with Steve Duncombe and Steve Lambert

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Interview

Steve & Stephen: Basically, Steve and I have been doing this arts and activism thing, in various ways, for at least ten years or so. He, coming at it from an art angle, me, coming at it from an activist angle, and we’re both sort of haunted by the question of: does it work? Um…and probably more importantly, what does it even mean when we say “it works.” Um, and so what we’ve been doing is interviewing artists who’s work we really like and um – mainly in North America [inaudible] – for this book we’re going to do, and –

S & S: You’re representing all of your…

Leonidas Martin: Oh wow…[Laughs]

S & S: [Laughs] Right now we’re just working on American artists, but soon or later we’re going to do another book, which is about global artists, so you’ll be the first in that series. But, one of the things that we were intrigued with, is when we talked on Monday, when you talked about sort of affective changes and thinking in terms of changing…um…people’s emotions and so on. So I guess what we’d like is – we’re gonna direct this more than we usually do because we’ve heard you talk about this to a certain extent – if you could talk a little bit about your latest actions that you did. You know, describe what those latest actions are – by the way this is Leonidas Martin.

LM: Leodnidas Martin!

S & S: Talk a little about those actions and how you gauged weather they worked or not. I mean, what were you looking for to happen?

S & S: Does that make sense?

LM: Yeah. I think so. This is a question that we are all the time asking ourselves, like, “What are the successful meaning of a action can be?” And that’s not very easy to know, actually. Uh…usually, for us, it’s like, when we are thinking about an action we have some goals. Very concrete ones. Like, for instance, last action we were doing at this party in the unemployed office, we were like building these workshops – these series of workshops connecting people, mixing people and developing the idea and the rules of the action. So, the idea of that action was to break the fearness [sic] – find a way to breaking [sic] the fearness [sic] that this whole idea – the repetition of the crisis idea in our media is actually creating on ourself. So we thought a lot of people is not really suffering the crisis right now, but they are suffering the fear about it. So we wanted to do something about breaking that fear somehow. So that was a goal. Of course, breaking that fearness [sic] for a [inaudible] the moment we were there, but not only that, by creating a video and putting it on the internet we could like – that was another goal. Uh…transfer the idea of this feaness [sic] is something you can break, is something that lives in your mind, but you can break it. Maybe – so that was another goal. Let’s say there were like two. One is focusing the moment the action was taking place, and the other is more…how – what [inaudible] grows up from the action itself and the commentation [sic] of the action, and then the distribution of the video and everything.

S & S: Say that again, I’m sorry.

LM: The [inaudible] –

S & S: The imagination?

LM: The – yeah, I mean, the whole image. Imagination is not an English word? Like the whole…image system you create about…about – that grows up from the action itself. And then the commentation [sic] of that action itself on the video when you watch the video, even if weren’t there. That’s what I mean.

S & S: The record of –

LM: Yeah. The transfer of that information to the people. So, with those two goals we had something to work on it, and something that we can compare it, and that we can evaluate and know if it really works or not, for our intentions.

S & S: How do you evaluate? How do you…

LM: So, the action itself, we evaluate it…um…following the same process as the creation of the action, you know? Contacting the people again, having meetings, having words over it, talking about the actions, you know, listening to their feelings and moods after the actions and all that. And the people was actually very happy with the result of it. And the other kind of…uh…evaluation – the other hand of this action, you know, the recording and the distribution of that action and the videos and everything. We – the internet is evaluating itself. How the video is distributing, how the people is reacting, comment on that video, and that an amazing…an amazing to see actually. It was even bigger and stronger than we thought. That video was in the whole Spanish network, running. And it still is now. And also jump to the official media several times, so that creates a big reaction in people. So –

S & S: So, like, if it’s on the evening news or –

LM: Yeah.

S & S: Oh.

LM: And several of them, um, afternoon news and evening news is well timed for some public. So that was like, on the internet, had a big reaction. So –

S & S: And when someone sees it, whether they’re downloading it or – when they see it on the internet or on the news, what do you want them to think, to feel, to –

LM: Well, one thing is to transfer the idea of fearness [sic] about crisis is something you can break. That was the thing. And, first off, we were afraid that the action could be understood as an action against unemployed institutions, or – you know what I mean?

S & S: Yeah.

LM: Because it wasn’t really like that. Uh, so in that case – in that sense, I mean, it was a kind of successful thing. The comments you can read on the Internet, most of them are focusing on the fear thing. Like, “I am so sick about this fear I’m feeling!” or “Yeah, I saw the press to see the crisis, feeling you cannot do anything, but watching this video I feel I can empower myself!” That was another thing, the empower in people. So –

S & S: Can you step back – because this is going to have to be an interview – and describe the action? The unemployment action?

LM: Definitely. I mean, uh – we were, like this year we’ve been thinking about how you make actions in the social networks itself. Actions that come work and operate against what we call [Garbled, in Spanish] power, which is actually this power, this capitalism that is no working actually. Uh, the material things – all that – but more working inside of you. Playing with your desires, playing with your freedoms and um, having yourself – I mean, how can I say that?  Um…creating something inside of you makes you feel like a, “I need help.” You know?

S & S: Would you call this “Theraputical [sic] Power?”

LM: Yeah, we can call it Theraputical [sic] Power. It’s something that comes from, actually, long ago. And um, but now it’s like, we were doing work stuff with this theoretical work stuff and practical things like how – trying to recognize this power, how it really works on society today. So we were like, studying from mental services to the usual [inaudible] society and all that. We were like, trying to see the connections between the depression and the city and all those kind of…ah, things today, in relation with capitalism and ways of living, and how – I mean, the idea is not to make an analysis about it, it’s to try to find ways of make actions about it to create something in relation with. So, we were like working on this for a while, so we decided to make…uh, actions that were quite different than we did before. Cause when you are like, uh – when you are doing political or a political you are creating a political situation first need is draw a line between the enemy and the friend, right? That’s the basic line in politics. You always need that. And that line, today, we though, is not that easy to draw it. Cuase that line actually close yourself, so we were like, uh, we started to think, “How can we keep doing it the same as we did?” You know, creating instances, creating actions, everything, when this line is not that simple to draw. When I’m part of the problem and solution at the same time. So, we wanted to make it as plain as we thought. Then you confront the Theraputical [sic] Power and it has relation. When you start to think about these things like this line that separates friends and enemies you always find yourself being the one who is deciding what actually goes against you. So, we were like, “Alright, your mango is start to work like this or so.” I mean, it has a lot of in common with this, but still your mango had these multinational enemies. Even if we were very bold with desires already, and so on. So then it’s like, “Alright, how can we confront these power that is inside of me actually operating?” So we made first an action that was used to creating that kind of experience, this kind of experience in the most commercial stadium in Barcelona. And we were not trying to close the multinationals, not trying to make varied actions against that, but trying to create an experience that – actually that’s how we called it. It was more – an attempt to be more…uh…um…hmmm. Trying to be more – a force bigger than consumption, know what I mean?

S & S: Yeah.

LM: Nothing against consumption, but bigger than, more a force of attraction. We say in Espanol, attraction bigger than consumption. So we went there. We wanted to make a kind of human ball. Just like –

S & S: A human ball?

LM: Yeah. That’s how we did. That was about, to put it on the people on that street – to call the people, “Hey, we are going to make a human ball. What does that mean?” We don’t have an idea. Cause there is – just to break up that, you know, mobilization that this whole time in that street. The problem then is mobilization of capitalism today –

S & S: Can I –

LM: We are working today. In these days also. So were like, “OK, we will go there basically to create a force of attraction bigger than consumption.” So, and we went there. We started a human ball, like moving around us. Touching ourself and a lot of people who walks by, they enjoy it. You know? We didn’t resist consumption, until another force appears there that people could choose. May I buy or may I go in this human ball? So, it was, for a while, and we were like, “Wow, this is cool.” I mean, cause, this is something that – that actually opened a door to keep trying it. But we were like, “We have to do something even more concrete.” That’s why we thought this unemploy [sic] office. Because, it’s not about the unemployed, it’s about a place where the depression is, the fewness is very mark there. So we decide to try to make something we can actually converse and contains those feelings that confront them actually. With a concrete meaning. That was the crisis.

S & S: Can you just describe, like – cause we won’t be able to show the video in the book – like what happened? What you did?

LM: So we went there. We decide to appear suddenly at an employ office, regular day, in the morning. Where all the unemployed guys were waiting for, in lines. And, uh, to converse that in a kind of party. That was the meaning. We were afraid also to do that because, I mean we weren’t sure about how the reaction of that people who is actually suffering is going to be when guys comes with another mood. You know? Like, “Alright, let’s make a party!” We though, maybe, they’re going to find a separation, you know, a – maybe they’re going to find a limit between them and us. So we didn’t want to create that of course. You are the ones who are suffering and you are the ones having fun. So, we were discussing that a lot. But finally, we decide to take a risk and to go there anyway. So we went there an our surprise was that everyone was so happy about that, you know?

S & S: How did you make the party?

LM: It was – we decide to just go there and by little groups or individually come in. For some minutes we were like – in the first half an hour the people was arriving by their own. So then we have a system; we create a system that was just like start to make noise with something you have. Keys. Coins. Feet. Your hands. Whatever. So the people is creating a rhythm just like that. So that was a bit surprising in the room. Because where we were, we were like, “What the fuck is going on?” And you know, like, we didn’t know if that was just like that, or if someone was creating that. Actually, when the noise was big, the sound system came in and we played the music. So that created this kind of intense, intensitivity…intensitivity? No…So people started to dance! Just like that, you know? And we had several other tools, like this rope with crisis written on it so people could dance and –

S & S: Do the limbo.

LM: Do the limbo under it and those other kind of things. Confetti and things like that.

S & S: [Laughs].

S & S: Did you then hand out any sort of propaganda or pamphlets? Like, “This is what we’re doing.”? Or –

LM: We were asking – we were moving this information around the social networks for a while, like, but more about workshops. People could come and enjoy the workshops. But of course though, these things always have small group. The people who really wants to be involved before, I mean, the process. But…uh, then everything was like face, date, place, uh, way of doing it and everything. We make it probably. We…coincided just like two days before.

S & S: I was asking actually in the unemployment office – the standard way you do one of these things is to create a spectacle and then here’s what this spectacle is about. And then you pass that along.

LM: Uh, we didn’t strive for that.

S & S: Why didn’t you?

LM: Cause, uh, we didn’t write down a scientific meaning of the action. We were looking for more, the experience itself, the people, you know? So, we didn’t want in that way to politicizes it. Know what I mean? Cause this is something we are working also now. Like, new forms of politics that actually are almost unpolitics [sic]. You know? This is something that we are trying to figure it out. How this could be. A politic that is actually a pre-politic in a way. You know what I mean? And to give that status of politics, when something is happening just right before it gets organized undefined. So, cause we think these kind of things contain more than the things that are already organized. So actually we are already working on this idea that makes – that is creating a whole image system that is completely different than before. To have this specific political meaning, it doesn’t have – it’s, let’s say, much more open in that way. Anonymous also.

S & S: Now, why? Can you elaborate on that a little bit more? This idea of – that we need to explore the sort of pre-political, the anti-political, as opposed to here’s what capitalists are doing, here’s how you should organize, and so on and so forth –

LM: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why? Cause I mean, cause it comes from experience. We…sometimes we are involved in activities in art or activities in [inaudible]. So we pass through several situations already and, uh, since uh…ninth eleventh…or, uh, how do you say?

S & S: Nine-eleven.

LM: Nine-eleven…uh, I’m sorry for that –

S & S: No, no! It’s OK. [Laughs]

LM: [Laughs] And we were like – for us it was a turning point. When we saw, I mean, until that moment the [inaudible] movement was growing and growing and growing. And then another image, another political party came to the world. And, I mean, [inaudible] movement never recuperated from that. And so we were like, “Hm. Here there is a [inaudible], so we have to think about this.” So, after that, everything became different as you remember. The war and all that. I mean, we had this um…we had this uh…big terrorist attack in Madrid in the trains, and that was an amazing reaction. Something that we never saw before. The social and political networks, they couldn’t do anything about it. They didn’t know what to say. They didn’t know how to act. And there was – suddenly it became a kind of anonymous social network that knew how to do, and how to do the…how to confront that situation. And –

S & S: What did they do?

LM: They’re actually anonymo – you know that the Spanish government was like, lying on the news because we were in this election period. So, they wanted to pass the election day and then say the truth. That it was the Al Qaeda who was the ones that did it. But they were lying and saying that it was ETA, you know, responding in…uh…all that. And, because that, of course, would be perfect for them and a reason for the right wings. So, while they were using the whole media saying that all the time during the two days people were using the networks and everything, mostly SMS and…yeah, texting and all that and saying, “This is not true. We have to do something.” Uh…this is Iraq War consequence and all that. But I’m not talking about activist networks, which usually are the ones who do that. That was regular people doing it. So, just like that, the people decide to go to the, uh…buildings of that party and to protest there. Saying, “This is not true! We want the truth!” We were like, “Wow, this is the first time we listen! We want truth in the post-modernity.” Cause until that day you always thought, “This is never going to happen. People asking for the truth? What is that?” So the people were like, “We want to know the truth!” We were like, “What the fuck?” So we were like, “Hey! This is very interesting what is going on!” That was the real turning point, not the attack, not the nineth-eleventh. That was how the people started to use the system of communication to actually do, create social mobilizations. And also big transformations, like, you know, the party who actually everybody knows is going to win, didn’t. Cause the people decided to police them, to make…uh…to make…police them. Yeah. Uh, so, I mean, of course –

S & S: Policeman?

LM: Yeah, policeman. Of course in democracy you only have – if you want to do something like that, you have to vote for the other one, which is actually not a solution politically, but it’s a formal expression that means much more than that. So the people were using the tools they have to do something. So, actually, people went to the street, that was completely forbidden. You know that one month before the election you cannot make any demonstration or something in Spain?

S & S: Oh, huh.

LM: So the people did that. Like, thousands of people. That is something that activism was never…could do, for instance. The next day, they change the government. We all changed that. So that was like, “Wow!” I mean, in a pre-political situation you can change things. And when you are, like, an organized networks and all that for years, you can never have the power, for instance, to go in the streets the day, which is forbidden, you cannot, of course, to change the government from one day to another. So that was like, “Hey! This has – this makes sense.” Then, you know, the riots in Paris came out. That was another expression of this we are thinking and considering. That wasn’t also a political stuff, a social thing – actually, I was making interviews about that to a lot of people in the left wing, you know. Activists and everything, they never – they didn’t know what to say. But actually it was like, I mean, if you think about May 16^th, which is the big thing last century. In May 16^th there were like three days riots, actually. And twenty or fifteen cars burning in those days. But that create an image of the whole century. And now? There were like these guys, you know, completely desperate and guys without a future. Tons of them in – in the whole town in France they were burning cars, everyday, like two hundred. And during three months and creating chaos all over. And when you ask them what you want, then you know what to say? They didn’t want anything in particular. It was an expression, a pre-political expression of a situation of a feeling. Of a life they don’t want to live. So that was another thing. All of these things actually are talking about life. So there was like a kind of turn in from politics to life. And we started to go out of these politics about putting, for instance, in the center the work as a transformation in society, or the communication itself, or, I don’t know, cynicalize [sic] people, or whatever. And we started to put the life, because life today means capitalism. That’s how the pre-political power is operating. And that’s how – yeah, that’s how we’re working on it. So, we cannot talk more about politics itself, but life. When the life becomes political. I mean, that is what happens with these guys in France. It’s what happens with the people in when two bombs explode in the trains. That is what happen also later with the V for Vivenda movement. The one also in the other day, with the screaming of this record of people screaming, “I’m not [inaudible] live my fucking life.” That was the same. An anonymous male run out a Spain law. Nobody know from where he comes. And it was an email that wasn’t politicized at all, just like, “Hey, we cannot pay these man. We have to do something. We don’t have future with this crisis of living. How can we create a family?” Basic things just like that. Things that, again, activist networks weren’t able to say, you know, like, “Fighting for having a family? What do you mean?”

S & S: [Laughs] Or buying a house?

LM: Or buying a house, what the hell. So that male was like, became strong in all the networks, in all the [inaudible], in all the social networks, what the fuck. So, suddenly, just like naturally, people decide one day we go to all the Spanish town at the same time and sit down in the main part of all of them. Which, actually, in terms of activism is very naïve also, to sit down and everything. But that was a strong image. And, actually, it started to become that was time that this kind of reaction, pre-political reaction, has a stability. You know what I mean? Has to…starts to…constitute itself. And that was another turning point.

S & S: But you did feel the need to – even though it’s to somehow give that pre-political feeling a message, a voice, which is – what was the slogan again? In Spanish?

LM: No vas tener una casa, en la puta vida.

S & S: Which basically means, “No fucking way you’re going to afford a house.”

LM: Right.

S & S: Why? Why not just say you’re angry? Why did you feel the need to give it a sort of –

LM: Cause this is what…uh – this is a very tricky thing. This is a problem we are confronting now. Cause, for instance, this [inaudible] we were part of a movement, if you can call it movement, and um…we start to work on that, like, doing the things we always did, but not with activism or activist networks and more by with people. And we create this image and slogan and everything and that became, like, the whole image of the movement in Spain. You know, like, “No vas tener una casa en la puta vida,” that was the sentence you could see all over. This here is a stickers and posters and we were like –

S & S: And you didn’t necessarily make those stickers or posters or –

LM: Some of them at the beginning and then we open, I mean, we create this in an open process. We put everything on the Internet. People started to do their own version and their own copies and everything. So, uh, that was great at the beginning, but, actually, at the same time, we were creating an image that defined a movement. We started to make politics. So the pre-political…uh…period that we really wanted to keep, cause we believe is the one who is – it has the power enough to change things. We ourself [sic] started to [laughs] started to finish it. You know what I mean? Cause the first moment you create an image, a style, around something, you are defining this. You are like, actually in a way, creating hopes for that. So, we fight against that so we wanted to be construed all that, so we went to another slogan that didn’t work out. Cause the people? They already wanted this one. You know? So actually, we had the same problem as…as a…corporations have, with publicity and everything. How can we go out of this image? And uh, we couldn’t, that is true.

S & S: What was the new slogan?

LM: It was – it’s quite difficult to translate from Spanish cause uh…it’s a “Pues yacer, que no.” That was the thing. And that means, “I don’t think so,” something like that. Cause we were like playing with sentence that government and all these guys were telling about crisis and about things, and so we were always answer like, “I don’t think so,” or “Hm, I don’t think so.” It’s more like – or ironic in a way to say that. It didn’t work out.

S & S: So explain just a little bit more, which is fascinating, most groups – for example, Eric Hofsbaum uses this idea of the pre-political because you’re supposed to move into the Communist party sooner or later

LM: [Laughs] Right.

S & S: And then everything can be OK. And that’s how us as activists basically look at it. We identify something wrong, we say, “We’re gonna put a label on it and we’re going to politicize people’s anger.” Right?

LM: Uh-huh. Right.

S & S: But you’re saying “no.” I mean, you kind of stumbled into that, but you’re resistant to it. Can you explain a little bit more why you’re resistant to that.

LM: We are resistant cause we saw that to have such a strong image, to have such a perfect marketing, actually, with a marketing around us was creating something, a more fixed, something more defined. So it was using little by little this anonymous power itself that is completely wild. It doesn’t have image. It doesn’t have a way of speaking. It doesn’t have a way of doing things. You know what I mean? But that was – I must have said an impossible way of….um…a contradictional [sic] thing, you know? Cause, while we were winning power and force and everything, cause we had that image, at the same time what’s happening at the other thing. We were modifying, we were muscles in movement every time. We were like [inaudible]. We were like…we were like more something. We were something. We were not this anonymous people following an anonymous man anymore. The name of that movement is “V for Vivienda,” like V for Vendetta. It means like, nothing. It comes from a comic, a movie, it’s nothing at the same time, but that became so used for the political parties and everything, “We are going to have a meeting with V for Vivenda!” We were like, “What the fuck, man?” We are something already. We don’t want to be. Cause we know – we had that feeling that the power is just like pre-you-are-something. You know? Pre-politically.

S & S: It’s interesting because, do you think at a certain point you have to move toward the political? And that you’re just saying that the problem is is we just move to it so fast that we lose the energy or is there a new politics that is going to stay sort of anonymous, apolitical, pre-political…

LM: This is the hole. The black hole we are living in now. We don’t have answers for that. That that I can tell you is that, there is where the problems are. In the different ideas that people has about it. And that was also in our movement. For instance, you could feel it all the time. Um, first, we were some – there was a group that was one of those that we were like say, “No! We don’t have to say – we don’t have to be anyone! We don’t have to be nothing. We have to keep doing things just like that. Anonymously. That’s the power we have.” And that’s why all these people move. This sentence is not their sentence. A sentence that everyone was thinking inside of them, but now it’s put outside but, the is coming because they know there is no one behind but myself. And people came to the movement – this is something that marketing is looking for all the time, actually, and it works perfectly here. People were like, “Hey, I’m going to have a home my whole fucking life.” This is what I thought. That’s – that’s me. And no one was behind so –

S & S: So they can own it.

LM: What?

S & S: They can own it.

LM: Yeah, they can own it, and also, they can enjoy it. And, but enjoying in a specific way. Not anymore about, “We have a sensitivity. We have the same kind of people. We have a name. We are – we form part of the same ideology.” It’s not about that. It’s more about, “That’s me. Um, that’s me for that one, or that one, or that one, too.” You know? That’s me. That’s my own thing. Cause, actually, I can go there because I want to have a family. And another one, he can go there because he wants to buy a house. And another one can go there because, just he’s feeling depressed with his life. That doesn’t really matter why you go there. What really matters is you recognize yourself in that sentence I mean, that was the power of the sentence, actually. Cause the sentence has life in it. Vida. No tener una casa en la puta vida. Puta is like, it’s like fucking. It’s an expression of a bad feeling, actually, and the concept of the future. “You are not going to have.” If you think in terms of activism, it’s the opposite way around.

S & S: Yeah.

LM: You are not saying, like, “Hey, if you come here, we will have a better future!” or “Come on, let’s try to be more – let’s try to change this world,” or something like “You are not going to have a fucking house in your fucking life, man.” So it’s like, “YOU ARE.”

S & S: [Laughs] Aren’t you worried that the right-wing will take that energy? This sort of incoming energy and say, “Oh, but we own that.”

LM: Yeah, yeah. That was another discussion also. But, as I was telling you before, this is the point today, how you interpret all this, at the beginning everything was white. So we were so free to bring things and experiment with that, even this sentence. Of course we had the reaction of the left-wing saying, “Mhm, you cannot say that. Cause “puta” is sexist,” for instance. We had that. I mean this is what we call –

S & S: Puta’s exist?

S & S: Sexist.

LM: Sexist.

S & S: Oh, sexist. OK.

LM: You know what I mean? For instance, that’s what we call the…“breaks” of the left wing, or something. You know? OK, here they are…so that was very funny because it’s an expression that everybody used. You know? “My fucking life” or “La puta vida,” or “I don’t think I’m going to get a job in my fucking life.” That’s something very used, but if you are going to make a poster for a demonstration, if you are going an award, you can’t.

S & S: Yeah.

LM: Cause it’s not, I mean, it’s not politically correct. So we have a funny experiences when we present that. You know? In the meetings and everything we were like, “Hey, this is the sentence we think is going to work,” and the people was like, “Wow, this is great.” The anonymous people were like, “Yeah man! That’s what I think!” And the political guys were always like, “Um, I have an objection. This is sexist.” Or “I don’t think this is going to work.” Or “This is too rude.” Or “It doesn’t show a better future.” Or “We have to be pro-positive. Not so nihilism.” All these different things. Even there were funny situations, like people saying, “I mean, I think it’s a fucking great sentence, but we cannot use ‘fucking’ you know?”

S & S: [Laughs].

LM: Things like that. But anyway, we could do it. Because that was while we were – we had nothing to lose. So, you have this free space and that’s the pre-political power that I’m talking about, cause we don’t have nothing to lose yet. But, when that sentence came out, that sentence could create a mobilization of fifteen thousand people. Which is a lot. With trucks on the street – I mean, a big event. We were in the media. The people who worked on that sentence started to create press conferences – I mean, different groups for to do different things. I mean, the activists came, like, of course they have knowledge of how to move when a mobilization is going. So we started to be a movement already. And a movement that has a sentence, and an image, and a everything we were creating. And the funny thing is, even a sentence like this became, like, institutionalized in a way. It’s so funny because, see like very serious newspapers talking about the political group I’m-Not-Going-To-Have-A-Home-In-My-Fucking-Life they say [inaudible]…we’re reading that saying, “No, this wasn’t a meeting.” But for us, it still is very important to know that a sentence like this could move so much people. So we start to think like, “Hey, what is really behind this sentence that works so perfectly?” And we found the same interests capitalism is looking for – exactly the same. It’s talking about you, it’s not talking about us, anymore. It’s not talking about we. It’s talking about you. It’s talking about your desires. It’s connecting with your own – who you really are, who you really thinks [sic], and uh…actually that is not selling any…anything. Any world. Any better world.

S & S: There is no solution.

LM: There is no solution.

S & S: Yeah.

LM: You are there. That is all. But, in a way, the funny thing is that when you do exactly the same as capitalism is doing today, but you break the market thing, you put it in another context, it works to make mobilizations and everything. That was a thing that we were like, considering. Cause when market – I mean – all this – you are your own – all these things I was saying now, in capitalism, of course, is always connected with an object, with a product, with the market. It has to be. Behind this, it’s only you. I mean, you want the car I’m telling you you have to buy. But this, I’m not going to tell you, you know? But here I was you, only you really with your own situations and your own problems and then suddenly that can be connect. That’s the [inaudible]. It’s like, “wow.” When individuals going there, no one was like, “Ah, we are now the people who are – I’m not going to have a home in my fucking life. This doesn’t make any sense.” The people went there because I’m not going to have a home in my fucking life. You know? But, actually, I don’t really care who is next to me. I don’t really care if there is not a common problem, but that actually we are doing something in common. And that was like, “Hey, we have to keep working on this.” Because it has more power in a way.

S & S: So, let me ask this: You’ve got all these people together, and they yell, right?

LM: Uh-huh.

S & S: What – were there any results from it?

LM: Yeah, a lot of them. Like uh, results and problems.

S & S: OK.

LM: The process was like…uh – a group wanted to keep being anonymous, pre-political and I was one of those. We were. The people who was creating all the images and videos and everything – we were those kind of people. And some other, I mean, there were a lot of people. And other part of the movement, they were like, “Heyyyy, OK. We play for a while. That’s alright. You create a nice sentence. You create a nice image. Whatever. And it was nice. And even if I didn’t want it at the beginning, I have to realize it was great, and could move a lot of people, and everything. But now? It’s time to work.”

S & S: To get serious.

LM: To get serious. Now it’s time to, you know, put things in order. That mean, let’s organize this, let’s create a different group – affiliate groups in different neighborhoods, let’s make the political networks, let’s have people talk with the political guys, let’s talk –have people who talk to the media – all these kind of things. And for a while we were like, living together – the crazy ones and the others. But we always thought, “They are the crazy ones cause we are trying this [inaudible], and never works, man.” And – yeah, but of course. In our discussion finally there were like – our discussions, real discussions – they begin, in the discussion, we always lost. Cause I mean, you – doesn’t have answers. That is true. And they have the answers from, actually, a century ago. So, but, they have answers. You know what I mean? So when they tell you, “Yeah, but then how are we going to change this situation?” They live – they live and practice and everything, which is their main point here. Uh…we were like, “Ah, we don’t know. We have to keep doing experiment. We have to keep doing creation of this. I mean, let’s try to see what kind of force we find here.” They were like, “No. We have to make deals with the politicians. We have to make, I mean, political actions in several places. We have to – ” I mean, everything that we already know. So, yeah. They were doing that on one hand, and we were going farther with this idea. And so we made this record of people screaming at the same time, “We are not going to have a home in my whole fucking life.” And they went, for instance, there were discussions about it because, on this other hand they were like, “Yeah, OK. Make the scream if you want to.” Cause they were like – we were free actually because we had success. So they were like, “OK, let’s listen to these guys.” But in a way…uh, they were like, “But as soon as you finish with the scream, you have to explain to people why we did that. We have to have a flyer saying which are our points of how we are going to change the situation. Really, all that.” We, we weren’t interested in all that, at all, not that much. But it was alright to work together on that. It was like, “OK. We don’t have to separate or something. It’s fine. You do that. You explain to people.” We were doing these things. But finally…uh…if you want to put – if you want to establish sides of the movement the logic of political will always win. That’s it, I mean, at least for now. We don’t know in the future. But until now it is like that. Cause I mean, it’s true. Cause they were shouting like, “Hey, we have to make a [inaudible] group within the neighborhood. We have to make all these speakers with politicians.” And we were like, “Ah, you guys, I think we have to keep being no one.” “What the fuck are you talking about?” “Trying to, like, no one has answers. Just like keep the, uh, mobilization this energy. This anonymous and white energy. And to create images, and – not only images – but you know, ads on the streets, and all this.” “Yeah, but for to go, where?” “We don’t know.”

S & S: Yeah.

LM: We don’t really know. We cannot answer that. But they knew. Of course they didn’t get it.

S & S: It’s funny because –

LM: But they knew.

S & S: You would think the, sort of, cathartic screaming of “I’m not going to have a house in my fucking life,” would be relieving the general, like, anger about it, right? That’s one of the things you do, right? You’re mad and you yell and you feel better.

LM: Uh-huh.

S & S: But it’s actually what – sort of what you’re saying is what stifled it or what controlled that feeling, was like moving it into what would be effective politics.

LM: Right.

S & S: That’s a nice way of saying it. In a way it’s almost like the commodification [sic] of desire.

S & S: Yeah.

S & S: It’s just a politicization of desire.

LM: Definitely. Definitely.

S & S: Whereas you would think the screaming would sort of diffuse it, but it’s the opposite.

LM: Well, it’s actually happening in activism. It’s very similar to the reapproriatization [sic] of marketing about desires and everything. The political reappropriatization [sic] of desires and put it in jail. So, OK. Here we have a new desire, “I’m not going to have a home in my fucking life.” That’s, in a way, a new desire. Like, I’m going to the street, I’m going to the something. But now? I’m going to tell you how I am going to do that. Which is actually the same as, “OK. You feel like this? Buy the car.” You know what I mean? So, we were like, “No way, man. We are using these tools not for to do the same.” Cause actually even if there’s no market, it is the same. You know, political desires and jail.

S & S: Yeah, yeah.

S & S: Is there some point, though – like I could understand not wanting to politicize or commoditize the desire to early, but is there some point when one has to say, “Well, what do we do?” Or can we imagine a system that works on pure desire. Pure, sort of, popular expression.

LM: No, I don’t think so. I think things have to be done. Things have to be changed, and I don’t want to pay what I am paying in Spain for the prices. And which is actually the real thing.

S & S: Yeah.

LM: You know? And we even change that. Of course they didn’t either, you know?

S & S: [Laughs] yeah.

LM: That’s the thing. I mean that’s really the thing.

S & S: [Laughs]

LM: It’s like, that’s where we are. Cause I mean like, if they would be like, “Hey, look, I’m more boring, I’m more classy, but I’m changing things.” I will be like, “Alright!” I mean, I’m going to make posters for a [inaudible], alright. But, uh, they didn’t. We never did. I mean, I say “they,” but I was one – I’m one of those. And so this is the black hole I was referring myself to before, and we don’t know where the exits of that is. Cause when you try to go out of that, you find this reappropriatization [sic] of desire and – transformation of um, something, the desire. So objectivitize [sic] the desire. Even in market or, you know, in political parties it’s the same actually.

S & S: One of the things you talked about with the earlier work you mentioned at the beginning, to, was like, the value of sort of getting all these people together.

LM: Uh-huh.

S & S: And in a way, it’s like you’re getting all these people together and you’re not deciding what the outcome is gonna be, but gathering people, you know? So the show-bus gathers people, the…uh…there was something else that you had, but yeah, I mean –

S & S: The ball, definitely.

S & S: The human ball, yeah, but the meet – and having everyone meet and do the workshops around the um…the unemployment office party, like, you didn’t know in the end that it was going to be an unemployment office party, but you longed to get a bunch of people together and talking. And in a way that – the puta vida thing – gets all these people together on a much bigger scale and without the workshop structure. But maybe you could talk about that, too. Cause like, getting people in the – you know, talking, and together.

LM: Yeah, I don’t think I understand the question.

S & S: The standard way of doing a demonstration is, “We are all going to meet at Times Square to protest the war.” Whereas it seems like your style of demonstration is like, “We’re all gonna meet at Times Square.”

LM: Yeah.

S & S: And then we’ll see –

LM: Yeah, but then, we found also limits on that. Cause I mean, for instance, you have these experiences of improv everywhere and all these kind of people are just like, “OK. Let’s make an experience.” That’s all. But for us, it’s not enough. So, when you feel it’s not enough another – another – again the question comes: so why is not enough? Are you looking for something? What? What is the goal? What do you wanna do? What do you want to transform. And then the political thing comes again. And you are not in this pre-political space again. So it is very contradictory. We are experimenting. We don’t know the answer. That’s why we decide to go to the unemploy [sic] office. Cuase it has a kind of meanings [sic]. These are not real meanings we want to work, but they also are there, you what I mean? It’s different than – let’s pretend we are walking dogs. Cool. But uh – so for the ball we did that in collaboration with a festival and everything [inaudible]. And in [inaudible] who were there, were there. So we were working together. They didn’t get the improve everywhere.

S & S: Improv everywhere.

LM: Yeah. They were there. We were working together for that. They didn’t get the point, cuase they were like, “What the fuck? I mean, I want to be the star.” Or, “I want to define this.” Or “I don’t know what.” Or “Why the consumption?” We were like, “Hm.” Today if you see how market is working, it’s focusing on the experience. That’s the thing. Which is actually the same as we were doing a decade ago. So we – that’s a main problem for us also. When you see T-Mobile – mobilization of tons of people singing and picketing in London [inaudible] at the same time, you know? It’s fucking great. I mean, it’s something that we could…reclaim the streets with – whatever we could think about it, like, “Wow.” Let’s go there and have an experience – a collective experience – breaking your honesty, breaking your fears, doing something completely out of your daily life. Having an artistical [sic] experience connected with your life. It has everything. Mobile TV. Mobile – TV mobile sponsors it of course, but it has the same experience.

S & S: Yeah.

S & S: Yeah.

LM: The thing is, them. What – how can be different? Or even – have to be different what we do with that? Cause if we are talking about, say, a political power, they’re breaking it also. I go home, I pass through Piccadilly, and I saw a lot of people, and I stopped my walk, I enjoy them, and I don’t fucking care if it’s a T-Mobile commercial. I came home and I talked to my sister, “What an amazing experience! I met two amazing guys and we were drinking later. I mean we were singing [inaudible] together, you know?” It was an amazing thing to do. You break the rhythm, you didn’t consume – in a way. You were like having – that’s what the citizens was looking for. That’s the same thing we were looking for, right? So, what the hell can we do now? The activist has an answer very clear as always, “Come to the political, let’s do what we have to do, man.” And it’s like, yeah, but then we are inside of a cult. We cannot even joke with the people. So, if we don’t want to follow that and we don’t want to be just like in a sponsorized [sic] experience or experience that actually doesn’t make me feel that good cause it wasn’t really nothing, after that. We have a tricky situation, cause it’s not that easy. And this is what we are trying now. With a new project we are working on it now that is going to be called La Institucion. We want to create – we want to –

S & S: How does that translate? Sorry.

LM: “The Institution.”

S & S: Oh. OK.

LM: Here it is going to be called The Institution, but in Spanish it’s La Institucion. The idea is – the idea is to create a space where the people can connect and to express their own bad feelings and from there start to work and create experiences. And to create videos about those experiences. And to create also a way of collaborate on those experiences that breaks actually the daily life. And the social thing comes in this point. Cause we are thinking to create something that the people can…uh – from their own position in society participate. For instance, we are going to make an umemploy [sic] party at another unemploy [sic] office, alright? So we want to create a website where people can say, like, “Hey, I’m a precarious worker who’s at one of those office. I know if you use this door, is better.” You will find this. I mean, you will find a kind of…uh…a kind of a…role that works and it is political.

S & S: Yeah.

S & S: Uh-huh.

LM: You know what I mean? Without being part of anything?

S & S: It’s political insofar as you’re creating – it sounds like – a space for people to participate in the creation of, you know, these sort of transformative spectacles and that they participate. It doesn’t just come to them. They become creators of it. It’s not just created by a corporation as something to do, but you actually go create it yourself. We actually – I gotta run downtown.

S & S: OK.

LM: OK.

S & S: Um, two things: one was three o’clock on Friday. Is that gonna work for you?

LM: I would like a little bit before. Can you?

S & S: I think I have –

LM: Cause I think I have another meeting.

S & S: …a meeting.

LM: Let me see. They’re proposing…let me see.

S & S: We could maybe do it in the morning.

LM: Let me look at one thing.

S & S: Sorry about this, Steve, I just have to – I could – Ooh. Whoa. I could…yeah, let’s see. I could do eleven o’clock.

LM: Um…hmmm…I forgot…I have at like, five and a half a meeting.

S & S: What’s that?

LM: I will have at five and a half a meeting they are proposing.

S & S: Oh, at five thirty?

LM: Yeah…

S & S: Oh, so then three’s perfect.

LM: Yeah.

S & S: OK. Great.

LM: Bring the papers and then we’ll talk a little bit.

S & S: Exactly. So why don’t you stop by around three and I’ll be in my office.

LM: OK. You send me the address right? Already? OK.

S & S: And then the last question…um…we usually ask – cause I think we kind of hit most of it – most of the other things –

S & S: Yeah, um –

S & S: Do you call yourself an artist?

LM: That…uh…I mean, sometimes [laughs].

S & S: [Laughs]. If you’re talking to your aunt –

LM: What?

S & S: Your aunt. Your…uh, tio. Tia.

LM: Ah, yeah.

S & S: And she says, “What do you do?”

LM: No. No. We – after more than a decade of doing these kind of things, we – some of us learned it’s quite tricky to depend on this to live. Cause you have to find things that I want to confront, if I can. That means, for instance, if I am really living from this I would be in Sicily doing things that I don’t want in my projects. So this is something we want to don’t confront. So I was looking for another way that is in my case the teaching.

S & S: But if someone asked you, “What do you do?” Like what – how do you –

LM: Depends. If I am flirting with, I say these kind of projects. If I am trying to find a job, I say that I’m teacher. I don’t know, I mean –

S & S: [Laughs]

LM: No, but, uh…yeah. If they ask about this, right, it’s like, I’m doing projects with people. Art and political projects, that’s what we call.

S & S: Yeah. It’s just, why we ask is almost everybody we ask never says – very few people say, “I am an artist.” They say, “Well, I’m this. I’m that. I’m this.” And it just becomes – it seems like it’s become a less interesting or even less relevant title.

LM: Totally.

S & S: It’s like, “Yeah, I’m an artist.”

S & S: One or two do, but most people don’t.

S & S: Really? I feel like they all qualify as something else.

LM: Yeah, it was strange for me one of the first times I came here, like fifteen years ago or something.  I was meeting people and they were like, “Hi, I’m an artist.”

S & S: Right.

LM: And I was like, “What?” Sounds weird, man. Because in Spain you never say so.

S & S: Oh really?

LM: People don’t say, “I am an artist.” Sometimes you can say it, but more in a funny way. You say other things like, “I am doing things…” Cause I don’t know, like, we don’t know where to put this thing, you know? If you really professionalize that, you know, that is what capitalism is creating it. It’s fine for them. If you don’t – you don’t know what to do with your life. It’s like, “What the hell.” So I think, I mean, it’s perfect if you can find another way of having money, even if it has relation, that’s my case. But it’s not traditional, but I mean if you can. And then to be really free – feeling free about what you really want to experiment. Otherwise            …hm.

S & S: Steve, do you want to keep doing the other questions?  I gotta make it down to Lafayette Street in 25 minutes.

S & S: I think we got it.

S & S: Alright. This has been fantastic. I wish you had took American citizenship so we could put you in this book. So think about it.

LM: [Laughs]. OK. You know I will come to live here maybe. So we can –

S & S: Exactly. It brings up this theme – which some people have been touching upon, this idea of – which I think is so important – which is when you start putting it into the political package it loses some of its energy. But you can still talk about success without having to do that. It’s like, in other words, people often say, “Well, either I want – if I’m going to talk about success it’s going to be very instrumental. I pass this. I pass this. I pass that or that. Or otherwise, I can’t talk about it at all.” It’s just ephemeral such and such. And you’re kind of in this in between zone, which I think is really interesting.

LM: Yeah, today I think is this…move from political to life. That’s the thing. When you are moving in life terms, but not life like an abstract thing, but life, which is actually one with capitalism, you know? When your own life is doing the capitalism works, then we cannot – all the references about past politics doesn’t really work.

S & S: Steve thinks I’m weird, but I keep talking about how this is a spiritual growth thing, you know? It’s about people, sort of, not being subjects of a market or consumers, but actually living an authentic life. You know…

S & S: I think you’re weird for all sorts of other reasons.

S & S: Yeah, that’s true. But yeah, I agree with you Steve. And what you’re saying, I think, is –

S & S: It’s like a personal liberation.

S & S: Because capitalism is personal. That is, capitalism is not an ideology out there. It’s expressed every single day in everything we do, so if you’re going to fight it, then it has to be a revolution of everyday life.

LM: And you have to confront your own life. As the fucking difficult thing, because in one point you will be in front of yourself, saying, like, “I have to confront my own life.” And this opens a whole new world of fighting and confronting politically. When your life is political you have to confront yourself with this now that –

S & S: this is an outside –

LM: That was the line draw I was talking about before. Because you close yourself. So it’s like – that’s why this project is growing slowly. Cause we are finding problems all the time. How are we gonna make an accent?

S & S: You as an artist, too. It’s that like, political people can’t do that, but you can-

LM: Right.

S & S: Oh…we didn’t record any of that!

LM: [Laughs].