Week 3: House Magic: The European squatted social centers movement
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Scott: Great, so we want to make sure if we – looks like we don’t have Adam Trivage [0:00:09] [phonetic] we are going to go ahead and add some other people on the conference call so just bear with us for a second.
Male Speaker: Alan is low.
Scott: Okay cool. Steven can you hear us okay? By the way…
Steven: Yeah I hear you [0:00:37] [inaudible]
Scott: That’s totally awesome.
Alan: Alan is here.
Scott: So we got Jess, we started the call just and we are on the 6:30 mark. So we are doing better. So great so everybody that was able to make it on the Skype chat, will probably be funneling more people on as we go but welcome everybody. Just want to welcome Alan Moore, can you all hear us okay?
Female Speaker: Yep.
Scott: All right, cool. Great so Alan and all the other people that are joining us here in person, its – anyway thanks for coming, its great to have you.
Alan: Good to be here, I hope I can be heard.
Scott: Yeah, if you can’t be heard – actually did you guys hear that?
Female Speaker: Yeah.
Alan: Okay good.
Scott: From Alan? I didn’t know if you – sorry did you hear what Alan said or just did you hear what I said?
Female Speaker: No I heard everyone.
Scott: Perfect, okay great.
Male Speaker: [0:01:50] [inaudible]
Scott: Okay well just let us know if you can’t hear somebody and we will like rearrange to mic to speak up.
Male Speaker: There is a mic over there.
Scott: Yeah this is the mic and its pretty ready also so should be okay. Great so basically we have invited Alan here to talk tonight as an example, as a representative of this example of Plausible Artworlds, what we are calling a plausible artworld this week. We are looking at a pretty fast movement, the European Squad of Social Center Movement and I think it probably has, Alan will be talking a lot about bleed over into the US as well. But basically we are going to be talking about this in the context of Plausible Artworlds just for a few of you who might be here at the beginning.
In short this project is focusing every week for a year on different examples of other kinds of art worlds than the ones, than the most dominant ones currently on offer. And we invite representatives from those art worlds to talk with us each week about them and invite anybody who is interested to join in on that. The goal is to put together some kind of compendium at the end of the year in the form of a publication that could be [0:03:07] [indiscernible] tool, the arts schools for example when people learn about what artists and also just for those of us who are interested in will be thrilled to have such a thing around.
Great, yeah so we also it’s nice that we also have a mini the vigil and the media and the information exhibit called House Magic that Alan – it’s kind of an accumulation network, some accumulation of a lot of work that Alan has put in and other people have put into researching, it’s quite in social centers and related information. So we’ve got a lot of that here as well that we may be able to channel some of that into Skype chat. So anyway I guess at this point I want to basically ask…
Male Speaker: Sorry I…
Scott: Quite all right
Male Speaker: [0:03:59] [indiscernible]
Scott: It’s good we need more photos, Alan is taking photographs here. Wanted to ask Alan to kind of if you don’t mind briefly describe how Magic influence and I think through that context that leads us into the other things that you want to talk about and I guess you have kind of a presentation that you can go on for a little bit then we can do a sort of Q&A afterwards.
Alan: Oh okay.
Scott: Or we can do a discussion throughout, we haven’t actually settled that yet. It’s probably good for people to know whether or not they could chime in or [0:04:40] [cross talk]
Alan: Well I considered this process is a little conky in terms of discourse but if people have questions at any moment, please you know it could be here physically or it could be virtually, please ask them. Essentially House Magic, the bureau foreign correspondence is a propaganda initiative to organize and present information about the movement of [0:05:09] [indiscernible] and social center or occupies social centers OSCs or Central [0:05:16] [indiscernible] SEOs and I basically started in Europe to look at these kind of places but it’s a global movement and its also present in the US but in kind of a disarticulated form, there is a lot of social center squad in the US but their components of the forms of this [0:05:47] [indiscernible] social centers such as info shops critical mass [0:05:52] [indiscernible] all this kind of viral archaisms that reproduce around the country in different cities are present in the squad of social centers in Europe.
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So I brought the House of Magic correspondence exhibition, it’s really not a very good exhibition; it is a process more than it is a display that makes things clear. So behind we have on this wall social center wall paper which is basically hand outs and information that you would find in the social centers that’s been photocopied and pasted onto big sheets of paper, it’s a funky little collage and then above the card and logos are different, some of the different social centers [0:06:48] [indiscernible] in Madrid was just evicted three weeks ago, rolled to Florida in Hamburg Germany that little, that light thing there and New York Battani which is in Berlin is the flying building with the flag and the rope, social center Lupiata [0:07:13] [phonetic] Slovenia, those are the logos that we when the exhibition originated that [0:07:20] [indiscernible] real which is a cultural center and Lorrie cited Manhattan, we kept these stencils for the design of the exhibition, they put them all over the walls.
And then below the stencil logo in the social center wall paper are clip boards and the clip boards are sort of dossiers of individual social centers and - a voice from the depths?
Scott: I think guys can mute your audio until you would like to flag us down, that would be awesome.
Alan: Was there a question or…?
Scott: It didn’t sound like it, yeah if you do have a question though feel free to chime in or send us a text.
Alan: These clip boards contained dossiers I thought I had brought them from New York but it turned out that I hadn’t. So in the last couple of days, I have been sitting here making them over again. And they are essentially; most of the information about the social centers is present on the web. I visited a number of them, I haven’t lived or worked at any of them but they are all present through their websites and their photo streams. So you have basically the website of the social center on the front of the clip board and behind is the history of the social center, how they came to be, some of them no longer exist because they are illegal, disobedient and squatting in contravention of the laws of their particular nations and against the interest of the owners of the building. So as soon as the social center comes into existence, it began to process of legal battle to evict it or negotiation of the city agencies to continue their work, so some of them no longer exist. And they are regularly involved in pretty intense street demonstrations and legal structures and so on.
I brought in addition to assembling these dossiers, I collected media materials, many books each social center, each country and where the social center is placed generates books and experiences and I have brought many DVDs, we have paper sprays on the table here. The one that is playing now is [0:09:50] [inaudible] so they took over a building in the center of Madrid and a lot of these and you will see on videos activities that are taking place have excised class of theatrical presentation, music, dance, they just become kind of centers for cultural activity and they are open to the street, people can come in when the social center is open and it’s not so much, we understand squatting in the United States is like I need a place to live so I am moving into this abandoned building.
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These are social centers that are doing things that the state is not doing. They also have, this is – oh the woman who is involved in this social center labatorial and she is saying how wonderful it is and how it reminds her you know of her earlier days as an activist but they really are a kind of new and this book fear which is also from the Madrid movement Antinomian [0:11:08] [phonetic] and Metropolis movement, occasion movement of the social centers of the second generation [0:11:14] [indiscernible] Spanish, they understand themselves as squatters who are in a new movement, a new phase of this movement of squatting. So people live in the building but those are the people who are running the social center.
Now in Madrid there, there is a diversity of social centers, many different groups you know they don’t get along; people are running when they will split off squat another building and run their own. And when I was just there I was toured through one that was in a neighborhood called Techwan [0:11:51] [phonetic] which is not a public social center, the guy said. Okay this is a social center that is working in the community, right? And its right across the street from the Mosque in Techwan district and so serving Muslim immigrants who are very poor and many are being deported and they get pushed around and are exploited so they are working with the immigrants trying to try and improve their conditions, teach them Spanish and so forth and help them with their legal problems.
So they are working in the community, they do what the community needs to be done, they are not like labatorial down town open to everybody, having concerts and so forth, good.
Female Speaker: [0:12:37] [inaudible] of what you’ve just mentioned, you hinted at a little bit before and that is just kind of this, the difference between squatting and squatters and social centers because it really if you are talking about a movement, you are trying to understand if the movement is the [0:12:59] [inaudible] sort of like art granular [0:13:03] [inaudible]. I get the base movement of squatters or if the new thing is the social centers [0:13:11] [inaudible] a little bit maybe your kind of explain that definition of squatters and social, squatter social centers, yeah that would really be helpful.
Alan: I mean squatting is ancient. There is a little booklet here, it is a joke but it’s called, Squatters of [0:13:32] [indiscernible] this is Washington Erving middle of the 19th century in the City of Bernada among the ruins of the mortgage temple, there are many people living, they are just living, they are squatting. This is continuous throughout history. George Washington’s first job as an [0:13:48] [inaudible] was to evict squatters on this family’s land, right? So there is that understanding. In the US, squatter nation, right, a Oklahoma land rush, people running up there, as soon as they come out, they stay early land claims. There is this understanding that you go, you take it, you make it, you develop it, you make it your own, you can’t live there. And this is the American understanding of squatting.
And it also is developed in Amsterdam when there was a shortage of housing, many vacant buildings being held off the market because of speculation but people had no place to live. The difference in Europe in general and many other countries in the world, housing is a right of the people. There is a very active social [0:14:43] [indiscernible] in the US the social housing programs have been dismantled over the years and housing is not a right, you do not have a right to housing. You can’t afford you know in the state since it’s not enough to settle you up, you know hit the road, again the street, it’s not a problem.
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So there is kind of more of a recognition in Europe that people have this right and there is more of a legal process that happens in the course of an eviction says the longer term when people are often resettled from a squat or a shanty town into a social housing. Okay so…
Male Speaker: [0:15:29] [inaudible]
Scott: That’s okay, did you guys have a [0:15:38] [inaudible] Harry did you want to try that?
Alan: I am really kind of taking it very roundabout way of answering this question. I am not answering the question but essentially the difference is the social center movement understands itself as making room or provision within the city for cultural and political and social work is not being done by private practices or the state. So they are opening up for this kind of thing to happen.
Female Speaker: We are also leaving tonight; also squatters are living and opening their doors to the public.
Alan: Yeah exactly.
Female Speaker: So that’s kind of what I was wondering like the difference between the movement of squatting plus a right to live somewhere versus to like offering something back to the community which is open.
Alan: Yeah they are very different but they are related, I mean they are kind of continuous. But in New York when the buildings were squatted and the [0:16:42] [indiscernible] in the 80s and 90s, they were defended and also in Amsterdam, they would well, bars on the doors and you know defended against the police evictions. So they were very closed places, they are fortified, right? And these social centers are not. They are open and they rely on the supportive community to remain a place although they are also defended.
Male Speaker: Does that support come into play when [0:17:13] [inaudible]
Alan: Oh yes
Male Speaker: [0:17:17] [inaudible]
Alan: Yeah I mean again the difference is between the United States and Europe. In Madrid there are like 50,000 communists and at least socialists, anarchists, socialists everyone’s tribe or another, yeah. And these people come out on the street in hundreds and then thousands finally for the big moments. This is basically also in Italy where there are a lot of communists, they don’t have a presence in the government because they blew it electorally but there are many cadres and they can turn people out in the streets. So the State can’t just say everybody is going out, we are going to send our police, our 500 police because they will be facing 5000 people, it doesn’t work. Yeah, yeah so they will if they know the time of the eviction, they will call people into the streets and you know they will be just impossible for the police to proceed. I mean eventually they do succeed, they block off streets and – I mean that to me is that’s yeah one of the defense is the most spectacular aspect and a lot of these videos have brought like 15 odd videos, many of them have spectacular scenes of defense and eviction and there is tear gas and so forth.
In the movement, this is called the team of foreign. People like to watch demonstrations, final demonstrations on videos. So to me that really is not the most interesting aspect although…
Male Speaker: It adds value.
Alan: Yeah, yeah it’s exciting I guess as long as you are not being hit on the head.
Male Speaker: Well like I guess first they are talking about [0:19:23] [inaudible]
Scott: Oh sorry, would you introduce yourself [0:19:28] [inaudible]
Male Speaker: It seems like [0:19:33] [inaudible] would be okay let’s move on to the next place instead of like totally defending it.
Alan: Yeah.
Male Speaker: [0:19:45] [inaudible]
Alan: Well nobody wants to leave. Once they’ve cleaned the building, you know labatorial trace is labatorial trace because this was the third building they had, this group had taken and they were evicted from that one as well. Rampard in London was evicted a few weeks, couple of months ago and they took another building and now they are heading a place called Liften Hoist and Patio Maravias [0:20:13] [phonetic] was just evicted three weeks ago and have taken another building. So now they are very sophisticated and have a group in Patio, a group that’s investigating the situation of houses and you know if you can find one that’s owned by an absentee corporation or a corporation that is entering bankruptcy or that’s owned by the State or as often happens in England that is owned by what they called a housing council.
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So a lot of times the housing council will clear a block of flats or building and be preparing to sell it or something and then people will take it, it becomes more difficult for them. My favorite squat is I don’t know the name, I should work out a clip, a dossier on them but they are in Vienna and there was a building owned by Viennese communist party and the communist party membership in Vienna shrank to mini scale proportion. They decided they are going to sell this building so after they put it on the market and the people took it, the squatters did and they’ve had it for 15 years because it was just too embarrassing for them. I mean the party tried to get them out but ultimately there are [0:21:33] [indiscernible] you know.
Male Speaker: By the way Alan, Aaron just mentioned the good TVTV on Copenhagen plus one in a building, I am not really sure exactly what it’s not really, my question is much but Aaron mentioned that TVTV also gets funds from the state, so it’s – but one side of the building, it’s all fenced but you know sometimes police come knocking and then on the other hand they actually get funding from the State so it’s a very strange situation. That’s [0:22:13] [inaudible]
Alan: You know there are some squats that are transformed into a State funded cultural institutions. And I believe it is in Zurich, the Rota fabric or the red factory, not the Rota flora in Hamrick but the Rota fabric has become cultural centered. It’s now funded by the State so it transformed. It has also transformed in the way that its run. It is no longer run by a popular assembly of people who would come together every week to decide what to do; it is run by administrator with a staff. Another voice from the deep
Chris: I have a question for you.
Alan: Yes.
Chris: My name is Chris Ryan, so I was wondering did the people who were not funded by the State they have to begin as antagonistic parties to the State and the State had to eventually give into the again the [0:23:18] [inaudible] the society they were part of therefore they should be supported by the state those who were antagonized or some states initially unable to get [0:23:27] [inaudible]
Alan: You know that’s a very complex kind of question. I really and in each country it is different.
Male Speaker: That makes it…
Alan: I think the most legitimated social center squats or cultural center squats or squats serving the creative community are probably in Holland. Holland is a very homogenous society and it’s a small country and they want everybody to get along, they don’t want to have really alienated elements so they try to accommodate. And they also want the artists, they have a very high percentage of artists, many many people, they want them to have some way of living and a way of making their work. So they will squat buildings and the squats will be regularized, normalized or enter into a relationship with the government of subsidy and then continue on and there are many many, I mean dozens. Not all are in Amsterdam but…
Male Speaker: [0:24:29] [inaudible] continue to happen as it has happened before [0:24:33] [inaudible] absorbed into spirit, enterprise that doesn’t have to [0:24:39] [inaudible]
Alan: Yeah, yeah it’s again a complex situation is very interesting in Eastern Europe which is formally communist. The people in Slovenia, in Lubiana Rogue, the Rogue is the name of bicycle manufacturing and there was a large factory that was on the edge of the city and it was vacant for many many years. They took it and the city announced no, no you can’t have it we have plans to develop it the same as happening with another Vinanpret [0:25:15] [phonetic] which is a factory in Amsterdam. and but and Lubiana city government made an arrangement that for a certain number of years the squatters will be allowed to continue to run for the Rogue social center in the factory until the development is going to happen.
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Male Speaker: Okay
Alan: So then because you can’t just say oh we are going to develop it get out and then it’s vacant for another 10 years
Male Speaker: Right right. Got you. [0:25:48] [Inaudible]
Alan: Well that’s you know how it runs, Yeah so…
Female Speaker: I guess I was wondering if you could maybe, if there are no questions on Skype, talk a little bit about the goal of this incident and maybe kind of how it’s a zoo paid show a little bit and what your fans you know what they’ve learned from this what they’ve hoped to gain anything…
Alan: Well my, the show came about because I was researching a book on the Lori Sykes squatting movement with Clayton Patterson with came out co-resistance and I started working on this research book in the 1999, 2000 and at that time I was researching on Lexus Nexus which is the journalist database, I have access and squatting, it’s all about riots, clearances, crime, there’s nothing at all about the social center movement. And the social center movement can be said to have started in Europe in 1978 with a Down Cavalow Social center, there’s a dossier, one of the clip boards. This old one and they’ve had this intention to make mainly social service political center for over 30 years. And you know when you look in the media, there’s nothing about it.
Okay, so I felt it was necessary to bring this information to a US audience and I begin in New York at ABC Newrio and collective their work together to make the information, put the information and make these wall papers and make this kind of portable manifestation of sharing this information. It’s difficult because it’s in multiple languages you know about the Spanish movement, it’s in Spanish about the movement in Holland, it’s in Dutch even the archives in Holland, it’s all in Dutch, the finding aids are in Dutch cause it’s Dutch you know. But it’s still, I think you can see and now we have Google translate you can just damp the electronic text in and get a rough idea.
But it turns out there are many researcher’s now, younger academics are beginning to work on this, this book came out of what's this place stories from radical social centers in the UK and Ireland, it’s a PDF download, it goes basically city by city, center by center and documents for you know a couple of hundred pages all of the different centers in the UK and Ireland. so there’s beginning to be a lot more information and these - the way these centers are run and set up, the way that they negotiate with their populations, they are you know located in a particular urban community, the way they negotiate with the municipalities, the Governments, all of these are useful for people who are interested to do this kind of work.
So I felt the more that you can share this information, these strategies, the more it becomes known, people become more sophisticated in the way that they do it. A lot of people in The US who run info shops and so there is here a DVD called the [0:29:40] [inaudible] 2002 to 2004, across the US in info shops. They are not, they are doing it you know they are presenting, organizing radical information, making punk concerts and so but it’s sub-cultural, they don’t realize they are part of you know this larger movement and they have a, you know, an ability to expand their very small enterprise in certain directions so that’s the idea. I mean it’s very disarticulated, there’s a lot of different junk and many different languages but that’s the intention is ultimately you would come out with something like be like, you know social centers for dummies or best practices for social center cultivation.
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Female Speaker: But also to like meet people and organize right, that’s you know the, there’s something that I think you said before tonight was you know you started at ABC Newrio New York and then went to Chicago
Alan: Yes
Female Speaker: Right? And now you’re in Philadelphia and then you have a chance to go to Baltimore. So I mean it’s really like this kind of all across the US kind of tour almost of this information, it’s my understanding of it [0:31:02] [Inaudible]
Alan: Well, in so far as I’m able to do it, yeah, that’s a scheme because I mean Manhattan is you know the center of global capital
Scott: Okay, Alan sorry, would you mind kind of repeat, reiterating the kind of live response ahead of it, it’s okay but I think because of the kung fu, people can’t really hear all of…
Alan: The thundering of bodies of the floor above
Scott: Yeah, it would help people, people are asking if you would mind repeating or if one of us wouldn’t mind repeating the question or if somebody has something to say they would get closer
Male: Oh, you’re far away, yeah
Female Speaker: I think, I mean, I can, if you want to take it, I can, I mean you can, but basically what I said was just, I guess I had asked the question of the goal of the show and one of the things that I don’t think was articulated yet tonight was just kind of where the show has already travelled and kind of the plans to communicate with different cities and kind of organize. so I was just kind of mentioning that it had, you know started in New York at ABC Newrio and then went to Chicago and then after that, it’s come, it’s here and then it has plans to go to Baltimore so that’s all that I said
Alan: Yeah, actually it began, it was organized at ABC Newrio and then it went at the same time to Chicago and then afterwards it went to Queens for the summer and then now it’s here in the suit case version, this is the first suit case outing and I realize what I want to have is a little work station that goes along with it so that people can go online and add to this dossiers like accumulating the information further. so yeah, and then we’ll go to Baltimore, I’m invited to Redemmas 2640 space down there in February, I doubt I’ll be able to do it but probably in March. And then in Detroit in June, there is the US social forum, and I want to take this there. and also at the same time just start to gather in the examples of spaces that are similar in the US, put those together in a similar manner and take that to London in late June for this social center research meeting. There’s a place here that I was just aware of called Lava? Yeah.
Scott: I just ordered the lake from someone else, I don’t know very much about that.
Alan: It’s very similar to a European social center, I believe they own the building it’s Lancaster Avenue, Lancaster Avenue autonomous space, so they do a lot of the same things
Scott: So just before, Aaron actually have a question, I don’t know if anyone else did. but before we get to it I just want to [0:34:26] [inaudible] because Alan he just sort of posed that as a goal out of collecting this pile of information about, Mayor should speak, sorry guys, compile this information about US social centers, squat and central spaces? Squad buildings, squad and social centers I mean that could be something that some of the people here, whether people are on Skype or certain people in this room might be able, might be interested in an idea to help them. So it’s actually something that you can follow up on if anyone is interested. But yeah, so actually we have two questions in queue so should I, can you, oh, you can see…
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Alan: The first one, I don’t quite understand, it’s a regulatory function of such activities rather than the radical function, rather than like fighting to gain acceptance within a given system. No, I think, you know basically the social centers squatting movement they understand themselves as radical, enter capitalists, disobedience basis. They are very much and much invested in acting autonomously, taking direct action to reclaim space. So it’s not that they are really seeking to gain acceptance within a given system. but after you make this kind of insistence on your right to organize these activities in the center of the city, you need the resistance of the state so you have to then begin to negotiate and then you know, you get repressed or you get recuperated meaning that they either squash you or you know get some sort of deal and your functions are allowed to continue right?
So then you have to decide, do we want to continue under the conditions that have been laid down for us to do so you know, state subsidy, reorganization as a five months to three free corporation or the equivalent or do we want to fight till the end and be a victim? So these are all, sometimes they do, they just get squashed and that’s it because they don’t want to continue under a particular functional administrative gene
Scott: But like you said it’s not just a once and done thing, it’s a cycle that sees to crop up again and again
Alan: Yeah, I mean you know basically the motor for a lot of these social center squatting is very very it’s, I’d say the motor for a lot of social center squatting is a really hard core anti capitalist political ideology be it communist, anarchist, socialist, you know, it’s against the state, it’s against capitalism. So yeah, it’s not like, how do I you know study arts administration or I like very much great show less formulation extreme arts administration so you might think of it as being that you know in the sense
Scott: We have another question from Adam in his class in Tennessee
Adam: Can I talk a little about that positive tactics making the commune work before the tanks arrive? Well, I think basically the way these spaces run is as an assembly basis, they meet in an open assembly regularly and it’s a model expertise list, it’s you know, open democratic situation of course there are quadrays and
Scott: I’m wondering if other not to ask Adam’s question this morning but I wonder are there things that the squats can do to sort of make themselves more amendable to the particular neighborhood you know, things that they might, strategies and tactics that they might employ, to sort of soften their immediate impact on the surrounding neighborhoods or….
Alan: Well, the social center squatting movement makes a big effort to work with the communities; I mean that’s what they are basically about. They open up their doors, people come in, they form relationships and they embed themselves in the community. If they don’t succeed, then they will be evicted with no, no support. But if you get the neighbors, the buildings turning out I’d say to the police hey, hey, leave these guys alone what’s wrong with you? Which happens in Madrid and other cities I'm sure you know, it’s more difficult for them to be evicted. So the community relations are really basic to survival of the disobedience space. I mean there are many tactics too for resisting eviction itself but I mean people hang themselves on the outside of buildings and chairs, this is kind of wild you know.
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Male speaker: So I thought that you were going to say something but I think we had something else come up but you said something about that it had been a center of capitalizism having an effect on the eventuality of squatting operations in Manhattan. Are there no, is it more difficult to effectively squat in Manhattan because the land is such a high premium you know also in that the system is so entrenched there that almost everything in Manhattan is controlled by very powerful interests and it is used to its maximum efficiencies, you know what I mean?
Alan: Well yes and no I mean it is the centre of global finance capitalism I think actually there is a real difference between the operation of markets.
Scott: Oh sorry they said someone couldn’t hear your question again.
Male speaker: My question?
Scott: Yeah I think it’s just that shuffling of the [0:40:52] [inaudible]
Male speaker: It’s the direction of microphone. I was just you know to reiterat4e, I was just asking if the function of Manhattan as the centre of commerce and sort of entrenched capitalism of Manhattan makes difficult for Manhattan to offer spaces that can be used by people this kind of movement?
Alan: Yeah well yeah it is also within the city of Manhattan it cannot be seen to succeed this kind of thing cannot be seen to succeed. So it’s a very highly policed situation. It is also artificially vibrant economy is artificially vibrant compared to other cities in the US.
Male speaker: Makes perfect sense.
Male speaker: There was a moment during the 1970s New York’s financial cities financial viability was very shaky the bonds were a junk and a lot of property was abandoned passed into the hands of the city for tax arrears. and as that property was being returned to private market that’s when the squatters took control of some buildings because the programs that were legitimate what was called slate equity where by people would take back buildings under city programs were being ended and the buildings were being sold to developed and flipped and flipped and flipped and flipped and crisis were going through the roof and the rents were going through the roof. So there was a moment a political moment to take those buildings and that’s you know the last moment when it was a successful squatting operation movement here in London.
Male speaker: One other thing I forgot to mention was that I would make the assumption that New York being the sort of magnet city that it is for people were interested in urban lifestyle you know in [0:42:46] [inaudible] short end. It would sort of see to magnetize people who would be interested you know sort of demographics that may be the target demographic of these movements. But so the concentration of the demographic being higher something that I had assumed you know just because I know New York just as a place where that would happen. However does it get chocked off by the bureaucracy in New York entirely saying there have been times when the veil slipped from New York [0:43:20] [inaudible] people have been able to make entrance it’s interesting.
Alan: Yeah I know. There is a lot of questions there.
Male speaker: Yeah I [0:43:29] [inaudible]
Alan: No the composition of the people who drive squatting movements is one part of your question and it’s really an it’s an interesting one. This varies around the country but in New York it was a lot of people who had backgrounds in the labor movement whose had communists or socialists parents, so an understanding of you know people power of movements. people who had trade skills who were able to actually take a [0:44:07] [inaudible] building and bring it back up to you know a habitable condition and people who had let us say [0:44:18] [inaudible] children who had the background of being able to deal with the legal system, the city political system, the media promoting their and organizing yeah. So it was a whole combination of different people with different capabilities. In European cities my guess is that most of these people are coming from political backgrounds that again that they are communists or socialists or anarchists. In Spain of course the anarchist’s movement is very deep a hundred years or more deep.
Male Speaker: Yeah.
Angela: I have a couple of questions my name is Angela [0:44:59] [inaudible] the first question was saying I was curious [0:45:03] [inaudible] where you talk about most of the US is not…
[0:45:08]
Male speaker: I hate to interrupt you but [0:45:11] [inaudible] maybe if you move it around but [0:45:16] [inaudible]
Male speaker: Its directional wise yeah.
Angela: My question is that I would argue that potentially in most of the US it’s not very conducive to squatter movements because of the I guess you would be curious just to hear why I think that it is. But it doesn’t seem like there is very many successful squats at this point in the US. but I would say that I would pose it that one of the things that is most interesting about the squatter movement currently in the US is that people are rather than focusing on buildings they are taking over vacant land and they are [0:45:43] [inaudible] urban and post apoplectic [0:45:48] [inaudible]. I think right now is what is currently is really exciting in the most part of the in the US and also what I would say will be a more plus a legal movement where there is a lot of interesting spaces that exist that are operating somewhere the land of legal non-profit if I go and see three status and not squatting but certainly not running enough fully legal faction and that’s where interesting things are happening.
Alan: No you’re totally correct actually in this mark up for the second ezine of the catalogue of house magic there is a poster by Anton [0:46:22] [inaudible] side garden and squat movement Emerald Rose. and in Laurie side the housing is very dense and they took it for housing but in order to create some sort of cultural social space the gardens also were taken they became centers you know a little casitas were built, little stages so things were going on in there. Yeah and you are absolutely right Detroit is full of urban farm [0:46:50] [inaudible] there is a really interesting project in Baltimore called participation park and in Pittsburg landslide farms. So there are a number of these kind of organizations I really would like very much to…
Angela: There is a number of [0:47:04] [inaudible] here too as well.
Alan: Pardon?
Angela: There’s a number of [0:47:06] [inaudible] in Philly as well
Alan: Ah okay yeah I would love to find out about them and again gather that information in the similar way that we will present that to people in Europe. So because there is like one outside of Barcelona called [0:47:21] [inaudible] just it’s an old leper colony, leper hospital which has extensive gardens and grounds which have been turned into urban farms. And then there is a tunnack [0:47:37] [inaudible] of course which was I don’t know anything about except that people were arrested yeah.
Male speaker: We’ve got a long question with some examples from Steven.
Scott: It might be worth asking Steven just to kind of read it [0:47:50] [cross talk] pretty well.
Male speaker: Yeah maybe Steven could chime in.
Scott: If you are up to that Steven.
Male speaker: Can you get this?
Male speaker: Yeah we can [0:48:06] [inaudible]
Male speaker: Yeah I hear you [0:48:11] [inaudible]
Male speaker: Yes thanks Steve.
Steven: I want to read my question I didn’t want to get [0:48:20] [inaudible] as the way in which when you were talking about which is extremely interesting fixing to where great sort of paradigms for a Plausible Artworlds. I was trying to I mean I was giving a sort of conjecture about how that would work in the sense that the squatting actually is almost a typology or really gives it an image of how art worlds could actually become plausible by using the existing architecture, the existing but under used or under exploited architecture which exists as an urban landscape or as a conceptual landscape. And the idea would be that you know park could take place anywhere but it doesn’t actually have a home of its own. So it merely needs to address that question in its homeless, its transcendental homelessness by finding homes somewhere else.
And I gave that example from Martha Russell’s interesting project about homelessness and really the re-emerged like it hadn’t at least since the in the [0:49:38] [inaudible] period that project which you did in 1981 in [0:49:42] [inaudible] was a really interesting conceptual project at the same time as it addresses the dire situations of people living without homes or under homes.
[0:49:55]
It also dealt with the question of arts almost as easy it refuse as an art project accepted as an activist project but was never embraced by the mainstream art world at that time. So that was a kind of example that I give, that I copy to replace the homelessness by art homelessness and housing by art system. But just speaking in conjecture on my part we would like to hear how you see this squatting world [0:50:21] [inaudible] and then I don’t know on the mainstream real estate but which allows can in the hypothetic way in other words which I guess which uses different sources of [0:50:44] [cross talk] without actually giving them the whole system the way I got to say is that the way you see it as a plausible in plausible artworlds?
Alan: Yeah no I was initially struck by the similarity between the intense matter of efforts that goes into a limited time for an art exhibition and the intense amount of effort that goes into a limited time to squat a building and to open it with a series for cultural and political and social programs they are very similar yeah. So they are parasitic, they are time bounded they are really model acts. Yeah the Martha Russell show yeah that was in 1989. Actually she evolved that in consultation with group material and it was a really influential exhibition one of the first so far as I know platform exhibitions which took an issue homelessness. again another reason why the New York squat succeeded was because they coincided with the mass social movement of poor people, large numbers of people were camped throughout the city and continually led camping being evicted by the city and then the recamping land because they were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of campers and thousands of homeless people in the city evolved now being evicted there was a pressure on the government pressure on the public to recognize this as an issue.
So the squatter sand some kind of social legitimacy which you know you just can’t generate for nothing. As an art world, yeah I think also you have now at this moment the rise of relational practice, participatory practice, kind of the hyper modifications of social sculpture and the social centre movement is totally networked and their presence is you know if you make a nice poster for the social centre concert series or film screening series it will be on the web, it will be seen by an international audience so that constitutes you know a market for graphic artists for people who are trying to have their work seen, to be with this movement and make signage for them.
So yeah I mean definitely there are worlds in which representation is key, how the social centre represents itself is instrumental in its maintenance or standing and falling Rose [0:53:17] [inaudible] is full of crazy analytical communists who really you know hang the bosses they have a terrible website and they are really in trouble with the city because post nine is trying to cultivate its closeness to Germany to become you know sort of a really centre for commerce. So yeah I don’t know is this coming towards an answer for your question?
Male speaker: I don’t know.
Male speaker: Its mine my dear.
Steve: Yeah sure.
Male speaker: Yeah.
Male speaker: Go ahead Steven.
StevenNo I mean I don’t want to monopolize the conversation because the, it was an unexpected way to have come with the answers.
Alan: Well you have a sense also of sort of how this movement plays out in France about which I know nothing absolutely nothing although I know that it was big in Paris for awhile.
Scott: Well there were Paris squats in late ‘90s which I’m a huge fan I’m sure it has a lot of history.
Alan: Yeah but it seems that France has sort of being outside of the social centre movement which is unfolded really in the south and in Germany in the east maybe I’m completely wrong about that.
Steven: Yeah east no you are absolutely right it’s a strange anomaly and I would say this about it I mean I don’t want to talk about France but in France there is a very strong institutional [0:54:58] [inaudible] movement very honorable training, very powerful socials and communist parties, [0:55:02] [inaudible] party groups represented in the national assembly and that means that there is literary no [0:55:07] [inaudible] of culture accepted and swine’s as part of [0:55:13] [inaudible] culture it’s you know it’s something I mean I like being a [0:55:16] [inaudible] powerful institution [0:55:19] [inaudible] the country it has been able to secure real or an interesting social benefits. But at the same time the country culture is really lacking. And it’s somehow re-emerged in the last couple of years in the very far right very sort of authoritarian and liberal government of [0:55:40] [inaudible] particularly you know the people who know the [0:55:44] [inaudible] which is in a certain respect created a country culture and it has created something maybe because the squatting social centers which you’ve been describing.
[0:55:57]
On another note you talked about relational [0:56:00] [inaudible] practices and how they tie into all these. I just like to point out that today the author of the book Relational Esthetics [0:56:12] [indiscernible] was appointed the top civil servant in the French culture of the bureaucracy I mean a very very high position, a very [0:56:23] [inaudible] in terms of the administration of visual arts. So it just shows how relational esthetic was only probably a very [0:56:34]] [inaudible]
Alan: That could be helpful I don’t know.
Steven: Yeah but I think the question of the [0:56:52] [inaudible] we are not here to talk about France the rights were [0:56:58] [inaudible] they were a direct source on the institutionalize and mainstream political democratic state which [0:57:11] [inaudible]
Alan: Yeah well they are of course in the social centers in the political side there are movements there are specific concerns serving migrates resisting [0:57:28] [inaudible] kind of working against the police in the borders is a really strong current of political current in the social centre movement. so yeah its attempting to create solidarities that are very different and actually is a big divide in the US between Spanish speaking movements and immigrant movements which are extremely strong and I would say are the dominant social movements in this country and the wide left you know which is really serialized, academisized and kind of atomized so that’s just like a big problem.
Steven: Yeah and I will ask you to [0:58:18] [inaudible] what you said because it looks that you will be [0:58:20] [inaudible] parallel draw between the sort of micro politics squat social centers and this attempts on the part of people in the [0:58:37] [inaudible] European they kind of squat work as Europe [0:58:41] [inaudible] is there a parallel logic there?
AlanNo that does that makes a lot of sense yeah. I’m looking at 200 [0:58:55] [inaudible]
Male speaker: I have a question for you.
Alan: Yeah.
Male speaker: Just so it seems like when you were referring to the New York the successful squatting of in New York a lot of that had to do with certain presence of catastrophes that when caused the sharp edge of disfranchising to sort of [0:59:15] [inaudible] you know what I mean so the seems just sort of when catastrophe becomes imminent and people are become less comfortable in their status as at least I don’t know the end franchises in the society they might be looking for an alternative sort of support system and that’s where these places come in in Europe you know for people who actually - you know for instance you can’t really say that the Muslim you know the immigration, marginalization of Muslims in America is as if it’s a different situation in Europe.
So people.0:59:52] [inaudible] so those people are coming over, immigrating with the knowledge that they are not going to become franchise they are not looking for the “American dream” style of franchise but they are looking for refuge. and you know so that’s also the alternative way of I guess provided by squatter social centers might be more useful for people in this country where there are imminent catastrophes, more widespread catastrophes such as you were explaining what’s happening in New York in the ‘70s [1:00:29] [inaudible] to the you know people supporting these actions as opposed to stopping them.
[1:00:35]
Alan: Yeah no again a very complex kind of question no no it’s cool. I think in Europe the immigrants many African are economic migrants. They are coming because they need the work right and their countries of course also many are in war. In the US, Mexican farmers are coming because there are free trade agreements have ruined local agriculture subsidized American corn is driving Mexican corn farmers who have been subsistence farmers, locally based agricultural systems have been devastated by those free trade agreements so they are coming here to work and support their families. you know a vast stretch of this country was Mexico in the past so you know you have lube dobs screaming about the [1:01:30] [inaudible] you know okay you know hey what the fuck you know this is America it’s not the Unites States. United States is not America, you know America is very very large and its sort of homeostatically re-equalibrising itself you know.
So anyway yeah I know very much what Steven said about the micro climates of social centers because in Europe it’s a very strong attempt to create exactly the kind of diversity and multi-cultural environment that in the United States we have. Particularly in certain sub-cultural spheres which don’t constitute art worlds and the sense that we understand that but you know like the punk and the hip hop scene are cultural spheres in which there is a lot of multi-cultural interaction. And so like the circles, cultural centre in Madrid which is on the edge of the city they mainly serve immigrants they try to do the legal counseling, they try to teach immigrants Spanish many of the Africans speak English which is kind of strange. But the core of people who run the place are Spanish you know and ethnically pretty homogeneous. So it’s kind of a little odd but they are trying again to create those links that they do not have.
Scott: Can I ask people here how many people know about - oh sorry can I ask people that are here now I know like [1:03:14] ] [inaudible] talked about it over the telephone very briefly but I just want to hear how many of you guys are aware at all of what’s happening pretty locally with squats. because I know like pretty much squat about it I don’t know anything about this movement that’s going but you know it’s not really something that I can connect to while here because I have been here for the last 15 years. So I was just curious if any of you guys are?
Female speaker: [1:03:40] [inaudible]
Male speaker: Yeah I don’t know interested in they are interested in things happening locally that in some way connect to this or tell me a little about it and wouldn’t mind chatting about it together. I am just a little bit curious. And I know Alan had just a – to put it into context confidence too one of the things that [1:03:58] [inaudible] do is talk to more and I mean tell me if I’m wrong Alan but you wanted to talk with more people in the US about how they see squats and
Alan: Oh very much, yeah.
Male Speaker: And so I know that…
Male Speaker: [1:04:10] [inaudible]
Male speaker: Yeah that will be great if you don’t mind.
Male speaker: Do I need to get up?
Male speaker: Sure well you don’t have to we can move this a little closer.
Abel: I’m Abel Gevins [1:04:20] [phonetic] I’m an artist in the city and I have been involved in artist communities here in the city for some unseemingly long time. And Philadelphia has always had a lot of squatting and it still does. Have we talked about the sort of the two different kinds of squatting based on class? I think it’s been touching but I don’t really know because there has been much discussion about that?
Female speaker: Not Much I don’t know what that means.
[1:04:53]
Abel: Well there are people all over the city squatting because they are poor and because there are all these empty buildings so they don’t have to move into a building. And there is no generally no theory being behind that squatting beyond I need a place to live and look there is an empty building. And then there is you know the European social centre model of squatting coming out of theory, coming out of political belief system and a commitment to social change. And there has been some of that in Philadelphia that I have known of, I have been on the franchise of smaller attempts over the years of that. And I think the one thing that we don’t have in the States very much they have had a lot in Europe is that the squatters’ rights. I have a lot of friends who squatted in London in the ‘70s, and ‘70s and early ‘90s and they had squatters’ rights. and if you moved into a building that was empty and you stayed there long enough they couldn’t kick you out you know they just could not kick you out without taking you court and going through this long long process. So it made for a lot more stability I know people who live in squats in London for years and years and years and they were squats the whole time and we have never had anything like that here.
Male speaker: I must say that in New York during the squatter movement in the ‘80s and ‘90s there was a very significant expansion of case law for exactly that if you established your residency you cannot just be evicted by police action they would have to take you to court then you can argue you know many different arguments.
Alan: Yeah yeah but in England especially I know because that’s where most of my friends were squatting it was enshrined in the common law for a hundreds of years so it was just a part of the…
Male speaker: Its common laws.
Alan: Part of the law.
Male speaker: Its like case I mean it’s not an English in English it seems different yeah. In Italy the squatting has no basis.
Alan: No no no legal basis.
Male speaker: But they stay because political.
Alan: Yeah yeah and I think there are just so many differences between European social movements and US social movements and that’s a whole other thing.
Male speaker: I have a question like in the London squats can is there any incentive for the squatters to move out like when they get incentives of like electricity and water.
Alan: They could sadly with Margret Thatcher being elected most of these laws were slowly chipped away so there is not a lot of protection any more there is still a lot of squatting in London and there are a number of squatting entity social centers in London still but they don’t have a whole lot of legal defense anymore they are getting kicked out. I was over there couple of summers ago and I was hanging out with people who were in one squatting social centre and they had squatted in another building because they thought they were going to get kicked out of the first one but they ended up getting kicked out of the second one before they got kicked out of the first one.
Philadelphia has an incredibly rich history of poor people squatting because they need a place to live. One of the very strange and funny very American things is that in the late ‘70s and in early ‘80s Melton Street was sort of there was a grass roots squatting movement Philadelphia was so devastated at that point and so much was empty and there were so many really poor people. people really started to go out and do it and they started to organize and this insanely opportunistic pair of brothers Melton Street and John Street saw their opportunity and went in there and became leaders and then just sold the whole thing up so that…
Female speaker: What part of Philly was that in?
Male speaker: It was everywhere they were mostly in south west but north Philly south west yeah.
Female speaker: Because you said Melton street and John street.
Alan: Yeah.
Female speaker: And those were people not streets.
Alan: Oh sorry yeah John Street is the ex mayor of Philadelphia sorry about that and Melton was his kind of [1:09:29] [inaudible] crazy brother who, is he in jail now?
Male speaker: Yeah.
Alan: I think he is in jail now yeah. So there was that very very exciting and really rich squatting thing going on but it didn’t have the theoretical background to it and it was more of an individual thing. There was a certain amount of squatting buildings for use as for social services but it was never on the same level and never done in the same spirit. And that I have been involved in some [1:10:02] [inaudible] projects over the years where we are trying to do some squatting and it’s just really unless you hide in Philadelphia you just get kicked out right away I mean I was you know I watched my friend being dragged out of a building and then they came in with a racking ball destroyed the building because it is better to destroy it than to have people living in it for free.
Male speaker: You were in Philly? Like I was I have figured that there is places in north Philadelphia where like officials have a bigger problems looking for squatters in the building.
Alan: Oh they are not looking for them I’m talking more about I mean there are still lots and lots of poor people who are just squatting in buildings I’m talking more about trying to create something along the lines of these social centers something public that’s maybe has a live in component but it’s just as much as creating social centre.
Male speaker: It’s more of a social challenge so channels the net.
Alan: Yeah very quickly and very efficiently, so exactly.
Male speaker: I was going to say it makes me feel like kind of like [1:11:06] [inaudible] paying rent but…
Alan: Yeah no no you have a [1:11:11] [inaudible]
Male speaker: Very [1:11:14] [inaudible] books I have [1:11:16] [inaudible] since 25 years of occupation against the interest of the owner of property and you becoming on the owner of that property. So it depends on whether you manage to keep up your quarters and you know you [1:11:35] [inaudible] occupy this land and you just didn’t so the activist [1:11:37] [inaudible] but anyway if you qualify then you do get title.
Alan: I don’t know about that.
Male speaker: Adverse possession.
Male speaker: Adverse possession yeah that kind of adverse possession doesn’t happen very often it’s just.
Alan: Yeah that’s the longest time it took.
Female speaker: Do you have a question I understand that [1:11:53] [inaudible] mention there is a pretty rich and substantial history of squatting in West Philadelphia I know a lot about Philadelphia houses that’s being going on for many years. and there is a lot of I think [1:12:05] [inaudible] organizations in West Philadelphia that are maybe now more legitimate but I think in a lot of ways it belongs similarly to the social centers.
Alan: Oh yeah and I was…
Female speaker: [1:12:16] [inaudible] they are more legitimate and so therefore are able to sustain themselves but are actually very much and I think this [1:12:23] [inaudible] like land trust houses for example or need space I think there is a lot of actually really excited social activists in this in particular. Unfortunately what makes me really sad is that there is a vibrication between what I consider like the grass roots visual art community and the grass roots active zone community [1:12:43] [inaudible]which for some reason is very separate but are doing very small things and its unfortunately they don’t share about those more.
Alan: Yeah well I’m a part of the woodenship books collective and we are we just moved into a really amazing space and we are doing a lot more events and hopefully we are going to be collaborating at Basekamp on some stuff and maybe we can work on some of that stuff.
Male speaker: Yeah it was one of the things we were hoping we would address a little bit after this kind of talk to get some of the people that are here can talk together about [1:13:17] [inaudible]
Male speaker: There is a question I think it’s I guess for you pal.
Male speaker: Yeah I’m looking at this extract from Adam Travage, yeah how [1:13:36] [inaudible] doing the successful squat gentrification witness successful squat automatically become a tool of preparation for your gentrification?
Alan: Yeah this happens again it depends on conditions the squats that a guy from Zurich was describing his situation where squatters had moved into a particular area and because they had this really good parties much more free than night clubs, much cheaper, more crazy the neighborhood became a place for young people to go and they started to build condos there. Yeah so that happens and when I was at the city from the law conference in Baltimore in the spring of last year there was a guy from Philadelphia who took a really extreme position and you know speaking for the community of color saying that he thought the squatters in Philadelphia should be attacked because they were the advanced crowd guard of gentrification, white punks that was an extreme position but yeah it’s an issue it’s a problem.
Most of the squatter the social centre squatters and even the very crusty, drunken punk squatters and I’m thinking of Eric of Eric Lyle in San Francisco. The name of his book is escaping right now but he is describing the market street punks who did squatting and squatted a theater. They organized against gentrification, they helped to organize the community, they make it their business to do that political work. So in that sense in the same way that in the Lori’s side during the gallery movement of the 1980’s the PAD group, political art documentation and distribution group, organized a not for sale project to kind of in list the art community in resisting gentrification, yes it happens its part of the process.
There is somewhere there is a secret manual for real estate’s developers that describes how to use artists and to use squatters as the advanced guard of gentrification. All you can do I think is really to be sensitive to the problem and to try to organize your communities against those things, trying to connect people with housing lawyers and so forth. Poor communities tend to be disorganized and often, I am not saying defenseless but you know their defenses are weak against that sort of thing. But at this moment of economic crisis that’s kind of not really the big problem.
Male speaker: Thanks Amanda, see you. Yes there’s—I was just looking at—there is on the web a film about squatting in Philadelphia.
Alan: Yes it’s really good.
Male speaker: Yes.
Male speaker: Yes I talked about that when [1:17:00] [inaudible], it’s about the [1:17:02] [inaudible] that I was talking about the street brothers kind of came in…
Male speaker: So that’s recent?
Male speaker: No that’s mid early 80’s that they were involved [1:17:21] [inaudible].
Alan: No it’s, I think it’s really good to reconnect these histories.
Male speaker: Yes.
Alan: I mean before the squatting movement in New York which is pretty well known there was a community land trust movement in a home steady in the 70s you know before the real estate was valorized. So that’s like really forgotten and all of those lessons and that those modalities of organizing are not really all brought up to the surface. And the more people know about them the better off we are.
Male speaker: Yes we should track a copy of that [1:18:14] [inaudible] of years and years and years, track it down. Are there any other questions? Oh good.
Male speaker: I have question, Alan can you talk about how many classes of this [1:18:29] [inaudible] historical center in the community and what was into like promoting [1:18:38] [inaudible].
Alan: Well I mean I have really never, I have not been a part of this you know, we did a building occupation for like 36 hours and we are very open and public and we are shut down, this was in New York 30 years ago. But I think basically the squat is very open in public; in the second issue there is a group of people, of two people who are involved in a squat in Barcelona. They squatted the building first, the established everything inside secretly then they had a public opening with a big crowd and a big party. So they set up and they were running and you know they did a lot of stuff right away and it was busy, busy, busy. Yes so that’s how they did it but again really strong social movement, really strong anarchist union, all of the stuff of you know different conditions. I think they are all kind of based on local conditions and how they develop, but they are definitely committed collective groups of people that make these things happen and they are planned carefully and executed deliberately.
[1:20:22]
Scott: Any other questions either here or online? You guys can also unmute your mics if you want to talk.
Female speaker: Or type of questions?
Michael: I have a question, my name is Michael here at Basekamp I am curious I want to hear about a little bit more of the kind of organization and activities that happen at the social centers. [1:20:58] [inaudible] what else do the big centers provide in the conventional social services [1:21:08] [inaudible].
Alan: Well basically they have similar components, they have an info shop like a bookstore or library, they have a café, they have very often a weekly people’s kitchen open food situation, they will have a bicycle repair shop and maybe the critical mass large scale bike ride is organized out of there. They will have a free shop where people can come and bring things and exchange things, they may have a sowing workshop where people can modify clothing and sow together and they very often become venues for concerts. In Italy tire are some very large squats one in a former military base which hosts hip hop concerts and hip hop entertainers often, you know particularly in Europe and coming from Africa have a really strong political edge and regular venues for music don’t want them even if they are very popular so they go to the social centers.
My friend who was touring his wild style hip hop New York he went to the social centers in Europe. Also a lot of punk bands it’s a heavy sub cultural punk things so those things go to the squatter social centers. I’m sort of a little fried here but those are the components that I can think of, oh silk screen, they have silk screen workshops that are kind of regular components of these places. Oh and a hack lab that’s really key yes, often internet radio station that comes out of a pirate radio station tradition, you know short low powered broadcasts that there is actually an article in here about that movement in Italy, telestreet [1:23:22] [phonetic].
So they have a media center and hacking knowledge, this is one of the things that’s getting recuperated in Madrid because you know for the society to move into the electronic era you know people have to have these skills. So they are being developed in the social centers in the Hack labs, so they are now hiring people who are coming out of the social center movement to teach media skills in the media centers. So yes I mean to a great extent that is the strongest argument for the social center movement is that they developed open source software through combinations and particularly in Holland. And kind of generated a whole lot of technical capacity in societies that didn’t have it, so the squats are sort of like Silicon Valley you know, I mean that’s exaggeration but yes.
Female speaker: I have another questions about, I guess you know I am not very well versed so forgive me, make a [1:24:32] [inaudible] here but I guess I have a couple of examples. One of something similar happening, a similar type of movement where people buy a property from the city for like a dollar and they are allowed to squat there and create some type of business there but there is always the ability for the city to kick them out. And the example that I am thinking of is in Baltimore, this gallery called Current, Current gallery, it bought this building for a dollar and I don’t really know how this works but –and they set the gallery there and yes I was just wondering if you knew any more information about that or if that was somehow related to the social status, I don’t know.
[1:25:37]
Alan: I think so, I mean essentially the key question is it’s about development you know. You want to develop your city, you want to develop your community, you want to do it right? But unless you have a large amount of money get lost, forget it.
Male speaker: I can way be in a little bit [1:25:58] [inaudible].
Alan: The question is, is the value of labor and imitative, does it have any occurrence as opposed to the value of money per say.
Female speaker: Right.
Alan: So if you have the intention and you have the willingness to put your energy in, cities when they become desperate they recognize okay you can have sweat equity exactly, you are going to work and that will be equivalent to having you know X hundred thousand dollars that you are willing to put at risk.
Male speaker: I think you are referring to like the year—and I will admit that [1:26:33] [inaudible] early 60s, 70s took over spaces, the government allowed that [1:26:42] [inaudible]
Female speaker: Right.
Alan: There is a small city outside Cleveland where that’s exactly what’s happening, the mayor is offering buildings to artists straight up. You can just come have a building and this is a year old information and I don’t remember the name of the city because in wasn’t concentrating on The US at the time but it’s happened, because they are desperate the city is collapsing.
Scott: Well and just, I mean in Philadelphia for example we were highly considering maybe five [1:28:00] [inaudible], there is a question on queue here by I just wanted to sort of like mention something about local for a second. We were seriously considering about maybe, maybe at this point it was like six or seven years ago, moving to the United States about 10 blocks north of here. You know we were offered like a pretty large plot of land for a dollar at the city basically and it was like just North of Gerard which at this point is like actually fairly pricy and in such a short time. But the reason that we were offered this is because we were going to sink like maybe $400,000 into like building a building there or like you know actually erecting a building and we were just borrowing the money you know.
We had you know something kind of goofy but you know some kind of green building that would have been awesome, some designer who wanted to design the outside of it they were like oh yes that sounds great. And of course you know it’s really about gentrifying the area it’s not so much, you know it’s sort of like win some lose some, you know there is an area where there is not much going on it’s a lot of tumble weeds and kind of white racists in that area and there is not a lot economically going on so we will go ahead and invite these artists and you know for one little plot that used to be like a toxic super site you know. And you know what I mean so it seems generous on one hand and on the other hand it’s really just how can we speed up the gentrification process and not getting soap box about it because we ended up deciding not to mostly not really for political reasons as much as just we didn’t—we would have had to put our own like projects on hold for a couple of years just to be able to afford it and like work our asses of just to do it. And then we decided we’d rather just not own something, but maybe that was dumb but that was our choice.
[1:29:54]
Alan: The land slide farm in Pittsburg I saw them present and they, I am not sure exactly how they began but they own some of the land, they are squatting some of the land, they have like three or four different conditions or use, arrangements with the city for other parts of the land. But the land is built over one of these collapsing lines so there were a bunch of houses there but the houses are like falling into this abyss so everybody had been evacuated. It’s essentially a disaster area its useless, so they made a farm and the city went out of their way to organize different kind of arrangements so that they could do this with the limited capital. But of course when the summit of the financial community, not the GA but that was in Pittsburg recently, the police came around to make sure that these guys weren’t hosting any activist so.
Male speaker: Wow! staggering.
Male speaker: There is actually, I am sorry there is actually an active that they do the Art school of West Philadelphia, it’s a place that started like that they got offered the super [1:31:17] [inaudible] site which was a brown field left over by an old store, a [1:31:25] [inaudible] store. And they began rebuilding it and cleaning up and everything and it started to work when now they used to open a few months ago in Eastern West Philly. So it’s, you know it’s happening right here but they are just—they are looking more for funding through the bright initiative and you know a lot of [1:31:50] [inaudible]. So they are basically a—like I mentioned this because before, previously we were talking about like giving the right use to the squatted land you know to grow communities that are self sufficient and all that stuff so that’s what they are trying to do there.
Male speaker: Well Alan you have a question.
Male speaker: Perhaps I have to do this but maybe we can just move them like next to Alan.
Male speaker: Oh excellent or you could just pull your chair out.
Male speaker: Sure yes.
Scott: You mean as long as [1:32:20] [inaudible].
Male speaker: But I wanted to ask about a question about the project House magic is research and about this collection of various squatting situation, they are all very interesting and useful but I want to ask about your under pending question that you might be working on they are researching these projects that we’ve been answering. Yes basically this begun as a propaganda initiative, initially I wanted to call it collective propaganda. But you know basically that was the intention, was to bring these situations which are very interesting to public attention in the US and try to offer them as models.
So that was the intention, at this point I am more interested to kind of gather all the situations that seemed to me to be prefiguartive of kind of new social relationships that we need to construct because the kinds of atomized super consumptive society that we’ve built is doomed yes? So we need to reconfigure it, so maybe that’s sort of grandiose but that’s my intention it’s in my mind pretty clear. But as a research project I would be happy to get out of it as quickly as I could and collectivize it and somehow to turn it into something that is forward moving, you know a thing that a lot people are doing to collect these stories and information and put them out.
Scott: Are you sure you don’t want to brand this project Alan Moore House Magic?
Alan: Absolutely not, not unless it’s the other Alan Moore he can have it; I am hoping he will jump on it.
Scott: Maybe you have been talking about doing a comic book.
Alan: Yes I am going to do a comic book because I think my name could sell.
Scott: Oh it’s the other guy yes. Well there is seems like there is definitely a lot of interests in contributing to something like this so, any last comments we’ve got about one minute before we have a—not that it’s a drop dead cut off line but we are approaching 8:00, oh it is 8:00. Yes but luckily someone just asked the question who is the other Allan Moore?
Alan: Oh good, Alan Moore?
Male speaker: Try Google.
Scott: Yes there is a fairly well known comic book or graphic novelist.
Male speaker: Yes he is pretty awesome.
Male speaker: He wrote watchmen.
Alan: I sign as Alan W so.
Male speaker: Can we talk about maybe the [1:35:11] [inaudible] that can relate to this project.
Scott: Absolutely and if anyone has to go I mean don’t feel obligated to stay especially those in Europe who are like up at 2:00 in the morning right now we a really think you guys are troopers and love having you here. There is still about a dozen people on the line right now so that’s pretty or, actually less now sort of dropped down to eight locations. But oh, actually someone would like to be re-added; can you let them know that we are reading them?
[1:35:42]
Male speaker: Yes most of the time.
Male speaker: Yes that’s [1:35:44] [inaudible].
Male speaker: Yes the thing we wanted to do at the end of each of these, at each of these chats and it really won’t take very long, normally we do a little bit before 8:00 but okay, Is continue to address this question about art or just kind of ask you guys about follow up ultimately people that you know, during most of our chats and we have been doing these weekly chats for about five years before really sharpening the focus through the plausible artworlds projects starting three weeks ago. And at the end of almost every single one of them there is generally, I mean a number of people, a lot of people usually who express enthusiasm to follow up and I know that that’s not coming at this much because that was sort of in mentioning it out loud. But our goal with the public school launch in Philadelphia is to try to use this extremely vague and open but still useful framework to follow up with other people who want to continue on with different topics not necessarily hard core research topics although some of them could be. But even just kind of follow up with any of our curiosities about things that might come up for each week’s chat. So…
Male speaker: As conceivable first.
Scott: Right as proposals for courses, things that could be like seriously easy proposals like, you know like for instance how does, you know 10 strategies for squatting a building or just getting just people that are interested to know more about the history of European squatter social center etcetera. There is like a lot of material here I don’t if you guys have seen the he flicker photos, the great post. But there is actually like a lot of hand books that like I am definitely not going to get though any time soon, but a lot of these things we can post to our data work and kind of contribute. Anyway I won’t go on about this but if you guys have any thoughts about this the best ways its I mean like just sort of throw out your proposals either now or on the comments section on the event Basekamp to come we will send the link. Or just email us or Skype us or try to call us or anything, text message us and we will try to help make it happen on the public school sight.
Scott: Or post comments to the event’s message board here in the Basekamp.
Male speaker: Right.
Scott: Yes I did say that but that’s okay I will even send the link.
Male speaker: I think Adam sent the earlier [1:38:28] [inaudible].
Scott: Here is the link and I will send like a direct little—go ahead and throw comments in there or send us your email address if you like to we will keep you informed about anything that anyone else posts along with this particular thread. Anyway that almost sounds like a sales pitch but really there is a set up here to kind of help people who want to follow up on stuff if you do. But yes I guess if there is any other burning like questions and stuff you know like feel free to send them and we can try to follow up that route.
Alan: I will post online research is [1:39:11] [inaudible].
Male speaker: Okay if you guys didn’t hear Alan [1:39:13] [inaudible] online researchers to, because there really are a lot along these lines. I don’t mean to make it sound boring just by describing it that way I think they are actually pretty engaging so.
Alan: I have an article in the ezine [1:39:29] [inaudible] about relationships between artist collectors and squatters and [1:39:34] [inaudible].
Scott: Okay yes and that kind of – I don’t know if you’ve heard that Stephen but that kind of addressed your question. But anyway yes just so that we don’t like making it a habit of going of going, like starting late then going over and making people especially who stay up late feel kind of too tired, we should probably wrap it up.
Male speaker: Okay.
Scott: Thanks a lot for coming Alan it’s really a pleasure to have you, follow up in the internet.
[1:40:12] End of Audio