That since August 2012 we have been living in a nomadic, off-grid1, socio-cultural project, the so-called mobi[01] is the first manifestation of The Mobiation Project2. The mobi[01], by living in it in public places, is also an "open house. The locations of the mobi[01] are determined by the invitations and the locations determine what role we play. During a festival, the mobi[01] becomes a stage tent, a live component / performance / art object; during an art exhibition with 'Urban Outsiders' as its theme, it becomes an informal community center in a playground that wants to become a community garden; it becomes a community catalyst on an urban sandy plain where construction is underway and the first signs of habitation are visible. And so on. In each location, we live our lives as a "test-pop" with our presence as the impetus for change and our desire for a better world as the stimulus.
Living in an unusual structure in public means that our lifestyle can be seen, critiqued and experienced intimately. We encourage people, wanted and unwanted, to engage in conversation, not only about ours, but also about their approach to the world around them. This ongoing conversation and interaction is the deeper layer, the purpose, of The Mobiation Project.
Through another layer of the project, we give our reaction to the world a place, a sound and an image, thus meeting our need to have this reaction seen. Through infiltration into a neighborhood, by throwing the "do-it-yourself hack culture" into people's shots, and through an "uncategorizable image," we draw people into a conversation, a discussion, or a mutual storytelling session in an approachable way.
Non-commercial spaces and experiences are becoming scarce in today's society. In response, the Mobiators an intimate place where nothing is expected, where anything goes, where money plays no role, except in a dialogue about living without money. There are all kinds of words for that these days - the gift economy, the collaborative commons, transition towns movement, civic versus consumerism, even permaculture. For us, it all comes down to humanity, compassion and love, preferably without the hippy undertone. We give our attention, our time, a cup of tea and, sometimes, if it's convenient, a meal to the visitors. Simple, honest living, your shelter own, no mortgages, no utilities....
We like to do that, and preferably in playful and visible ways. As is already the case in all so-called vlanes. But how much middle class children from a small neighborhood in Amsterdam Watergraafsmeer know Ruigoord or the ADM site? The world of free zones is not frequented by ordinary citizens. This is not due to policy, but rather to a normal social phenomenon: people prefer to stay in their own circles, even in the city.
We bring the world of the alternative, the squatters, the off-grid, the fringe citizens, the mountain hermits, the hippie-Portuguese eco-communities to the neighborhood. Because we feel that a productive and interesting cross-fertilization can occur. To be credible and to draw honest conclusions, the experience of the project must be authentic. No scenery, no other house to escape to, no scripted play - at least not at this stage.
The Mobiation Project has gradually become an intense fieldwork that also serves as the backdrop for an alter-ego: the punishing, hardcore do-gooder of the future, who comes to life in a semi-autobiographical, futuristic, sci-fi, illustrated novel/cookbook/handbook about the possible future of the project. About the "me" I would have liked to be: more active, more handsome, smarter, more creative, braver, more opinionated and more "of thattum" - all self-evident improvements. She experiences, experiences and learns things in a world that is slowly going to shit, Mad Max scenarios come to mind and the Mobiators are preparing, as hip, anarchic socially conscious vegan doomsday preppers, to name one category anyway.
The novel, the writing and making of it, becomes a project in itself, but also serves as a way to carry the message. It provides another medium and platform through which the story can be told. At the beginning of the writing, there was a tangible separation between the me of today and the radiant proposed future version. She lives in a nomadic socio-cultural project that breaks down into different contexts and guides survival with each other.
Since I The Mobiation Project 'inhabiting' the separation between the two lives is blurring. Gradually, a routine, a script, has emerged, stories that work, comments that trigger, provoke, calm down. I become a caricature of myself. Viewing yourself as a character in your own living story is a special experience - a Buddhist exercise in experiencing yourself from the outside; emphasizing what is amusing, changing or swallowing what is violent, continuing what works, adding what is missing. And, text by text, I hear and see aspects of the ikke 2.0 flowing over into the older model.
This caricaturing can also be found in the way of dealing with the audience... making self-critical jokes, being very open about the relationship between me and my boyfriend, with a tragicomic undertone - when people laugh, something is remembered. And we have something to say, we think. We don't want to preach, but we do want to encourage and give other people a nudge.
Daily life in a project of the future is intense and all-consuming. To be able to write about it, with the perspective focused on a fictional future, requires, every now and then, a different environment, one that is more deeply rooted in the now, allowing you to better feel the source of the turmoil. That's why I spent a month in Ireland and why I spent two months in the woods in the Dordogne. In Ireland, in between writing sessions, I was looking for a possible location for a project like the mobi[01], I gave presentations and explained the project to anyone who wanted to hear. As always, there was a cliché of confrontations with the country of origin, existentialist primal questions about the connection of a landscape to a people, while busy with a semi-Jainist decomposition process, Retrieved-rooted and giving in to an idea, a concept. The written stories that emerged were harsh, cynical, and brutal; the lyrics provocative and non-forgiving.
In the middle of the woods in the Dordogne, gentleness and survival were stronger - the field work more hands-on: recipes from wild foods, tinkering with a bicycle-driven washing machine, discovering coconut oil as a defense against ticks, a found roadkill bring, process them, and dream of brining the coats and sewing useful items from the soft leather. A heroine appears in that world as a neo-primitive patient and soothing leader, a (consciously) childless mother figure. In this setting, for the first time, I got the sense of a Mobiator to be, without the mobi[01]. The slight fear that it is too much about the structure (the mobi[01]), the image turned, was now washed away by fresh air and pseudo-isolation. I had thought that this was only between the crooked walls of the mobi[01] could happen, that it was attached and connected to that. After two stays, the first where I came from, and the second where I would like to go, I know that this is also beyond the shell of the mobi[01] happens.
We are the Mobiators become. We make beautiful things for a world that is coming. We enjoy it, despite the dark and dark pessimism - the fierce times are coming; tackle it with our own style and conviction; and a wink ... above all, don't take yourself too seriously.
We sing songs about it, we cycle in hacked bricks-and-mortar, screen-printing, stickering, stamping, tattooing. We talk about it constantly, formally and informally... it has become an ongoing live performance, or perhaps a late-realized wet teen dream? A reality TV show without cameras and for you alone. We are the all-too-familiar stars of our own not-yet-made making-of video. And it works. People are being touched.
[footnotes]
[1] Off-grid can have two meanings. For us, the most common applies the strongest - not connecting to common and public utilities such as water and electricity. The second and more controversial meaning involves excluding yourself from the entire existing economic and governmental system. That is, no bank account, no registration, no passport, barring your name from all databases. We tend to see the conspiratorial aspects of the system to feel and see, and one of the ideas behind setting up a foundation for the project was that we as individuals could stay away from the system while the foundation would continue to run. Off-grid in this way is often seen as a protection of your future self, who lives in a world of quarantines, of food insecurity, water wars, and inevitable extreme "citizen control.
[2] Mobiation is a coined word with an English background - it is a combination of mobile and atelier - mobiat. The mobi[01], the first manifestation of the project, is thus a mobiat. Furthermore, there are the verb to mobiate; the nouns, mobiator, mobiation, etc.
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