SPCC A Casa Amarela

freely available, just not translated.

get it here: http://repositorio-iul.iscte.pt/handle/10071/4497

since we moved on digitally, i did too.

i'm keeping a new blog @ http://adotinthemultiverse.tumblr.com/

in it, i gathered all of my stuff: my writings, my pictures, my movies, and things i see around the web that i think they are worth spreading. kind of a google reader, mixed with a personal blog and a portfolio. its not worth to keep numerous pages around in different social networks.

also, facebook is gone. why? to much "i'm taking a shower/dump" kind-of-updates and few interesting stuff, and no, i'm not that interested in seeing others photos and to know what they are doing. i prefer the good ol' email, that people send you when they REALLY want to get in touch. so no excuses for your laziness and no complaints about it. if you want to contact me, go ahead and use [email protected].

see you there

t

just to let everyone know: it's done! during the past 5 days, the crew demolished EVERYTHING. the problem was that we couldn't get in. we snuck in past security this past sunday and i got some pics on my cell phone.

and a video (trying it straight out of ubuntu one, see if it works, if it doesn't, download it here: http://ubuntuone.com/p/OmH/)

hello, i'm just letting everyone know that this website is slowly going to die. it's going to have updates until the demolition, then i guess none at all.

so for everyone that enjoyed my writing here's where you can follow me:
http://www.philosopherbagpiper.com - my new personal website for my personal stories and opinions
http://starstuff.collected.info - gathers all my feeds and what i share online. note that it filters some content (it filtered out one link about israel for example)
http://www.google.com/reader/shared/starstuffharvestingstarlight - gathers all the links i share
http://twitter.com/sshsl - gathers all i listen to at work (usually podcasts and audiobooks)

facebook, for example, is replacing content providers. note that most people don't leave facebook to go see other websites anymore. it used to be feeds, now it's facebook. but facebook adds a perverse twist to how we put content on the web: it acquires ownership of what you write when you aggregate, and the right to put advertising on it. this is part of facebook's plan to take over the web.

i don't want to be a part of that, so i'm not using facebook for content anymore. if anyone wants to add me anyway, you can add me at http://www.facebook.com/starstuffharvestingstarlight . since there are no pictures or anything there, it's unlikely that you'll be able to stalk me at all.

and then there's good old email: [email protected]

thank you for reading. i never thought this website would get so many visitors. i guess people still want to know how to build communities and how to make them work. there are a lot of books on the subject, i suffer from a lot of naivety in this matter, but never let it seem too big of a task. every journey starts with a single step.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

we went back, again. the big white warehouse is gone! new dates: it will be gone by the end of the month.

why didn't everyone who said "i'll resist" resist? why was it that from all the people saying they wanted to do all the amazing things they said they wanted to do (more concerts, more parties, more this, more that), nobody did shit? why is it that all the heroes that received compliments on the concert weekend (for work they didn't do, but i'm not complaining) ended up doing nothing but messing up, stealing and (lately) trying to get more out of me and T and being verbally abusive?

the cynic me would say it was because me and T left and stopped working for everyone else. i don't have any other story. as soon as we stopped working and moved on, the place became a wasteland. dog shit everywhere, everything broken. the supposed heroic anarchists were nothing but lazy opportunists. nobody helped to clean, nobody helped us to paint it up for the demolition. instead, we were left with little to take to our new place (even all cutlery was stolen!), were accused of breaking I's stuff, and were demanded "compensation" (for what i have no clue). our "kids" quickly changed sides, making us into the devil, and their new leader (R), the savior. the ingroup never included me. i was part of the resources, not the family. i was being made a fool the whole 7 months.

i guess when scarcity returns, and people go back to survival mode, rationality is the least of all concerns. i can't reason with any of the people i helped and (thought) forged friendships. if someone can turn me from caretaker to vandal in a week, there is little to do but leave. so i left, and cut all personal contact from the old crew. it's better to preserve my health i guess. but this is yet another ideological defeat for me, of many i've endured testing my political ideologies empirically. lies are more powerful than any fact.

what people have hated and criticized about my candidness when i write here, is how raw my portrait is of what goes on. several times i was asked not to write what i think and not to share. we're talking about people who live for social status (a strange one, true, but there is such a thing in a supposed underground scene), so publicly showing they aren't what they show they are means social embarrassment (and less groupies). realizing the old school punks that look cool all the time are nothing but opportunistic, selfish and arrogant is damaging for the status built on the streets.

what i predict will happen is that the story about this squat will be about them. not about me or T or A or L or even S. the story will be about how the punk heroes started a squat and fought to the end, and how the bourgeois betrayed them (me too, a big and ironic lie, since i'm the only one that's actually a proletarian). soon, the role of the creators of the whole thing will dilute itself. and my personal status on this scene will become null (i wouldn't be part of a club that would have me as a member?).

luckily, our journal will remain as a tribute to everyone that really helped build this place, and the accounts of the "other" SPCC, the one that made hundreds of people from all over the world happy and understand an open, free culture can work. this "parallel reality" remains unknown to most people that lived at the house, or visited, that never chose to know our story.

so my candidness is not a threat or a personal attack on anyone. it is my personal side of the story, my SPCC.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

i'm removing the countdown until we know more realistic dates for the demolition. they told us to leave in 2 weeks. it's been a bit more than that and the building is still there. as usual, things take longer than expected.

completely unrelated, got my bagpipe today. i'll post pictures or videos soon. check out the makers in concert:

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

here's a short follow up on what happened to our residents.

- A and L left to their respective countries;
- P and M are back on the street (and on the vices), no sign of P getting into rehab;
- S joined his family again;
- O, R and I started a new squat near SPCC;
- me and T are starting a new open place.

as for tribes, the ingroups and outgroups have been redefined from the original single ingroup. here's a timely perspective, first member of each grouping is perceived alpha male, different groups separated by a "+" sign.

- (J, T, A, L, S)
- (P, M, J, T, A, L, S, O)
- (T, J, A, L, S, O) + (P, M)
- (T, J, A, L, S, O, R, I)
- (T, J, S, O, R, I) + (A, L)
- (R, S, I, O) + (T, J)

new communities started:
(R,S,I,O) started a new squat, R as leader. i visited the place yesterday, got shouted at, arms waving, heavy drugs smell. see my post about power structures.
(P,M) started new squat, remain the tragically dysfunctional couple hard to live with.
(T,J) started a new space, undisclosed political system for now.
(A,L) went separate ways, each to their respective countries. not enough information on whether something was started or not.

i'm also fairly happy with the overall outcome for each personal life story. everyone is happy, and even though i ended up becoming somewhat of a demoniacal figure the last few days (ingroup/outgroup template behavior), i think overall we did an excellent job with the place, especially considering we only had 7 months in total.
this fits my prediction that people are happy anyway, no matter what happens. everyone that left made up a story that made it all seem like they are the hero, and that's how we move on.

i'm moving on too, see you on our next space.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

scavenging is finished. our building now looks like a complete wreck. everything was taken, even the pissed on fabrics and shat on mattresses. all electronics stuff, all usable clothes, furniture. everything that was of any value is gone. even the electrical wire, the sockets, etc. i guess it was a healthy mix of scavengers (old men from junkyards), junkies (copper for heroin, anyone?), and our past residents and us. in a way i'm glad i could get rid of all my junk gathered in e8. i'm not glad about some of the stealing that went on the last few days, especially the stealing done by the people that lived and were regulars at this house (i'm not happy about the bass guitar at all). but the irony is that i also got some stuff stolen at my dad's place when i left one of the boxes downstairs. overall, some stuff was safer at the squat than in a regular neighborhood. stuff gets stolen left and right. a modern obsession with useless stuff. books and CDs, on the other hand, weren't stolen, ever. i guess nobody likes culture.

as for the demolition, it's taking a while longer than they told us. we successfully had a paintathon, painted a lot of the building and color bombed it all the way, hoping we'd have the demolition today. we didn't. i think, as usual, it will take a while longer. the construction company brought all the big machines. maybe another week. i don't know. we'll be waiting to "crash" the demolition, or at least, see it happen.

meanwhile everyone's settled in the respective new place. me an T moved to the west of the city (back being part of society paying rent and what not), the guys squatted a great house near SPCC. they got permission from the owner, so they're set. everyone moves on fast, and once people move away from each other, the previous issues just dissolve and eventually disappear. it's a strange obsession, this one, of wanting to life with others but not being able to do it properly. homo sapiens does love a party or two, but can't help flinging shit around.

we'll be posting our new location. it will be nothing like the previous ones. personally, i'm done with most of the models tried out at e8 and SPCC. we're moving on to deeper things.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

Some words concerning some important aspects (to me) about my time building and living in SPCC.

Communnity building and social regeneration:

- First days, even before we find the SPC building,when we started to talk about squatting and making a cultural/social center, i was really skeptical about the team we had by that time. My beliefs where that for that project to work we would need a strong team, based on strong values (similar) and ideologies, to take such project in such a huge space. I loved every single person in the initial team, no doubts about it, i was just skeptical about their profiles to run and work such a project. Since the begging i proved that to my self. Despite the fact that everyone involved in the project were amazing human beings, the group it self didn't had much values in common, ways of working, attitudes, ways of communicating, ideologies, etc. The main idea for SPCC was to make a place where diverse tribes could unite, share (space and knowledge) and create freely. That was the cultural part, and the initial design. Later on, we thought about using that design to regenerate people. How? We thought that people could regenerate if they were exposed to the setting we were building at SPCC. I always thought that everybody should be entitled to have free access to these main things: Education, food, shelter, culture and knowledge. Having all of this, they are then free to work on themselves as individuals, and free to search for their place in this society. We were only providing the tools for them to use freely, without imposing anything. At some point that social part of the center became more strong and important, and for me a priority in some kind of way, since a group of people that we didn't knew from nowhere started to live with us. Although, not included in the project, and despite the fact that we had agreed that nobody else should become a resident in SPCC, the doors were open to them, as we though that they needed what we were providing, and therefor could be part of the regeneration process 24/7. It failed completely, i think. Although everything was provided (me and J, in the beginning and J only from there on, providing food and other supplies, me and our guests building everything up, J building up electricity, plumbing, etc, making everything cozy and comfortable) they did not broke free from their fucked up lifestyles. It failed and i made the huge mistake (again..still learning how to break free from that) to get emotionally involved in this subject. Except from getting free food, free booze (therefor saving more money to have drugs, which also means busk less time in the street), they did not enjoyed, used or learned anything from that house. Hardly tried to communicate with our guests, although i offered my self to teach them english, never attended workshops, never participated in the building process even in if they were seeing me doing something, or J, or one of my guests. Besides the main things that we supplied, we tried that they could feel part of the building process "do something you like, you want to share, if you need anything to do that, we supply". I thought that, since they love concerts, they would love to be part of the building process of the stage. Therefor i started to work on the chill out (the space for workshops, documentaries, free internet and freeshop while J was working) and started to encourage them (by many ways, soft and rough) to participate in something that they enjoy. Only on the last month (in 7) the stage was being built, also because a person from outside came and started to do something with it. In the end, we had only one punk concert, which is a pity i think, against several events we made, related to many sub-cultures. Positively, in that same concert (excluding some misunderstandings that generated some issues) they realized what they could've done in that place (they told that to me and J). And i sincerely hope, even though i don't think we where successful in the regeneration process, that at least with the concert they saw what they can do with squatting. Something that they can do for themselves and others. I also hope that they learned (as well as me, that had that idea for a long time, but in this place it became a strong concept) that when you do something it's not for you, it's for someone that will be enjoying that. Also it doesn't matter how, when, and who did it. Just fucking do it, because someone will enjoy it. Share, because someone will appreciate it and will need it.

I don't think that SPCC was perfect (nothing is). But i think that SPCC missed some more diversity, just because of some social, communication, and personality problems, from in and outside the house. Somehow the punk scene wasn't very much active in the house (ok, they where there and in a big number, the kids cleaned, and helped but never was enough for something more concret to happen, like a concert, or a general public event). The industrial scene proved themselves to be EXTREMELY closed and with a lot of prejudice towards this kind of intervention, which doesn't surprises me considering the path that all subcultures are experiencing, but it's a bit..stupid if we think about the ideological aspects of the industrial scene in the beginning. Mostly, i think this only happened because we didn't had a group of builders strong enough, with diversity enough and with same basic traces in their character such has: being generous, enjoying working and building for others and finally and most importantly being respectful and tolerant towards difference. The majority of the residents have a different vision of what a squat/cultural center is and how should be managed, which is not wrong, because above all, for me there is no right or wrong, there are just different perspectives.

Things done and experiences lived:

- Living there was not only bad things, in fact good things where much greater then the bad things. We had TONS, LOADS, of visitors from around the world. Started with networks like couchsurfing and helpex, some of them from the street, ONE FROM GOOGLE (!!! My favorite, wtf, a google guest!!), mouth-to-mouth guests from Boom festival (amazing surprise here!), the invaders from hitch hiking gathering tour, and no matter from where or how they got there, we sure met some amazing individuals! Most of them were very artistic, extremely intelligent, generous, participative, funny, and in general wonderful human beings, that provided so much for the community, that shared the same vision as we did because it was natural or for some of them because they wanted to know and learn from it and lived that for some days. They told us a lot of stories, interesting facts, participated in such amazing debates. They where from all over the world, from a lot of sub cultures. The parties we made where also great as well as the workshops, the painting days, the barbecues etc, etc. Experiencing that building as a canvas was the most powerful thing to me, specially on the 2nd floor. I pretty much enjoyed being free to use my imagination and creativity without almost any boundaries,to be able to create such communal space, that so many people enjoyed and felt as theirs. And also (not surprisingly) being included in the regeneration process because it's impossible, at least for me not learning anything with such a strong and uncontrollable contact with so many persons, whether residents, friends, couchsurfers, random guests, etc etc.

_____________

I already left this project behind, some days ago mentally and yesterday physically. At some point i could not handle the clashes of personalities, the really hard communication processes, the HUGE lack of respect and tolerance, the violence (verbal and physical) between all of us that were part of the residents in this squat. I support diversity, yes. That doesn't mean that someone is obligated to live with certain facts (not stories as J pointed out in the last post), attitudes, ways of living in a house, hygiene habits, ways of working, etc etc. I could not handle or accept the fact that people that i loved were being fooled on and disrespected in several ways in front of my face or in my back. I chose not to live and cohabit with that. Therefor i left that squat for good. My mind is so wasted right now that i am not handling my emotions and feelings that well (in the next project i will just act as an observer without being emotionally part of it, as i always use to do).

I do respect the way of living, thinking, ideologies, habits, whatsoever of all of the guys that i referred to a lot in this blog. I also do like them as persons, i just did not chose to live with them and share a project with them, for the specific reasons that i pointed out along the way in this blog. Also, that is just my analysis of the subject, of the experience. It's my perspective, my experience, sometimes my emotions (some of the posts were written in high emotional moments, as i am a human being) through my eyes and through my self. None of what i wrote is to be taken personally, or as the absolute reallity by you that is reading the blog. If you are doing so, let me tell you that you will have a problem in your life, if every time this happens you take it too seriously. I am not angry with anyone, i never wanted to kick anyone out, or what others blurbs you might ear or your interpretation of my posts. I also do not care for any bad feelings anyone as for me because of this blog, as we could read in this website, or ear outside, or feel inside the squat. Seriously? It's a blog. It's the fucking internet, dude! It's my perspective spreaded on the internet. It's Big brother okupa! LAUGH! Just that. Be more critical, be more inquisitive and curious. Do not say Black or White, say every color!

In the end i just think that there is tons of space for each one of us. For the Eco-activists, the capitalists, the democrats, the nazis, the punks, the hippies, the gipsys, etc, etc. Although, for me there is no need for someone to put up with anything. Yes we can learn from each others (there is no perfect or super-duper-stereotype of human being) as we are as one, and everybody makes the whole. That's what's so interesting in human beings, and that's what i'm interested in knowing, learning and understanding. There is no right or wrong. There are perspectives of reality. As i'm used to say, everybody is in a little mountain in very different places looking towards different directions. The interesting exercise is to view through each one's eyes, and get a wider perspective of reality. But well, you don't need to live with it 24/7. Just pay a visit to each mountain every now and then and take whatever you think it's the best of that perspective, get back to your mountain and think about turning your head to some other direction...

i spent what was a relatively short time living with you, but that time was rich and intense.
i remember you when we first met, sitting there awkward and clumsy, wedged unceremoniously between suburban wasteland and yuppie high-life (a little like me?).
i witnessed your birth and the way you began to flourish. i witnessed your arguments, fights, chaos.
i worked for you and i freeloaded from you, i loved you and i hated you.
i made a friendship which i know will last forever, and i spent valuable time with people i will never see again. i learnt from people i never thought i would have.
i was a mother, sitting up until sunrise caring for people i thought i had nothing in common with, and i was a child, climbing aboard your beautiful pirate ship and sailing to god knows where.
i used and abused you at times, i pushed my own agenda. i made mistakes i should have avoided.

but you brought happiness and connection and experience to so many people. you provided a clean canvas for us to dream, build, laugh and fight. you taught me what it means to be humble, to depend on others (in all senses of the word), to swear incessantly in portuguese. and many, many other things that i find it difficult to articulate.

thank you to every person i encountered in that place. i learnt something and experienced something valuable from each and every one of you. thanks for the love, the hugs, the blood, the insults, the inspiration. we built something beautiful and intense there, and we should all be really fucking proud.
party hard at the demolition celebrations, i'll be thinking of you :)

obrigada spcc. one of the finest and yellowest 200 tonne piles of concrete and steel i've come across yet.

<3