The initial proposal for this text was to elaborate a self-interview explaining what the collective is and how it was set up. When we realized that the discussion in itself had already supplied a lot of what we wanted to talk about and occupied much more of what was offered to us by this magazine, we realized that it would be much more interesting to present this excerpt of the conversation of the Beco da Artes collective integrants, which took place from midnight to five in the morning during another typical “paulistana” dawn.

See this complete collective autopsy in www.quandonaodormimos.wordpress.com.

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- nowadays, the Beco das Artes is made up of seven visual artists from several areas of the performing arts. We act on three basic pivots: the publishing house, which promotes the printed and written Medias; the expositive space, which promotes a space for new artists; the collective that produces work for specific contexts.

- I think about the publishing house as not only promoting work in printed and written Medias, but as a producer of invitations and other graphic material, which also reaches the virtual media, such as blogs etc. About the Expositive Space (Espaço Expositivo), it is not only for new artists; see the cycle of lectures of the 4º Expositive Space, that was composed by already mature artists and more known than those who debated with us with a posture without hierarchy.

- how is Beco configured? I think about the material configuration of the collective, which is ourselves. What shall we do with people who are not present? We do not work very well with the absence of some members. For example, when the graphic project was left to the side, another person assumed the function of their own accord and this bothered them. From this, we find that we do not have a leg to stand on thus generating private meetings that turn into collectives to readapt to the functions. So, I propose, to think about our configuration, who is it who makes up the collective of The Beco da Arte?

- I agree with this coming and going. This is the collective, I think. Whose is this collective? Are we gathered to promote ourselves individually? It is better to rethink this configuration, but the moment is not now, that is another step.

- I agree, the moment now is to affirm that we do not need to have individualities anymore, we are not seven, we are not two, we are a collective.

- ok, but to reach this point, we have to understand if we really have this heterogeneity and if we agree with it.

- let us define whether we are individuals or a collective; let us define it to explicit it inside the answer. Configuring is not only what we have to discuss, we must reflect what gives shape to the body of the beco and what generates power when we open our work to other people. Not discussing who produces the work of the beco.

- I believe that in our collective, individuals are finite and the space/project is eternal. It is not each individual that makes the beco nowadays; the space that I am talking about is the one beyond physical space. It is changeable, because it is configured in each work that is produced.

- I believe that what you wanted to say is that in about three year’s time it will not exist or will, but this space of the beco that exists only in our space thinking will still exist.

- I partly agree. For example, the collective is only a collective if there are individuals. It would be structured in another way if it were compound by others and not by us. Excluding individuality in the collective is a very tenuous line, because if it was not compound the way it is it would not have this configuration and it would not provoke the way it provokes. Therefore, you punctuate what is infinite, because at every addition of other individuals and at every absence, the beco configures itself in a different way.

- we are formed when we work and at the same time we form people that accompany us. They feel the necessity of thinking about what we produce. When we leave the beco they can continue it, in other words, while it is a first idea it can always have experimentation as its foundation.

- so, the formation indicates that we authorize another person to assume the construction of the beco, because it has already come from a process of knowledge, of discussions about what is the space beginning with familiarity.

- all right, the seven of us led the productions; however, they do not happen without the “other one” that also forms it. This interaction is sometimes a failure and sometimes it is wonderful. I think that the EIE (Environmental Immersive Experience) has its 30 integrants, but only 12 elaborate propositions for the productions and the work only happens when they integrate the public, and thus the public form the EIE and EIE forms itself.

- I do not know if I agree with this “thing” of the public integrating the collective. I understand when the seven of us do not form the beco, but the public does not make the decisions. It still sounds to me like a kind of marketing, because we structured everything. Wanted or not, talking about Guilherme is easy, because he is absolutely present and participative at the beco. However, this semester we had a situation with Felipe, who wanted to get into the collective productions, but we didn’t know how to deal with him. That is why we cannot say that the beco is everybody.

- I agree disagreeing, because our work isn’t born in us, and doesn’t die in us. It rises from conversations with others. That is why we go beyond the institution. We preach an attempt at democracy, in which we propose that people make the decisions. It happens when we take the works to public debates that we promote and unavoidably the questions are modified. I think that the beco is different from some spaces of São Paulo. Actually, I believe that it is a truly open space, which demonstrates its mistakes and successes, trying to discuss collectively its proposals.

- the beco comes into existence because it isn’t closed in itself, for it is nourished by discussions to create a new one. From this difference, there arises a collision, a combat, and then we go to the public to generate questionings and not elucidations.

- I believe that the beco expresses many anxieties that come from several other students, artists, etc. The beco becomes collective because the work arises from the meetings we made happen or that come by chance. From a private point of view, I believe in a complete democracy, similar to Bakunin’s socialist anarchism. I think that everything that we do has already been thought of and/or felt by other people.

- when you spoke about democracy, I thought on the possibility that if an art gallery invites us to be our representative, I don’t know if it would be good or bad, but I know that we must make of this a work. We could create a public debate about going or not to a gallery, forming an examination board, as defense and accusation, thus all this debate would arrive at a conclusion: if the beco would or wouldn’t participate. Then, for sure, it would be my idea of a complete democracy.

- when I said democracy I was thinking of an open process of nourishment. When you speak about the gallery, it is an act of opening up a debate. It is discussing a democracy, a fallacy that doesn’t exist, and a utopian democracy. Moreover, I think this is particular to youth, I believe this utopian democracy is what beco does.

- I don’t feel very comfortable maybe because I see things in an extremely bureaucratic way. I think about what I understood when Adriana talked about the martyr of art – I donate myself because I like it, not because I want to sell myself, I don’t want to be commercialized. This way, when we talk about democracy etc, it is to be exempt from many things. We donate ourselves to create all these possibilities, so it doesn’t help to democratize everything, because if we didn’t have our work we wouldn’t have a public.

- people know who is doing things at the beco. When we produce, we create an initial platform and we open up debates. And this activity arises from what happened previously with other work.

- so you mean that when we are talking about democracy, we are talking about the question of opening the space of the beco with the objective of people sharing energy, comments, criticism with us in a way that we can think about them. And the question is not about being a martyr of art, because all of us want to live from art…Whatever it is, it is the only opportunity we have in life to give everything and to be audacious, even being afraid of facing it. That is the only moment when you believe without having to worry about if you are going to fall or not.

- I’ll come back to the discussion about the fact of our work being sequential and being born from meetings. I’m going to give some practical examples: the publication of the exhibition Noves Fora was born from Sergio and Luciana, who thought about the catalog as a part of the production; the formation of the 4º Espaço Expositivo that was already an anxiety for us. It was born from contact with Luiza and Robert’s project and also when Mauricio indicated to us the notice of the Literary Creation of Fundarte (Criação Literária da Fundarte), which brought forth the Percursos Narrativos project.

- how do we articulate this pile of things that appears in the way of our productions? I’d rather exemplify: I analyze that the 1º Espaço Expositivo came to solve the particular question of the collective of exposing their individual work. At the 2º we invited other artists. Thus, when I started at beco, I proposed that we would publish a notice (3º) in order to have an exhibition of artists whom we didn’t know and were in a similar situation as ourselves. When we organized Noves Fora,  we invited other artists in whom we were interested. Moreover, the 4º Espaço Expositivo came from the attempt of thinking about a model that would not delimit our artistic desires. In other words, dissatisfaction generates another.

- the beco space is not the collective beco, it is the sum of every instance of the circuit of art. It is its own circuit of art. That is a work of art, we take on this circuit and the details that constitute this circuit.

- the beco creates its own device and it is the device in itself, whereas I believe that we are more than just a device, the beco is a platform. And a necessity necessarily necessary.

- when I previously made my comment and you said that, the fact is, it doesn’t matter if my name is or is not at the work of beco. The fact is that we cannot exempt ourselves from the merit of creating this device and let the public handle it. We need to understand and distinguish what is the collective.

- I see it to the contrary.  We are not exempting ourselves, we don’t need to assume this production, but people can also take it on. We cannot simply exempt ourselves because we want people to take it on. In other words, talking about it is not a question of marketing because we self interview ourselves, it is an auto analysis of the beco, an autopsy.

- take it easy people, why don’t we propose a question now and continue thinking together?

- on the present context, why are the actions which propose alternatives for production/circulation of art still important?

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