Useless
Serie of exhibitions at 56x45x25
No tengo dinero, no tengo ocupación,
No tengo talento, no tengo ambición,
No tengo tableta, no tengo barrigón,
No tengo meta ni misión.
No tengo pastillas, tampoco tengo speed
No tengo farlopa, cerveza ni anís,
No tengo de nada, mejor lo digo así,
Ni tengo ganas de pedir
Rajoy Division*, Eurovisión 2013, POLLEMAS (2012)
*Spanish alternative band that uses their sense of humour as a social criticism tool. Their name is a game between ‘Joy Division’ and Spain’s President’s surname (Rajoy): I do not have any money/I do not have a job/I do not have any talent, I do not have ambition/I do not have a six pack, I’ m not paunchy either/ I do not have any goal or mission/ I do not have ecstasy or speed/ I do not have any cocaine, beer or aniseed/ Indeed I do not have anything/ and I do not feel like asking…
Useless, not serving any purpose at all; unavailing or futile, without useful qualities or a practical goal.
Useful, being of use or service; serving some purpose; producing results.
Binomial narratives draw a perfect line that delimits what is useful and not as two opposing categories. A singular analysis of these concepts can leave us in a perpetual state of suspense defining inutility as we situate ourselves before the exceptionality that is provoked by the context. These delimitations of dualistic character respond to determined intentions that attempt to solidify hegemonic narratives—narratives that maintain themselves in a dream-like state.
Everything that is practised or performed which wastes time is thus marginalized under the category of useless insofar as it is not subject to productivity in terms of economic performance. Under the nominalization of «useless» there is an attempt to invalidate any kind of knowledge which doesn’t articulate alienation barriers or mechanisms, and whose potentiality resides in participatory tools that generate interruption strategies. The usefulness of artistic performances must not shouldn’t be picked up as an «artification» of certain symbols or processes that are subtracted from its significant community, with the possible resulting non-depotentialisation and neutralization of its critical discourse.
On the utilitarian imposition, the violence inherent to the neoliberal system, does not destroy the individual from outside but from within. We have become our own
exploiters chasing insatiably a success that is linked to the concept of useful. In terms of Agustin Garcia Calvo, they have changed our lives, selling them to us as the future. In the life that they have sold to us, the game does not fit, there is only room for efficiency. In this situation, the game becomes a powerful element of subversion.
The projects that will be presented on Useless want to challenge the world’s needs that we are supposedly subjected to, and we often forget, dangerously, that our world is built and composed by needs that are shown to be fundamental.