The Question: How (from your experience and perspective) do artistic practices create public sphere?
I’m more of a lone wolf so I haven’t felt very connected with the idea of public sphere. I feel like most of my work goes out like little seeds into certain people. It’s almost like traveling by pollens. It’s more biological: it goes, it sits, it gets watered by somebody…
With the internet the concept of public sphere has changed a lot and it really needs to be updated. That idea was really revolutionary at the time when it came up against the bourgeoisie, against monarchy, against private holding of information, so I think it was totally relevant but now, as Morgan Craft says “new times demand new tactics” . I feel that with the political movements that have been happening the sharing of information it’s amazing, but I think there is a little bit an illusion of social media or places where people meet. Whether social media and people gathering to share information and get some things happening, or like actually in public spaces people are meeting to protest, it’s all kind of data entry into the algorithm that can be used against us and so I’m a little bit skeptical and I think we are going to have to go underground. Everything that we are putting out there is input into an algorithm and it’s being used three moves ahead of us. But not to take away from sharing information and the access, and the freedom of that.
The idea of sharing information and the public engagement of things—the downside of it is that it’s all data collection that is has being fed into the algorithm that is being used against us perhaps, but not to take away from the sharing of vital information and experiences. There is a big difference now, returning to the public sphere, in terms of the internet, virtual or digital versus actual humans around each other, breathing on each other’s neck and the smell of humans in a room together, is completely different. So these are two important differences, that each have their strengths and their weaknesses. What I do feel also about the political side of getting together as humans protesting – even there is obvious power in it-, is that a lot of times it’s a ‘primal scream group therapy’, that’s what I’ve been calling it. I’ve been involved in protests going back years and it kind of felt like that. It makes everybody feel really good, doing something, screaming their guts out, getting it all out and then at the end of the day, what does it really change? It has shown to change things sometimes, but probably the percentage is higher in favor of it not changing things in the way people want.
What I do, going back to the artistic process, is also being aware that every moment, every year, every month, there is a new upgrade of technology or simply a new way of communicating. We always have to be creative about how we communicate, how are we going to get our ideas in our art out there. I’m a completely underground independent artist. I don’t have these platforms of agents, or viral, or media, or whatever, it’s all DIY. Like I said I see it as seeds, that I send out as pollens and there’s something a little bit maybe even secretive about it. I also feel like in terms of the political connection, what I’m realizing more and more is that there is ‘no political solution without spiritual resolution’ . Meaning that the real change begins in each person’s mind and deeper than that, in each person’s soul. Without the revolution in the interior lives, very deeply inside, it’s pretty pointless, we are just going to be repeating the same crap over and over again. “Perhaps, as some venture capitalists venture, reducing our lifestyles will not save the planet, but it could save the soul without the integrity of which any new revolutionary technology is doomed”.