites four people to enjoy a public breakfast. The invited people (usually four) commit themselves to invite four other people to a public breakfast on the next possible date. And so on. Since 1 May 1996, "Permanent Breakfasts" have taken place in Vienna, Graz, Prague, Berlin, Oslo, New York and Melbourne.

"... as with every successful chain game (and they are never successful!), this one can only function if every link of the chain feels itself as one who has initiated something. Individual artists do not disappear as subjects under a general label, but rather their effect is that new artistic identities emerge..." (Friedemann Derschmidt, Permanent Breakfast Initiator)

Started spontaneously on May 1 1996 in Vienna, when Friedemann Derschmidt and a group of artists found their favourite coffee shop was closed. They decided to put a table outside and have a breakfast in a public place.

This accidental "performance" inspired the artists to keep up with breakfasting. The next breakfast was organised on the following Friday, and so on. The Game Rules were established and the chain started.

Public breakfasting provided an opportunity to question the use of public space through artistic action, but also "to provoke people to use places which are 'good for nothing', and raise questions among people: Why we don't use this spaces?" (Karin Schneider, Institute for Research and Creation of Rites and Ceremonies).

The social character of the meal provided a site for social, cultural, political or artistic activism, combined with the simple pleasure of a get-together within the "Surealistic picture" of public breakfasting.

The fact that "everyone is allowed to take and consume" the label of Permanent Breakfast as long as they accept The Rules of the Game, enabled the creation of an international network of decentralised events.

"The chain has become so independent that some activists even regard themselves as the initiators of the project." (Friedemann Derschmidt, Author and Initiator of the Permanent Breakfast Project, Institute for Research and Creation of Rites and Ceremonies, Vienna).

"Permanent breakfast also means bringing this private ritual into the public and to share a part of the interior life with strangers" (Karin Schneider). Thus, one or more seats have to stay open for passers-by. The openness to the newcomers during the encounters at the physical space, applies also for the collaboration at virtual space, i.e., web site www.permanentbreakfast.org where participants in the chain game interact and upload documentation about the Permanent Breakfasts that they organise.

Individuals or institutions that extend the breakfast invitation can choose any place, situation and participants they like. Therefore each breakfast has an independent character, and appears in a different mode:

• border and thematic breakfast: e.g. EU project "Dissolving Border" (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria). The places were picked to dissolve situations so breakfasts had a specific topic to be discussed. Participants included activists, experts, members of government, etc.

• the "monument breakfast": focused on "collective memory" seeking further relations between identity and places;

• breakfast at manorial spaces: e.g. Permanent Breakfast at Heldenplatz on the Hofburgs in Vienna (a place formerly used by the Emperor). Used to take place every 1 May and gathered up to 300 participants per breakfast;

• "Mur" river breakfasts: in association with "Graz 03" Cultural Capital of Europe. From 17 May to 30 June 2003, over 50 breakfasts took place at different locations in Graz. For example, InteraACT invited people to "sit down, have breakfast occupy the space, and debate on the newly designed square that has no space provided to sit down" (Michael Wrentschur, "Seven years of permanent breakfast in Graz");

• Guided tours breakfast: an opportunity to learn about the place and how it functions;

• Land-art breakfasts: creating an aesthetic picture like the "film still";

• the "candlelight breakfast": a fancy set up;

• "Permanent Breakfast" as performance: e.g. part of big art festivals in South America and Spain.

After ten years of public breakfasting, the last "Permanent Breakfast" organised by the Institute for Research and Creation of Rites and Ceremonies took place (exceptionally) at an indoor public space within the "Tailoring Thinking" project (Vienna, 2006). This event included the screening of "VIE-SOF" by Michael Aschauer, a filmed trip from Vienna via Novi Sad to Sofia, which provided a framework for discussion, music, breakfasting, exhibition and lectures of artists and researchers from Austria, Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria.

Today, "Permanent Breakfast" continues to run through a chain game.

Funding:
Parts of the project were supported by various funders, e.g. the Dissolving Border project was funded by the EU Culture 2000 programme. The Erste Bank also supported the project, and wanted the "Permanent Breakfast" to be organised for their company too.

But in general only 50% of breakfasts were funded, while others were realised on a voluntary basis following the third rule of the game: "the one that does the inviting covers the costs."