INTERNATIONAL ISSUE
2005
is one or all of the following: a group of cross-disciplinary artists, media critics, an activist network, a conspiracy, a brand, a think-tank and a magazine which is circulated both on the web and in print. We aim to inspire and activate people into becoming our fellow creators of fully lived and experienced lives. Our theories are nothing other than the theories of our real life and of the possibilities experienced or perceived in it. We strive to coordinate our refusal of existential poverty through affirmation of creativity, co-operation, solidarity, play and our blistering desire for freedom. INTERACTING ARTS
More of this wonderful madness at http://interactingarts.org Get in touch with fellow creators at http://interactingarts.org/forum/ Give us feedback or contributions at editor@interactingarts.org
CONTENT Spectator or participant? Simulacra Warfare Postmodernity and participation
4 10 14
Urban Samurai Interactivist Anarchitect Urban Explorer Netpunk Nomad Chameleon
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
– INTERNATIONAL ISSUE 2005 editorial staff: kristoffer haggren, elge larsson, christoffer lindahl, andie nordgren, leo nordwall, gabriel widing | illustrators: mathias elftorp (7), ulrika linder (3, 15), josefin rasmuson(1), henrik zetterman (18-24, 26) | thanks to puh for translations | publisher responsible & layout: gabriel widing | content without explicit originator is produced by the editors| printed at SVEROK stockholm|
INERACTING ARTS
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During the course of life, we assume roles at all times: the role of being a student, being a parent, being your gender or simply “being yourself �. Most of these roles are not chosen, but assigned to you by means of expectations, rewards and punishments. We refuse these assigned roles, and look for allies and methods that will expose us to different expectations and inspirations. 3
SPECTATOR
OR
PARTICIPANT ARE YOU GIVEN A CHOICE?
It is now centuries since participants of rites turned into spectators, and then it didn’t take long time until everyone were supposed to sit still and passively watch as religion, theatre, dance, music, poetry was being performed, and eventually everybody had turned into viewers of television who willingly let themselves be seduced by sealclubbing, famine, genocide, and Thrilling Stories, Shocking Pictures, bullet in the head, knife to the throat, cock in the pussy, and magnificent carpet-bombings (you know, here in Bagdad, everyone has bomb-carpets now...), we have now returned to the Colosseum where The Gladiators bounce around with lions and martyrs, and blood flows across the screen and all the families gather every night with tongues flopping for the vampire-feast. People say we live in the age of media, but more to the point: we are at the mercy of media.
WHAT ARE MEDIA?
All media manifest themselves as different forms of suggestions. Films use the projection of moving images and sounds consisting of speech, sound effects and music. A book provides the reader with suggestions in the form of the text itself, but also in forms of typography, illustrations and the very feeling of holding a book. All these elements are suggestions. Principally speaking, suggestions can take any shape or form whatever: suggestions are the deliberate stimulation of the senses. Our experiences of different realities consist of suggestions. Every work of art consists of suggestions, usually put together to provide the recipient with a certain experience. This line of reasoning suggests that different subjects have similar ways of interpreting reality. If they didn’t, all works of art would be meaningless. A way of distributing suggestions is called a medium - the consensual understanding of how certain suggestions are to be distributed and recieved. Distribution takes place between a producer and a consumer. The role of the producer is to create suggestions. The role of the consumer is to experience them. This is a form of one-way communication. Controlling the shape of suggestions means controlling the experiences 4
of the recipient; the media relationship is always a relation of power. Media that are based on one-way communication always have authoritarian structures. Recipients can, at best, avoid unwanted suggestions by interrupting the perceptive contact with the medium, or interpreting suggestions in their own way. Reality is also a medium, prone to the same relations of power. Who produces the suggestions in your daily life? Who gave shape to the understandings that govern how you recieve stimuli from your surroundings?
WHAT IS PARTICIPATORY ARTS?
In spectator arts, the few control which suggestions are to be produced for the many. For a work of art to be considered participatory, partakers must be able to produce suggestions. The step from spectator to participant means the democratization of culture, as power over the means of suggestion is then distributed among the many. Participatory arts means that whatever suggestions the participants produce influence what suggestions they recieve, what suggestions other participants recieve, and how these suggestions affect the possibilities of continuing interaction. The framework that diminishes our participation is socially constructed, not dependent on any particular medium. The medium itself rarely limits our opportunities to participate, the understanding of how we are to percieve it does. We could rise up from the spectator seat, climb onto the stage and shout “to be or not to be!” or spray-paint the paintings in an art gallery, but we don’t, because we know our place. We are spectators. To illustrate how various media have different degrees of participation, we have developed a model of analysis containing three different levels: space of thought, space of choice and space of action.
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THE FIRST LEVEL MENTAL ACROBATICS IN THE SPACE OF THOUGHT
The first level is what we call space of thought; all possible thoughts, connotations, and reflections one can associate with the suggestions recieved from a work of art. This form of “participation” influences and gives shape to the experience created by these suggestions. A common phrase about the relation between artwork and spectator is that the “spectator creates the work”. This means that the work comes into existence when it reaches the spectator and arouses some kind of reaction. Fine art makes possible many different kinds of reflections within the spectator, banal works do not arouse much more than a sense of recognition. The space of thought consists of all interpretations that are made possible by the artwork. Art and artists often make a point of countering one-sidedness and absolutism, of being open to many interpretations, of enabling a wealth of different perspectives, nuances and distances. And yes, works of art that are difficult to access demand a higher degree of mental participation from the spectator, but the possibility of different interpretations must never be mistaken for interaction. Interaction requires that suggestions are produced by more than one subject. This kind of interpretative “participation” or “co-creation” of the work is an important part of spectator arts, but it doesn’t adress or explain the difference between spectator and participant since all suggestions produce thoughts and associations. With this kind of definition of participation, all subjects will always be defined as participants in all works. In the space of thought, there is room for us all - but the concepts of “participant” and “spectator” lose their meanings. The first level of participation doesn’t reach further than our own private experience, and can never influence the work itself.
THE SECOND LEVEL MOVEMENTS IN THE SPACE OF CHOICE
The second level of participation takes place in the space of choice. This space consists of all the different ways in which we as spectators can choose to recieve suggestions inherent in a work of art. If we are looking at a sculpture, we can walk around it and view it from different angles. If we are playing a video game, we can control it by pressing different buttons. In what is known as hypertext, we can choose between different alternatives leading us to new texts and new choices in the hyperspace. If your sole function as a spectator is to choose between which of the suggestions contained within the work you are to be subjected to, you are not really partaking in it, rather you are choosing or rejecting parts 6
of a predefined work. If a subject has no information as to the potential consequences of various decisions, the question of choice is meaningless. The subject isn’t really making a decision, only picking an alternative, any which one. There is an unfortunate misconception that interactivity is the same as the possibility to choose and reject. It is a lot more than that. A conversation, for example is interactive and offers more than just choosing between different alternatives. If you think that interactivity can be reduced to a choice between fixed alternatives, you haven’t fully grasped the wealth of possibilities interaction has to offer. There are plenty of media producers who promise interaction, but deliver only choices between different alternatives. Press a button, and you will be exposed to our suggestions. Press a different button, and you will be exposed to our suggestions - isn’t it marvellous? 7
THE THIRD LEVEL PRODUCTION OF SUGGESTIONS IN THE SPACE OF ACTION
The third level of participation is the process in which a subject produces suggestions for other subjects, and recieves suggestions from them. The space of action is the plethora of activities one can partake in in order to create and recieve suggestions. This interaction between participants is always a process. Suggestions in spectator arts, on the other hand, are most often echoes from the past. They are rarely created before the very eyes of the spectator, rather they depict what has already happened. All photographs that have ever been taken depict the past. The film has already been recorded when the spectators start filling the theatre seats. The sculpture has already been given shape when we come to view it. Theatre plays and performances are, in a way created at the same time as they are viewed, but they follow a predetermined script that dictates what will happen. Since participatory arts mainly take place in the present, it cannot aspire to create preserved, immortal works that can be viewed by all. It is instantaneous and transient. The only thing remaining are the experiences of the participants. Granted, one can attempt to recreate the process with the same or with a new set of participants, but at each new attempt, both experiences and suggestions will be different. There are false prophets who try to cater to the need for participation by offering choises or by claiming that reflection is “participation”. The children of consumerism greedily swallow the choices presented, lacking the ability to enter the forbidden art scenes themselves; these being accessible only to certain people. Claiming that not everyone can be an artist is like saying not everyone can communicate with each other. Participatory arts open the door to the creativity of everyone HAGGREN, LARSSON NORDWALL, WIDING
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Most media structures are non -participatory: television, books and architechtur e all follow the same principle – you watch as they produce
es odi e b le nc stab mina u j ad do s rly at the e g re u ea d th t r c u n d o dema tru n s a ia ds We ed min cing. ends r m ion s ou odu of It i are pr ticipat n r y tio the on-pa sa i t ra of n oc m de e h dt n a em d e W
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In our minds, we all carry an image of reality. To a great extent, this image isn t́ one we ourselves have created – yet we seldom even recognise these images of reality as something that has been implanted by different media. Who is in control of your reality?
THE FALSE MIRROR IMAGE
In our daily lives, we actually experience a very small part of reality. We have breakfast. We ride the bus to work. We live through yet another day at the office. We meet the same old friends at the café. We take the bus home. And then we sleep. Even a seasoned traveller has seen very little of the world and met very few of all the people there are to meet. Despite our best efforts, we have to face the fact that we cannot experience enough of reality ourselves, and so we have to trust images and words that other people provide us with. These images and words are media. Books, newspapers, television etcetera all serve the same purpose: they provide us with convenient mental images to digest and integrate in our personal image of reality. These provided images cover vast areas of our mental landscapes.. Think of anything outside of your limited daily life and your will experience a memory of a mediated experience. You probably don’t even remember when or how the implantation of this memory took place. Think of a rocket launch. Think of Nepal. Think of a perfect woman. Think of the jungle. Think of warfare. Unless you have experienced these things personally, you are thinking of a media image.
FICTIOUS MIMETICS
The role of media today is to create and reinforce something we might call consensus reality. Everyone (at least everyone who “counts”; i.e. inhabitants of the western world) have access to these images of reality. In our culture, they are universal. The weather and common mediated images are safe subjects to talk about in the company of strangers. Media shape our reality. It doesn’t really matter whether they present themselves as “documentary” or “fictious” since many of these images don’t depict physical places or people, but rather abstract notions of what “reality” is like. Think about true love. Think about peace. Think about work. Think 10
about money. Think about the environment. You have images of all these things in your mind, some of them mediated, some of them from actual experience. However, people aren’t solitary, but rather influenced by what other people think. The consequence of these shared images is that when the personal image of abstract notions differ from the image presented in media, the mediated image seems to have the support of a majority, and so the personal understanding becomes the anomaly. If the images don’t differ, the media image supports the personal understanding. Either way, media has a normalising effect on one’s beliefs.
SIMULACRA ELITISM
A strong tendency of most media is having few producers and many consumers. The roles are also very strictly defined: even though the average television viewer might get a once-in-a-lifetime fifteen minutes appearance in a show, he or she has no control of what goes on air and what doesn’t. Furthermore, viewers cannot decide whether there should be any television networks at all... unless this control is seized. The “few-to-many” media structure is effective in generating profit when used for mass advertising. This is dependant on having a large mass of consumers at the recieving end. In order to secure the interest of as many consumers as possible, mass media have to present images that as many people as possible find agreeable. Equally important is that they do not find them objectionable. Anything that questions common beliefs of “how things are” could cause a loss of consumers and thus revenue. This makes all mass media conformistic per default. What’s worse, this tendency is not reactive. That would mean mass media would operate by trial and error, which it doesn’t. Instead there are people trying to anticipate reactions to mediated stimuli. What is defined as objectionable and what is not is most easily observed in common images of reality provided by other media. Media becomes an image of media. This means that mass media is caught in a feedback loop where the images of reality provided today become the (mediated) 11
reality of tomorrow. When mass media present similar images of reality, the combined effect is that of illusionary objectivity. If something isn’t featured on national television or printed in bold letters in the daily paper, can it really be true? If an idea is only presented by a minor group of deviants and nowhere else, can it be of any value? You can’t agree with those extremists, can you?
AT THE CROSSROADS OF DELUSION
The medialisation of our mental landscapes, the per default conformism of mass media, the illusion of objectivity and the feed back loop of non-objectionability, when put together has a strong normalising effect, caused by the few-to-many media structure itself. This raises the question whether or not such a reality is desireable. These issues are all about the awareness and control of media structures. This is not primarily a question about what the television company decides to put on the air, but rather a question about the machinations behind the shaping of consensus reality: do we accept structures that shape our reality beyond our control or do we fight them? Do we silently accept the provided images of reality or do we create our own?
A CALL TO ARMS
We must remember that providers of mediated images are also caught in the same net. Their position is a very limited one; all forms of acting out of compliance with the mass media structure will cause immediate obliteration. (Yes, obliteration – mass media seldom features its own mistakes, thus causing a consensual blind spot.) So what can be done? Securing a position in the top of the pyramid or trying to bend the mediated image into an image of one’s own liking will not change the normalising structure that imposes images into your mind. One solution might be the creation of alternative media structures, without the few-to-many distribution. Media structures where all eyes are pointed elsewhere than at the top of the pyramid. By creating media structures where people are allowed to participate instead of spectate, a new world of co-operative reality shaping opens. If we cannot or don’t want to take part in the consensus reality provided through media images, we have to provide these images ourselves. We must do this through structures that work on a one-to-one or manyto-many principle rather than few-to-many. In this sense, participative media equals the democratisation of reality. LEO NORDWALL
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Look around you: houses and streets, cars and concrete, places for people. Everything you see is a construction, everything is a design by someone. Think of the environments you move through during your daily life. Ask yourself how much inuence you have had on how these places look and work. The answer is probably: None at all. We have lost faith in a reality that has been deďŹ ned and constructed for us but not by us. It is time to deconstruct and reconstruct reality and ourselves, with whatever means necessary. 13
In a time of change the feeling of an urgent necessity to hold on to a given identity may arise. The roleplayer’s solution to handle such a pluralistic multitude is, on the contrary, to roll with the waves, not standing as a pole in the middle of the stream where you slowly erode. Thus, the roleplayer is prepared for postmodernity. Are you? Sometimes the word ”postmodernism” is used just to signify our own time, in which everything is in a flux, when politicians are overruled by impenetrable power structures, religious and cultural pluralism is in every little village and 100s of TV- and radio channels give you as many life styles as they give you different kinds of soap. But let’s start with modernity – what’s that? Modernity is a continuation of the Enlightenment. The fundamental Enlightenment paradigm is known as the representation paradigm. The idea is that you have the self or the subject on the one hand, and the empirical or sensory world as the object on the other, and all valid knowledge consists in making maps of the empirical world, the single and simple ”pregiven” world. And if the map is accurate, if it correctly represents, or corresponds with, the empirical world, then that is ”truth”. This separation is referred to as Cartesian dualism. The simplest way to state what’s wrong with the mapping representation of ”truth”, is that it leaves out the mapmaker. When you think of the world as something outside yourself, a thing to act upon, you make it difficult to have e.g. an ecological view, since you don’t regard yourself as part of the same system. But the mapmaker, that is the subject, the self, didn’t just fall from heaven. It has its own characteristics, its own structures, its own development, its own history – and all of those influence and govern what we will see, and what we can see, in the supposedly ”single” world just lying around. The self is up to its neck in needs and backgrounds that determine just what it can see in the first place! Spectator arts is a child of the Cartesian, modern paradigm where the subject is split off from, different from the object. On the one hand you have a piece of art, a painting, a book, a film, whatever – on the other you have the spectator. The spectator is never involved, she is just tickled. When art is defined by the art market it’s very difficult to produce 14
anything more than shortlived emotional kicks. That’s why the artists of our time are forced to use more force, more violence, more sex, and bigger and bigger loudspeakers to arouse the audience.
MY WORLD IS NOT YOUR WORLD
Based upon what the subject itself brings to the picture it will see the world quite differently, more or less regardless of what is actually ”out there” in some pregiven world. For each subject the world looks different because the world is different and this is the great postmodern revolution. The ”pictures” that you see when you look at the ”world” depend in large measure not so much on ”the world” as on yourself and your mental glasses. What are the consequences of this postmodern view? One effect of the postmodern attack on everything that is stable, is of course the fundamentalistic panic reaction. But to what question is fundamentalism the wrong answer? That question is: How can you find a world view, directions, morality when everything is in a flux? How to raise kids when what’s right from one point of view is wrong from another? Are there any absolute truths? One absolute truth is evidently that there are no absolute truths. This means that it is impossible to have a discussion about political, economi15
cal, social or religious issues without at first defining the terms that are to be used. In the postmodern world every issue will turn into a question of who is master of the agenda, who gets to define the problem – that is: who’s got the power? E.g. we’re not discussing if the American president is right or wrong in his fight against terrorism. To be able to do that we must first decide how to define terrorism: is it underdogs fighting against a militaristic superpower, or fundamentalistic fanatics who wants to go medieval, or poor people trying to make the rich recognise their legitimate needs?Then we can tell if his tactics are right or wrong. And so on and so on for every single question. It’s all about whose glasses are to rule. So we have defined the postmodern paradigm as the insight that everything is contextual, everything depends on everything, and wherever you look the only thing you see is your opinion about what is there to see. This is an experience that you get very vividly in participatory arts, where you get to feel in your own body that reality is nothing but what we collectively have agreed upon. That’s why some of us call it ”consensus reality”. The world is not there to find anymore – it’s for you to define. The one thing that is stable is the search for power to decide the agenda – which means that the fundamentalists have got something right: now more than ever power is the defining tool. Since it is all about defining the world, setting the agenda, role-players have a definite advantage, because they are already used to define their worlds – and this is not just a joke, this is an important point.
THE POINT ABOUT ART
Suppose art really is about something, that it’s not just entertainment. Suppose art is to be a guiding light in a world of darkness. What kind of art would you need then? You would need art that realizes that the solution is on another level than the problem – you can’t solve problems made by Cartesian dualism inside that paradigm, you have to get out of it. How? The way out of the Cartesian paradigm is to engage in participatory arts. Participatory arts are the ultimate postmodern form of expression, since it in itself is promoting a nondualistic, anticartesian perspective. This is done when the participant realizes that the experience she gets is a product of her and her co-creators’ actions. The cartesian split between creative producer and passive consumer is annihilated. As a spectator you can live with many differing viewpoints at the same time – it’s all in the head – as a participant you have to decide which one to live by. Participation shows us what it means to live in a world where everybody counts, where power to the people is acted out, not just talked about. 16
In spectator arts you are placed in a situation where you can only react. You’re once again back in childhood, subject to the wellmeaning intention of others. Spectator arts are infantilising! Participatory arts are for grown ups! Participatory arts reclaim creativity for Everybody. The socially isolated artist, the creative genius, was a product of modernistic individualism. The creative community and the collective creating in participatory arts is an expression of postmodernity. Modernity’s individualism was in reality just something for an elect group, the elite. Participatory arts reinvent the basis of all liberation: You are the creator of your own world. ELGE LARSSON
elge@interactingarts.org
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URBAN SAMURAI From your lookout on the balcony you see someone decamping on the roof across the street. A backpack is rapidly filled with a stormkitchen, cupola tent and a thermos. The figure runs across the roof, straight for the edge, and throws itself over it. Its a thirty-foot drop, and you are ready to call the undertaker right away, but there is no need. The fall is broken with a hand on the drainpipe and a foot against the wall, and the nimble feet are suddenly firmly on the ground. With a quick turn around the corner the moment has passed. The city used to take all her energy – the strain and massive flood of sensations became too much. Still, she could not bring herself to leave this teeming multitude. The only thing to do was to find a way of extracting energy from the city, as opposed to the other way around. The urban samurai was born from this insight, grew within the scream from free-fall down a concrete wall, within the vault over a rusted-out BMW. To the urban samurai, the city is no longer devouring energy, it is the pulse that allows her to live and act. She dances to the music of the machinery, fully aware and with all senses ready for new impressions. Those unable to hear the hidden rythm of the city are doomed to become living dead, caught in the ratrace. She talks at length of Zen and Le Parkour, and offers to teach you some tricks. 18
INTERACTIVIST
The city overwhelms it’s citizens with impressions - and they defend themselves with indifference. We know that shops are for shopping, offices for working, living rooms for television sets and schools for conformity. In a public square rebuilt into a mall, everything but shopping has become illegal. To the Interactivist, the city is a battlefield. All of it seems like a finished construction, so cracks and rifts that can accomodate new impressions must be pulled open. By reclaiming spaces and allowing them to become places for reflection and interaction, the Interactivist creates playfulness in a city dense with shopping. Reality is a game and everyone must realise this unless they prefer being the chips in this very game. The Interactivist tries to identify the game rules and break them using any and all means necessary. She knows that a reality in constant flux forces people to think, analyze and find their own exits. The tools are adbusting, performance art, love and disinformation. 19
ANARCHITECT Out walking, you discover someone has planted tulips in a hole in the asphalt. While contemplating this newly-created garden, you spot a man clinging from a ladder. He is covering streetlights with blue and red paint. Maps and drawings spill from his bag. When the last lightpost is ďŹ nished, he runs toward the galleria, eagerly rummaging through his bag for the next tool of change. A few years ago, the anarchitect discovered that he had grown weary of the city, tired of its stagnation. Now you see him everywhere down town, eyeing his map and mumbling over his blueprints. The anarchitect has realized the city shapes people, just as people give shape to the city. One way of reshaping people is, therefore, changing the city itself. His toolbox contains everything that may come in handy: paints, spraycans, chipboards, glass cutters and tulip bulbs. They build dwellings in streetcorners, hang wallpaper on bridge pylons, plant gardens and repaint walls. Late at night, anarchitects converge in dimly lit cafĂŠs, making wild plans. As long as the city and it inhabitants never grind to a halt, everything is permitted. The anarchitect is willing to help other people who want to alter their city. Don’t be surprised if he gives you a map, some street crayons, a fence cutter and an encouraging pat on the shoulder.
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URBAN EXPLORER On the edge of the Yards, you can see her looking down a manhole. One hand holds a flashlight shining brighter than you thought possible for one that size. One of her comrades is standing a ways off, talking through a Com radio and keeping an eye on the police station two blocks away. They are Urban Explorers. People who have come deep enough beneath the city so as not to have a way back. For them, there are descents, entrances, exits everywhere. But the exits are rare, she says, only a few have ever found them. Only one thing is for certain – you can always go further, deeper, onwards, onwards. To the Urban Explorer the hidden crevices of the city are enticing, she seeks the possibility of a new public space only the brave will find their way to; tunnels, roofs and old warehouses. At first, there were planned expeditions late Saturday nights, later she started coming home just in time for a shower before school or work. Now, the Explorer always has her backpack stuffed with rugged clothes, dust shield and flashlight, always ready if a new entrance to the other city should appear. Buildings, unlocked doors behind the cinema, the subway entrance just around the Biker clubhouse, when the adrenaline starts pumping, it’s like a drug. Some explorers close the doors behind them, warning you that once you open the first hatch, you won’t be able to stop. Others pass you a flashlight.
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NETPUNK With the laptop as an extension of the will, she is constantly wirelessly connected. Her fingers float like quicksilver across the keys, as she connects to a server so she can conduct her attacks without any trace. Wait a minute – that guy across the street doesn’t seem as interested in his paper, anymore. Is he looking at me? Better shut down everything encrypted and hack the next hotspot for pure access to the net. There isn’t really a way to know if you are being monitored or not, the only solution is being more paranoid than your adversaries. When she isn’t running networks or exchanging source code for the latest exploits in security on IRC, she is proofreading the latest book she scanned (liberated). Films, Music or Software? The NetPunk has access to everything you could possibly want, but is really more interested in the principles of free information than having the latest movies on her hard drive. The few times you see her around town is at night, wearing combat pants and sunglasses, with the laptop under her arm, perhaps on her way to meet some new contact at an all-night café. The Net is its own universe, and for those who know how to get around in there, it is a sanctuary as good as any. There you can still find space to create your own world.
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NOMAD How the little backpack can hold all of his worldly possessions, you never could understand. It’s just as inexplicable as his constant access to expensive tickets. Unshaven and smelling of sweat he boards yet another train. This time bound for Madrid, he says. The Nomad has tired of being spoon-fed prearranged experiences. He refuses to limit himself to well known environments or to places that are deemed ‘safe’. Regular contact with the same people has no intrinsic value; The Nomad needs something more. He cruises around the cities of Europe, hitches rides on cargo trucks, sleeps in railway bathrooms. Having arrived somewhere, he saunters along the boulevards and seeks out the narrowest alleys. The Nomad is constantly seeking new connections, new ideas. Experiences have become the most important thing, never coming to a halt has become his mantra. The search for an unexpected meeting with a wholly new person constantly drives him forward. Language is not a problem anymore, there are always ways of communicating. Since he came back from Tibet last summer, he seems to always know what people are going to say before they say it. After China, he stole your Wok pan, but the maps he left behind are the basis of your interrail trip next summer.
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CHAMELEON Wait! That guy in the suit over there, smiling as he exits the bank with his briefcase, isn’t he the same guy who played in the Punk band at the block party last week, only he had on a leather jacket and ripped jeans? His smile reminds me of someone, no not only reminds, isn’t it the spitting image of that girl you met at the club last Friday? The shocking thing about meeting the same person in three different roles is that it violates one of the strongest agrees in our society, that each individual is one, and only one person. In spite of different roles, we are expected to have a ‘core’, consisting of sex, age, body and a certain amount of personality. The Chameleon refuses to have any part of such an agreement. Instead, she takes the liberty of being different people at different times. Fraudulent, the uncomprehending would say, but The Chameleon knows better. Fraud cannot exist without Truth, and as there is no truth, everything is permitted for him. With her wardrobe full of different modes of dress, she glides freely between the university, the anarchist café, the meeting about the latest application for a grant, and the break-in at the abandoned factory. Everything is make-believe, and as an actor, he thrives on being on stage. Those who confess their faiths and chooses their sides burn themselves in too many contexts for The Chameleons liking, she would rather pick the fruits of all different worlds to build his life in the city. 24