The Festival of Zero Compromise

This is a proposal for an upcoming festival in 2041, presented at a conference by MUTEK in Montreal where we try to cheer up burnt out and depressed festival organizers.

This text is the back end of my thoughts for a performance I am developing with CRIPRAVE and Farrah Sintime from Club Sagacité in Montreal. This is part of Future Festivals, curated by Maurice Jones in Montreal this summer. Basically, I was asked to imagine a (non-disappointing?) festival in the future that doesn't ignore crisis, and to weave it with what was already happening nearby to produce that future now. I went sci-fi and tried to imagine something that seems to be impossible according to the physics of empire, war and racial capitalism at the moment: a Festival that doesn't exploit anybody. If you are wondering what I mean about the physics of the moment, check out the physics equation in this article about the Physics of Gaza by Qasem Waleed El-Farra.

Woven into this text are images that I took when I was a caterer in San Francisco and NYC, some images are from homes of people like the former head of the Dept of Homeland Security, or from parties held for Burning Man elites, or for the people running the University of California system.

The Mental Landscape behind The Festival of Zero Compromise: When I go to an event, whether it is a visit to the ER, a football game, a conference or a festival, I'm always, already disappointed (– heartbroken?). I always already understand that the fun I will experience is a compromise to my values, because everything built using the materials of racial capitalism and empire is. With years of practice, I can almost unsee the work done by people who were coerced by a predatory economy, to clean the toilet or take out the trash for unlivable wages.

My heartbreak isn't really about money, it's that most workers (formerly known as people) are put in a position where they have to do something they don't want to do in order to live. No one wants to clean the toilet in order to produce a moment of celebration for a selected few attendees.

I know, because I spent years as a minion for the rich, working in the service industry, paid more than my comrades who had darker skin or more life experience than I. I also feel the tension of relying on materials, including technology, that is sourced from even worse and more invisibilized forms of coercive labor and extraction, often by people who live far outside the places where the wealthy celebrate life.

And now more than ever, I think we can also feel the excruciating tension of what it means to party during genocide, alongside an environmental and social apocalypse.

In my hallucination, we are at a festival called The Festival of Zero Compromise. We are not disappointed or heartbroken because we have not compromised or unseen anything in order to be there. We are not in a frictionless reality: we have abolished Amazon and there is no way to order a last minute delivery of moist towelettes to shine our greasy faces.

At the FZC, we didn't get toilet paper this year, because we couldn't find a supplier but that was not a problem because we decided to donate profits to a new plumbing system for the school where the party is being held. The party is so much fun, because we are dancing, drinking and eating less because our version of partying incorporates a material and social response to the pain present in the world. That doesn't mean that we are all grieving, but we are eating among working groups focused on the real life needs of people at the party.

In the Festival of Zero Compromise, we do not attempt scale if it produces exploitation. And we know the difference between exploitation and meaningful work. This year it means we got our favorite djs to send us mixes they made just for us, based on a description we gave them of our location- instead of plane tickets we gave them a meaningful artist fee and got a team of local drummers to accompany the digital set. At FZC, everyone rotates to do the reproductive work. It's a lottery to decide who cleans the bathrooms, who runs the children's disco, and who sets up the lights, and no one can buy their way out.

The FZC was not something that happened overnight. It happened in 2042, 4 years after the 2038 Problem ended the corporate marketing and surveillance machinery we used to call the internet. In this post internet economy, a social movement fruited that had been seeded long ago. It is an unnamed global movement with one demand, that all care takers are cared for. People from around the world have developed methods for reorganizing resources to support the people who do the most carework on the planet. The FZC is a party that takes place globally, in every place where the CTP was planted. It is the party where we get local people together to connect and make sure everybody has energy and resources to continue.

Here's a playlist I made this spring: