Another important question would be to make the difference between politically themed art and politically produced art. Art with a political theme is fully accepted by the art system within the idea of freedom of expression, but in non-market contexts, political art is more powerful, as it is produced in a context of wider struggles that seek to be transformative.
The specificity of your opera is that it is performed in public/private space in which it intervenes unexpectedly. We can see some reactions of the affected crowds, but what were the reactions we can’t see on the video? Did you get any aggressive reactions while driving around Houston and how did the dinner crowd react when faced with the fact they were recorded?
Those reactions remain in the moment of the action. For us, an action reaches its full meaning in the moment of its creation. Its filming, although it has an audiovisual narration, is not more than a mere document of something that happened. There were aggressive reactions too. As for the dinner crowd reaction, guests already knew they were going to be recorded although they did not know what was going to happen. Reactions varied from surprise, acceptance to disappointment and neat rejection. We haven’t had any legal problems so far. We believe some of the guests have seen it already although we haven’t seen most of them again and consequently do not have their feedback.
The opera’s libretto was written by Ivan’s father and is based on Hesiod’s didactic poem ‘Work and Days’. Do you usually work with appropriation? Are “Eat the Rich” and “Kill the Poor” appropriated slogans too?
This is not really a clear example of appropriation. The libretto was written specifically for Order and the reference to Hesiod ‘Works and Days’ is only an inspiration inside the writer’s head when writing. However, on other occasions we do use appropriation, as a tool, after all art is a toolbox. For example, without going any further, ‘Against Democracy’, which you mentioned, is nothing more than the appropriation of a banned book, or the project ‘All the Dead’, which consists of a public exhibition of a collection of historical anarchist flags. “Eat the Rich”, is basically a shortened meaning of Rousseau’s words “When the people shall have no more to eat, they will eat the rich.“ and in popular culture, “Eat the Rich” is the title of a Motorhead song and “Kill the poor” comes from the famous Dead Kennedys song.
We see New Black Panthers protesting bearing posters with your slogans in the first act of Order, a children’s choir in the second – one is perceived as a hate group, the other a group of innocent children. How do you choose the people or groups you work with on specific projects – is there any limits? Do you feel your collective expands for each project with guest collaborators?
Maybe that’s why we’re interested in art as a medium, because it’s always pushing the boundaries. The collective does expand, yes. Every time a new project is developed there are new people who are integrated in one way or another in the processes of Democracia.
Do you think you created a real Gesamtkunstwerk?
If we have created it, we are not aware of it, nor was it our intention.
What are your future plans?
To Enjoy The Collapse.