Todo por la Praxis (TPP) was created as a “laboratory for Projects” which produces a variety of aesthetic and cultural projects. TPP is formalized in an area of design and testing of the most efficient cultural resistance techniques, focusing on testing non conventional tools, forms of organization and action, around specific action projects. Their two basic themes are activist artistic practices or opposition practices as a means to represent social conflict in an effective aesthetic manner and artistic practices in/on public space and its repercussions on the social context in which they inscribe themselves. Those basic themes are themselves divided in three research lines that are represented through their alter egos: establishing a symbolic game which defines each of their working areas.
Speculator: Heteronymous of “Todo por la praxis” project. This line of work focuses on the urban concept – public field and the real estate business – the urban theme contains matters that are more felt than comprehended thus the need to unveil the discourses and practices that deal with the structure of the urban environment, focussing on systems of symbolic production, circulation of meaning, social meaning processes. In this sense, every practice that is centred on creating confrontational spaces against ruling structures and to investigate space expropriation strategies will be received as potential projects of SPECULATOR.
The idea is to amplify artistic practices as a means to articulate oneself socially as collective authors of our own experience, witnessing therefore, the construction of confrontational spaces as actors and not mere spectators.
To carry out the job we develop a character (Speculator) with obvious references to comic. This character comes to being as an antihero that incarnates values of the real estate speculator: extortion, blackmail, manipulation, and, of course, speculation. This ironic and symbolic game unveils both urban discourses and practices that prevail in the ruling ideology.
Speculator: Alter ego of Todo por la Praxis, the proposed intervention for Madrid Abierto’s 2008 edition intends to be the presentation of the Speculator character in the city of Madrid.
The project has clear references to the realm of comics. The use of language of comics translates itself in the construction of a character: Speculator, the urban issue, the growing problem of savage urbanism, is the context in which the activity of such unique character inscribes itself. The ironic symbolic game of heroes and antiheroes, present both the draft of the project and in the creation of the character, enables us to perceive contemporary urban practices from a critical standpoint.
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