Yesterday we saw the new play by our comrades in Antrakt7: Fairfly. It’s a play written by the Catalan author Joan Yago which tells the story of four white-collar workers who, upon getting the news of their potential layoff, decide to “change the world.”

Let me briefly summarize the story here. If you don’t want to get spoilers, skip this paragraph. Santi, Irene, Martha and Pere are white-collar workers employed by a small baby food manufacturer. The company decides to lay off an uncertain percentage of workers after being pressed by Novalis, their biggest distributor, to decrease prices. Hearing this unwelcome news, the quartet first decides to organize within the company to oppose layoffs. While writing a leaflet to invite other workers to organize, they start to argue: Do they want to fight collectively or find a way for their individual salvation? This argument eventually leads to the decision to found their own baby food company based on Pere’s revolutionary idea of using fly larvae as the main source of protein which is superior in nutritional content and much much cheaper. The company becomes a success once they overcome the biggest obstacle: convincing people to feed their babies insect-based food. They create a new market which, unsurprisingly, attracts competitors. Eventually their rate of profit starts to fall. Facing the risk of bankruptcy, they decide to give in and work with Novalis. This decision creates turmoil in the group and Irene decides to leave Fairfly because of ethical concerns. After two babies get hospitalized because of some other company’s larva-based baby food, Novalis decides to stop distributing Fairfly products, which means the downfall of the company.

It’s hard to do justice to the scenario with a brief summary. There are a lot of nuances in the story and the characters have their own quirks. All four are caricatures of a type of individual abundant in society: conservative, idealist, individualist and hypist. With the pleasantly surprising acting of the actors and actresses, Fairfly was entertaining. It was a funny critique of capitalism and neoliberal individualism that triumphs in society today.

After the play, Antrakt7 crew held a panel to discuss with the audience. Two people made comments about the play that made me realize something about the function of ideology. One lady commented that they couldn’t interpret the story as a critique of the system because in the end what caused all this was the flaws of the individuals. They were simply not “good” enough to not be transformed by the system that they were trying to change from within. Another guy said that they also couldn’t see this as a critique of capitalism because the play showed the capitalists (the quartet) as humans who, deep down, care about their workers, the environment and a better future. These comments were deeply concerning to me. They show that ideology doesn’t just function as a salience landscape but as a sense-making mechanism.

As a Marxist myself, I found the story to be a proper critique of capitalism. Attempting to change the system by participating in it naturally traps you in the Moloch. Capitalism is not bad because capitalists are evil. It’s bad because the system functions by transforming regular people into greedy individualists—there’s simply no other way to survive in it. Does my interpretation stem from my ideology? Yes. So do the lady and the guy who attributed all problems to the lack of morality in the individuals. Ideology precedes the interpretation. I was always wary of the notion that art can produce a short circuit for people to break through the mainstream ideology. Yesterday this further cemented for me: Ideology acting as a sense-making mechanism is going to distort the signal that you hope to cause a short-circuit with.

the biggest news of this week was definitely the exhibition at OtonomArt. after ~50 hours of work, it was so exciting to put Syzygy on display. it was also thrilling to see my name as the artist on the label.

i’m glad i photographed the sculpture after every session so i could see the gradual process. now, looking back, i find it eerie to look at the first photos. i created this thing from mud with my bare hands!

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Contemporary art is often criticized for being extravagant, farfetched or nonsensical. You might think of the paintings and movies of David Lynch, sculptures of Miquel Barceló or even the banana (Comedian) of Maurizio Cattelan. They are definitely strange and hard to interpret, and in Cattelan’s case, give the finger to Art as an institutional practice. I have no problems with this kind of art. I don’t think the artist owes me any meaning. Even if the artwork seems straightforward, it is still too easy to misinterpret. My sculpting tutor made a sculpture of an anorexic girl with a VERY visible vagina and still, people keep thinking it’s a male…

However, I do have a problem with contemporary artists’ lack of courage. I keep seeing (and hearing!) a lot of artworks that are not too abstract but too vague. As if the artists struggled to accumulate the necessary conviction to breathe something of themselves into the work. This obliqueness of art makes me so frustrated. It feels like the artist hides behind the foggy landscape of the present where meaning is either too atomic to be interpreted by anyone but the artist or too high-level for anyone to hold all its significance at once. It seems to me that oblique art is neither, but an epitaph of the artist’s cowardice.

Last week I went to a concert to listen to a violin concerto composed by a friend of mine. I’ve never had the chance to listen to any of his works. I had high expectations because of the praise I had heard about him and the overall aura of his very likable presence.

(He is not aware of this blog and I don’t think he’ll ever read this. E, if you are, I’m sorry.)

Then I heard the same obliqueness in his concerto.

Before the concert there was a pamphlet with a long exposition about the composition. I found it very odd because, of all art forms, music is the one that requires the least amount of exposition. Of course it’s not that easy to tell a story just with music, but it opens such a direct channel with the listener that the story does not need to be told for music to bloom into emotions.

Then it started. For a minute or two, the violin didn’t even make any sound. We waited awkwardly, watching the violinist sway and tremble while the contrabasses in the orchestra smirked at each other. After a time that felt like an eternity, we heard a few notes from the violin. It was a good melody! Alas, it didn’t last long. Then the orchestra started to hum a very ambient sound. Everything sounded like the white noise tracks I listen to while I read. This all lasted for almost 45 minutes; here and there, the orchestra abruptly made sharp noises which felt like jumpscares. At one moment, I opened my notes app and wrote “are we in a David Lynch movie?” to show my wife. The out-of-placeness of everything definitely felt like a David Lynch movie, but unfortunately not like watching one, but being trapped in one.

This was a busy week and an even busier weekend.

I started my first bust this week. The number of details on a human face is crazy. And what’s hard about reflecting all those details on the clay is not the technique but actually noticing them. Making art requires a lot of noticing. Noticing requires giving a fuck. You need to give a fuck to create something. But too much of it can also paralyze you. There’s a fine balance between giving a fuck and letting go and allowing yourself to create something messy.

This week I also needed to write a lengthy political report. I don’t know why (and how) but writing feels a bit easier nowadays. Jotting down loose ideas for myself was always easy but writing something with a clear thesis? For others to read? That would paralyze me in a second. But it didn’t. I feel like I’ve finally started to learn to articulate myself. It feels good.

Another thing I enjoyed this week was playing Goose Goose Duck. A lot of hilarious moments and a lot of laughter.