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Art & Social Space
International Errorista: The revolution through affect. Part 2
by Santiago Garcí­a Navarro
07/02/06


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Click here to read International Errorista Part 1

Santiago Garcí­a Navarro: It seems to me that at this point on the journey, it is possible to establish a relationship between the body transformed by the performance and effects that a new performance may engender "where performance can be the name of a certain esthetic-political intensity", and that from there break with the normality of terror and the market. It breaks with a life made by others, a life that has no relief, which sees no difference. Looking again at the question of error, I think that it opens several lines of reflection. First, it seems to me that there exists a very strong autonomous practice, because to live "erring" is to generate another form of being, that is connected, even linguistically, to the proclamations of 68. Continuity exists between Errorism and free love, which is one of those proclamations. But what areas exist for a new elaboration of love and how is that new elaboration seen from the point of view of Errorism?

Federico Zukerfeld: First it is a transition from free love to the liberation of love. This question is associated with the struggle against capitalism, whose primary function is to merchandize, to convert something into a product. The most intense thing you can do is give it human characteristics, because that merchandizing relationship is opposed to love. Love is the de-objectification of the subject. In a society without capitalism, you wouldn't get rid of jealousy, affairs, or cheating. What would cease to exist would be the fetishization of the other person, and the desire would not be objectified into a commodity, or a status symbol (who's by your side, what that represents, etc.) In this society people believe that to love others is to buy them things. If you don't spend, you don't love. For the French 68, free love aimed at abolishing the family as an institution, by then already totally corrupt. Today, the family has been dissolved, it turned into something else.

Loreto Garin: What we've been learning, out of forming a network with many people from different parts of the world, is that one of the fundamental supports is not only ideological, but familial ties. With Etcetera we talked a lot about that, and later on with Errorism. The people who comprised the Errorist cell in Mar del Plata arrived at a state of absolute love. Love of friendship, of falling in love, of sex. In each project that one makes - finding oneself discussing certain things, setting up a camp, a march, whatever activity - one has to have room for subjectivity that creates real ties of affection. One of the fundamental motives for our constructing this collective was a motive of affection: affection for our parents' histories, affection for the past, and even affection for other people we didn't know. There is a rationalization of reality, but at the same time, one can't generate one's political links without those affectionate ties.

FZ: We recovered this figure of love exactly to demonstrate that, in reality, the greatest struggle against Capitalism is the struggle for love. And those are Marxist words, not mine.

SGN: A second line that is connected to error, is another idea of militancy. What I see in Errorism a certain parody of militancy, of the idea that one has to build an organization that redesigns society. Now, on the other hand, you speak of social revolution, and in that, there evidently exists a Marxist foundation. How do both positions relate to each other?

FZ: Let me go back to another action, The Goose to the Power. In 2003, around the time of the elections won by Kirchner near the time of March 24th, we did one of the most risky things that we could have done in the popular political scene. Some one hundred people marched with different placards upon which appeared a goose: on one card the goose was a businessman, on another, a follower of Che Guevara, on another, it represented Opus Dei, on another, one of the "disappeared". And, moreover, we stole a duck from the Planetarium and took it to the march, inside a globe. Some came over to kick and beat us, but people who knew us shouted "Stop it idiot, they're from Etcetera!", and the others answered: "What do you mean, why are they allowed to draw Che with the face of a goose?" Others understood the idea that we were questioning Peronist transversality, which permits totally opposing tendencies to be contained within a single movement. For me, what has led to the failure of 70s revolutionary politics in Argentina is the confidence in that movement. We also questioned the figure of the leader. We also satirized the figure of Marcos, just as we did with Che's. With Errorism, something similar took place, but more focused toward the field of armed struggle. On one hand, we were critical of the image of power. We ask for many leaders, many directors, many Marcos, not just one. But, on the other hand, we keep talking about how the world has to be changed, about the need to construct another society. We are a hinge at a time of crisis. After the fall of the Berlin wall, all that was left of those political struggles seemed old and senseless. We always defend the existence of political parties. The fact that there are many tells us that society is alive, that there exists different points of view. If we become aware that there exists a class divide, transnational capital concentration, exploitation, etc., then we revisit or revive those anarchic or Marxist foundations. But we have the right to laugh at them too.

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