Working through an associative platform has for long been the answer to accessing a collaborative and common intention. I have delivered time and placed my attention into this as much as I have worked into expanding my creative horizons.
Still in London, back in 2007 I had briefly launched BE DUST with Cosmo Cardozo and other collaborators. It followed the idea of a hub of artists that would share a pre-programmed online producer: an agent of algorithms dealing with all our needs and placing our attention in the right time frame: each production would receive a certain amount of energy / time to schedule in relation to its proximity and its status (conception, development, writing, pre-production, production, post-production, distribution). It was not possible for it to succeed.
BE DUST however brought me to discuss and conceptualise into the behaviour of a Living Creative Piece, and the concept of Body of Artists. An organic production always in growth and evolution.
The Body Concept (under the pseudonym of Augusto Quadros) is what I took as the main drive for dynamics and international encounters with ¡LAZARO!, a theatrical and music piece that opened to a full living creative universe.
Masnàda was founded in 2009 in collaboration with Mathias Britos in order to answer to our fundraising need and our work at the time (theatre, music, interdisciplinary). Masnàda had a deep moment of development with the inclusion and investment of Daniel Macke in Buenos Aires. It was nested under the banner of "content in collaboration." The stakes were too high, again it was not possible to provide the substance necessary to marry art and hard line production guidelines. "Content" cannot supply to the organicity of life towards a living creative endeavour.
When in Switzerland, now in 2011, Masnàda became Masnàda Associazione. As acting president for this association, I had the possibility to dwell into the personality of an associative endeavour, set in a specific geographical territory: Ticino. A new statute was drafted.
The conceptual work was of risky importance, and most of the times it managed to follow through into the practical issues of production. The Line Up CARDS for Masnàda's 5 year plan, Super Proposito Power Match, proves the vision behind the action.
However, as much as I tried to make a sense of the elements at hand, an association needs a correspondent critical mass or a specified patron of the arts: and Ticino had none of these. Albeit being thoroughly institutionalised this region of Switzerland lacks the vital predisposition for arts and culture (in any form) to flourish: dynamics. It is static, and un-attentive to anything that happens.
This has also proved to be a very important lesson. One of the main issues that we have managed to clear through the long decade of processing associative information, is that an association cannot carry the weight of production. An association must be of service, provide financial access, generate liaisons.
Having this in mind, and now being set in a different geographical territory, a new enterprise is being set into place. XOCOLAT is a newly formed association that promotes artistic creation and collaboration as such:
association for the mobility of creativity
Xocolat promotes the mobility and dynamism of artists beyond regional, national, linguistic, cultural, generational, religious, and other boundaries that impedes the development of an artistic intention.
Xocolat encourages a flourishing professional exchange, the concurrence of ideas and their correspondence amongst artists, and towards creative encounters with society.
Xocolat finds economical solutions in order to energise artistic work, enhancing research, the process of creation and the instruction of collaborative instruments in favour of quality of work.
Xocolat creates social and professional links, both locally and internationally, that enrich the cultural vision of artists and the general public.