1. INTRODUCTION For a long time we thought, to borrow Kraftwerk’s lyrics , that Europe was literally endless: the peace, the welfare State, the enlargement to the South and to the West, the proud “exception” in the global mess. Europe endless Life is timeless Parks, hotels and palaces Promenades and avenues Real life and postcard views Elegance and decadence Europe endless Europe was this idea, George Steiner’s idea, Stephan Zweig’s idea, Claudio Magris’ idea. In some way the heir of this spirit has been an institution, the European Union. But European Union is a political institution and consequently the result has been the transformation into a tangle of visions, policies, resources, programmes, networks and interests and, of course, a depressing blue flag linked to all these interventions. In our experience, people in culture were not very interested in the so-called European construction but in working together in a peer-to-peer basis. This is the real European dimension: a multiplication of small links which create a real hypernetwork that cut across people and organisations all over Europe in the field of culture. So far, this was our story. “Por dinero no te preocupes, que dinero no hay.” “Money, you shouldn’t worry about. There is no money.” Cuban proverb As you know, now new budget period (2014-2020) for the European Union is in discussion and there is a strong cultural activism concerning it. But although we don’t know the result, we have to get ready for the worst. In our case, we have decided to draw the lessons and guidelines from our own experience. That is what we want to share with you. We usually call guerrilla the whole set of experiences, practices, patterns and actions that we encounter when trying to create and make projects. This is office jargon but also a distant tribute to T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia. As you know, he helped Arab nations against Turks in 1st WW. He successfully proposed a method of fighting that challenged previous Clausewitz military doctrine . There are some slogans that we can use. For instance: - focus on the weakness of your enemy - main weapons are speed and time and space, not the capacity to push - bite and run: the aim is the impact not the capacity of pushing - in some way, the maximum disorder is another way of being balanced - war is individual - enemy is a contingency, not an aim
Our realisation was the following. 1st big revolution in history of war was gunpowder. 2ond big revolution was corned beef: one could wait hidden in the desert for a long time until the moment of attack arrived. As members of a cultural ecosystem, we looked at where we could find real corned beef in order to illustrate what are the guerrilla principles and activities. We found them finally in a book by Italian writer Italo Calvino entitled Six Memos for the Next Millennium which are: “Lightness”, “Quickness”, “Exactitude”, “Visibility”, “Multiplicity” and “Consistency”. 1.- VISIBILITY NETWORKING IS WORKING Real and sustainable networking is based on working together, on sharing real needs and experiences, not just on abstract or distant structures and enormous projects. Therefore, if we consider Europe as a map of possible resources and potentially interesting nodes, it seems it could be worthwhile to devote time and energy to get visible and recognized and to raise to interesting challenges. Firstly we should keep all antennas and radars open. We have the others, their imagination, their energies and their resources, to a single click. This is absolutely real thanks to social networks. However, as networking, working together, depends on trust and reliability, it becomes not just a question of visibility, but of continuous dialogue. 2.- QUICKNESS In a time of crisis and under guerrilla rules, it is crucial to anticipate opportunities and react speedily whenever things occur. In this context, we should try to develop the sense of serendipity. By serendipity we understand the capacity to detect valuable elements that could be accidental discoveries, i.e. those interesting informal results appearing during a given process. In a way, we should remember the importance of intuition in our lives: having the intuition to identify what benefits us and to integrate it into our work. Unsurprisingly, some of the best scientific discoveries happened by chance. An example of integration of serendipity could be the WeCanXalant project , developed in Can Xalant in 2009, and which still yields good results. The project started from a small catastrophe. Can Xalant asked Argentinian architects a77 to design a building to replace the transient one built by Kawamatta in the courtyard of Can Xalant which had been destroyed. They were also asked to create a mobile unit to be shown on a public space. A77 and Pau Faus were leading the project but they involved several associations, professionals and neighbours in the process. Their main achievement was to be able to listen and detect the ideas and experiences that everyone could bring into the project. In the end, some old, destroyed caravans were turned into a fixed structure and a mobile unit. All the participants took part in both building the structure and designing and organizing activities to develop with the roulotte. Some of the results were a popular party in the street, artistic workshops in schools, artistic projects and so on... There is also currently an exhibition about mobile units in collaboration with AcVic and Idensitat, a debate about the future of cultural institutions at the Reina Sofía museum, in Madrid, and a monographic article on the Roulotte magazine.
3.- LIGHTNESS CHAMELEONS IN THE DESERT When following guerrilla rules, it is useful to follow the example of chameleons. In order to survive, chameleons adapt and change according to their surroundings even in the desert. To move about in the desert and be able to take advantage from all the possibilities that can appear, being able to react to them, relying on light structures that allow us to adapt and move quickly seems the wise thing to do To react as a chameleon keeping an open mind to be able to adapt visions and strategies is paramount. If we consider networking as a co-creation process, where several agents work horizontally sharing objectives and interests from different perspectives and knowledge, we can also create specific teams for projects that can make them richer. Another useful strategy is to transfer experiences among projects, areas and teams. If we analyse our previous experiences and extract the valuable elements from them that can be useful in another context, we can make much for less. In any case, to act as a chameleon, never forget who you are. 4.- MULTIPLICITY PROTEINICALLY PROTEINIC In order to get as much profit as possible from an experience or project, it is important to remember that all projects can be developed in multiple contexts and under multiple formal solutions. Transmedia can help chameleons to change their skin. It is just a question of remembering previous strategies and using the multiplicity of formats available nowadays. An example of a project that has changed and evolved, employed different agents and used different formats could be Creafuturos . Creafuturos started as a series of video-interviews to agents representing different cultural areas, with the aim of capturing what would be their vision about the future in their disciplines. The videos were an excellent way to spread the project and the conclusions through the social networks, blogs and so on. In a third phase, we organized several round tables with the collaboration of different agents. They were asked to design the programme and to invite the agents they considered more relevant to talk about their ideas for the future in their cultural areas. All the debates were streamed online and afterwards they could be linked as videos from the website. The final conclusions will be compiled in a printed and digital publication. In other words: one content, five different formats. 5.- EXACTITUDE THE DEVIL IS ON THE DETAILS This was said by Mies Van der Rohe, it seems. In our experience, this is truer than ever when working with artists and art centres. Meetings for projects with them (artist and centres representatives) are usually divided in two phases: one first endless discussion about concept and aesthetics and a second endless discussion about when, how, what, who, etc. Compared to other disciplines, the artistic sector is a lot more hard work!! But exactitude is not exactly that. Exactitude is doing what is necessary in each moment with the
resources we have. And to be exact we also need technique and expertise, not only concepts and aesthetics. Redesearte paz is the name of a project and also a network of artists and residences in seven latinamerican countries. Financed with Spanish cooperation, organisation comes from transferring the European savoir faire in the transnational work (partners work organisation and meetings, schedules, justification, currencies, difference of contexts, etc.) into a new reality. However, after four years of work, now we are starting to use the new know how in a 2012 initiative on the 3rd centenary of J. J. Rousseau with partners in five European countries: we can say that we are finding relatively easy solutions to operate with exactitude with them and with our local contexts thanks to the American experience. 6.- CONSISTENCY OPPORTUNISM vs OPPORTUNITY The last chapter of the Six Memos for the New Millenium is unfinished. Italo Calvino died. As a good writer, he felt that content should coexist with form in a balanced way. It is exactly the same dilemma we face when we bid for money or when we start a new project or a new cooperation with a new partner. 736ideas4dream is the name of a project that was namely a reflection on Europe and its institutions addressed to the members of the European Parliament. However, at the end of the day, it has been an action on individuals suffering from social exclusion and how artists and culture could help them to reflect on their situation in images. Were we happy with the members of the European Parliament? No, they ignored us. Were we happy with the artists and the rest of the people participating in the project? Yes, we were. This is our idea of endless Europe: a place in which we can interact and make things together freely. Or, at least, this is what we have done so far. You can call it guerrilla, serendipity or whatever you want. Maybe these are the new attributes for the old elegance and decadence in a Europe going down. IN any case they are humble ways to follow in the new velvet revolutions.