(((( Congratulations, you're beautiful
the one about regentrification of London's east end
In a tantalizing way, I have experienced just enough of creative living to recognise that for most of my time I am living uncreatively, as if caught up inside the creativity of someone else, or a machine
One thing I’ve learnt from the gay community is that an upfront proposal, has to respect an upfront refusal. I am free to express a desire, you are free to say no.
Avenida Prestes Maia and other places in Brazil
Come with me to squatted tilt. Come with me to Avenida Prestes Maia number 911, Sao Paulo , Brasil. Come with me to an abandoned building now housing One thousand six hundred and thirty human beings, a squat. High rise up rise. Under threat of eviction. Will you evict yourself from your chair? Will you come homeless to the point of gaiety? Will you Pop the Property question – don’t trust the Brazilian government – they are outraged by the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes but do nothing about the daily killing that takes place on their own streets by their own police. What question is this moment asking? The property question ….. Do I Own Myself? Come with me to Redevelop questions. There are questions which I’m not sure are the ones I need to be addressing there are questions which tire in the asking and there are questions which do not yet exist. How do I respond to the pawning of the poorest? what question is this moment asking?
Solidarity in hands and other parts of the body
What if everything were reversed and we remembered first and foremost the relational, the glue of connections, the solidarity of bodies. Come to the Brazilian Embassy on Thursday 16 th February 2006 Can you see us: 2 samba players, 2 capoeira players, two highly effective reporters, – a tiny solidarity demo outside the brazilian embassy. Tiny. ‘We’d like to come inside and talk to you about this eviction’. ‘These people have solved their housing problem and built a community.’ ‘We are very very concerned that should an eviction take place, the military will get called in and make it a violent one. We want you to know that we are watching.’ ‘The periphery is the periphery anywhere you go.’ Come with me to the point where it can be seen that that’s why we’re here. Come to this feeling Come to this feeling Come to this feeling Come to this feeling of an edgy advantage in the street Each BODY has the power to vibrate with the noise of the universe. My INSIDE is nothing more than a fleeting combination of the outsides. ALL I AM is my contemplation of my perpetual transactions with you. the more COMPLEX things are, the less certain the outcome but there is more room for the play of the mind, for inventing ourselves out of the mess. If only my MIND could gain a firm FOOTING, I would make decisions. Come with me to refuse what I am. If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make essays, I would make decisions. Come with me this moment is asking me to work from scratch again. It is asking me to get specific. But Specificity requires a tension. And the property developers have sold tension off.
Broadway Market and other places in London
Everyday, more estate agents’ letters come through the door. Memos are going astray. Memories are being demolished. Olympic redevelopment. There are four people playing cards and four people watching this Friday afternoon Broadway market. You are beautiful, congratulations. Who is holding your hand? Come and see the three big property developers, the two off-shore firms, the contract signed away. Can you see it? Property people, Desk killers! Go and gentrify your own head into a brick wall. Suck on cement until you croak. My other suggestion is that I can slap you really hard, then hug you. You are beautiful somewhere but your addiction to removal and emptiness is making you ugly. Come with me I’m so afraid of private poverty. It takes a community to make one. How can I be one? How can I be one? Who gets to own Broadway Market? Nothing if not now. Who gets to own Broadway Market? Nothing if not now Come with me because I am sick at the sheer tedium of life for all this talk of a level playing field. The vibrating body is therefore that what, within us, is the inside and the outside at the same time.
Come with me because this word is Unfinished this conversation is unfinished this sentence is unfinished this city is unfinished this night is unfinished this courage is unfinished this blood this dignity this sweat. Get up and move around from the position you’ve sat in for so long. If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make essays, I would make decisions, but it cannot, it is always in apprenticeship and on trial. Come and See that hope is sensual, thin desperation is a violence. We’d like to come inside and talk to you about this eviction. Will you come with me to Strip my armour. I don’t need it anymore but I need you to help me remove it. We’d still like to come inside and talk to you. Congratulations, you’re beautiful. Your hand is holding who?
(2006)
audio file available on archive of the now