imagi(nación)

"for the duration of this video talk racism does not exist in this auditorium, or no one here hates immigrants or queers. is this an accurate statement? well, yes in the sense that artistic reality can overshadow social reality for 15 minutes. but if i say art can save lives, is this a correct statement? how so? when a battered woman comes out of her performance determined to leave her violent husband, i’d say art is working. when a gang member emerges from a performance thinking, ‘hey, symbolic acts can be powerful ways to express my anger. I’m exchanging my gun for a video camera’, i say, we’re definitely making a difference. but let’s face it, there are more efficient ways to save lives. what about volunteering for doctor’s without borders, creating a citizen watch group to monitor police brutality with video cameras in your city. the fact is that, first and foremost, we make art because we love it, and doing good with it is an effect we welcome. but we don’t want to talk about this because we badly want to believe that art is necessary. is it? i think it is. i think democracy cannot thrive without art, without the critical voice of the artist constantly testing its limits and possibilities. without the ethical mirror of art reflecting the distorted features of power. but do you think i am exaggerating? if the answer is no, then the u.s. and the U.K. are not democracies, because they obviously have not listened, are not listening to their artists and intellectuals. Is this an accurate statement or a mere poetic overstatement? i may be exaggerating a bit for pedagogy’s sake. the fact is that democracy, if done right, is the most difficult and painstaking form of government. it has to be a daily conscious project for every citizen, like live art is for us. democracy is not working because most people do not want to put forward the effort to have a democracy, so we mostly elect stooges, or don’t vote at all, or allow ourselves to be tricked, or all of the above.”

“why am I allowed to talk about these delicate issues so openly? what is at stake here? nothing, really. does the fact that nothing is at stake mean that critical thought no longer matters? and that i can in fact do and say whatever, whatever i want and it does not make any difference? i mean, short of committing suicide for the video camera’s performance, i can do everything else. burn my bra, my passport, a photo of the pope or the prime minister, auction my left testicle, and tomorrow it would all be an anecdote in facebook, que no?”

“the fact is i don’t believe in government. i don’t believe it is possible to correct the problem from within the system. we have all tried. it doesn’t work. the system is the problem, and politics is the art of manipulating the system to perpetrate problems. being a radical within the system is a mere prestidigitation act. part of the spectacle of radicalism, that media consumers require to feel alive and authenticate their extreme designer identities. in my world, the locos y locas that I would propose as political candidates are not even politicians. they are artists, and literati. visionaries not functionaries. the country I would like to live in only exists in planet poetry and planet performance where imagination is the only law, art is part of everyday life, and everyone practices what they believe. imagination is my nation. that’s where I wish to live and die.”

"where do we locate our dissent when dissent is a corporate product, an hbo special, a perfume the scent of dissent, an air eau chic extrême suicide. or when teens can simply wear a t-shirt that says “art is resistant” and think the job is done.”

"i wonder if community is still a source of hope. community is one of our obsessions, we all long to belong to a larger ‘we’ because we are obsessed precisely with what we lack. but you know locas, communities of sameness drive me up the wall, conjure my asthma, give me acute vertigo and claustrophobia. my community is not confined by ideological, national, or ethnic boundaries. mine is a community of difference, and therefore it is fragmented, ever-changing and temporary. and that’s how I like it. besides, no one belongs to one community. not even the christian right. not even my chihuahua, siegfried ne babalu. he hangs out with rodents, marsupials and ghosts. like babalu’s, my peers are scattered all over the planet, howling outsiders jumping all over the planet. some of you are my peers, others are total strangers in a virtual community of strangers.”