The Use of Uselessness - Documentation. IDOCDE 2016 began with a participatory ritual, a Slow Race with little buckets filled to the brim with water. This was followed by a performance lecture in which a garden gnome makes a claim for the human right to uselessness. To argue her point the she-gnome unravels the history of the debates on use and uselessness in philosophy and literature, and concludes by proclaiming The Universal Declaration of the Human Right to Uselessness. The speech is part of a larger project which proposes that the arts need to develop modern rituals that celebrate idleness and uselessness in defiance of the increasing instrumentalisation of individuals in the modern world.