Photos: Matthew Stone

Matthew Stone and friends interview Scottee.

Matthew Stone:  How can we change the world and what is there to be done?

Scottee: I would like to say art could change the world - although I’m not sure art will solely. I’d also like to say it can’t be done through religion, but possibly through faith, but in reality i know religions change the world, its followers and their opinion greater than any political party in existence. 

I have socialistic values, equality is important.  

I’d like to live in a world where all the major powers signed The Childs Right (Unicef Artical 46) entitling children of their country the right to shelter, protection and clean water - the U.S.A refused to sign this bill. I’d like to live in a world where people were not HIV prejudice - Where people with HIV were allowed into the U.S and government initiatives were in place to empower them back into work and their community. I’d also like to see Gay men who were tested clear of the HIV virus able to donate blood - these are real basic things that could improve the world we live in immensely. 

What is there to be done? There is alot to be done, certainly within my own community - the recent increase of homophobic attacks resulting in murders has increased in the city I call home, the solution to this I’m unsure of - I spent my early career educating teachers & politicians around homophobia & its effects on young people but quickly became tired of feeling as though I spent my life campaigning, and for something my community didn’t care much for. Did i really want to end up like Peter Thatchell with 24 hr police security and bullet proof doors?

Change needs to happen and at a grass roots level - our education system is failing the next generation. Education is knowledge, knowledge is empowerment and empowerment provokes change

Rafael Rosendahl : What is the best place on earth?

S: My council flat. I fought long and hard for it and its a space I feel comfortable in. Its dead small but I have everything I need here and its my own, which i think is a real working class trait - as long as you have a roof over your head you’ll be ok! I have my herb garden to keep myself amused, If look out of my window and can see the whole city, from the Gherkin to BT tower. My next door neighbour is Sue Tilley - shes a dab hand at baking, playing Mum and lending me dresses, what more could you need?!

Susanne Oberbeck : What is your vision for a future society, I mean in terms of political system, families, human relations, architecture, reproduction and so on?

S: Politically - I’m not ashamed to admit I’m a Royalist. I would love to see Liz dissolve parliament and have a stab at it herself, she’s defiantly has more experience than any politician in cabinet to date - ideal for getting us out of this mess we find ourself in. She’s also oddly seen as an international symbol of peace, something which we dont really recognize here but in Canada, Australia & alot of European countries she is widely respected for her work.

Human Relations, reproduction & families wise I’m not sure we will really last that long to develop these, I mean as a species were quite lucky to have lasted this long - our eyesight is isnt very good, we walk on our hind legs, we’re prone to constant infection and rely on medicine for our survival - surely we are due for extinction? 

Nicola Lane : What does success mean to you?

S: Contentment, so I’m keen not to be successful, I never want to feel content with what i do. 

Matthew Stone:  What is most important to you?

S: Progression - not one for usually being quoted on his philosophical lyrics, Mike Skinner (The Streets) puts it well ‘Lets push things forward’. I may never find the answer, the cure or the key but I’ll die progressing, trying, pushing, kicking and screaming. That shall be my greatest achievement.

Photo: Matthew Stone

Matthew Stone and friends interview Susanne Oberbeck.

Matthew Stone: How can we change the world and what is there to be done?

Susanne Oberbeck: People need to be made aware that trying to prove they are men or women destroys them and others.

Nicola Lane : What does success mean to you?

SO: Success is to be free from constraints, not be oppressed or abused by those in power, and be able to stick to your dreams and beliefs. Success is also if the thing you do leaves an impact on people, moves or inspires them, makes them fancy you, or changes the world, but that’s obvious.

Steph Raynor : Are we anywhere near where we need to be?

SO: I don’t like the use of the word ‘we’. Who is ‘we’? ‘We’ seems to have been used to justify all kinds of atrocities and banalities. Trying to answer your question anyway, I don’t think anybody needs to be anywhere. An ideal or fixed state would be boring.

MS: What should not be left unimagined?

SO: Matthew this question is too complicated! I have written two pages and feel like I’m sounding like an absolute twat. All I can suggest is Bin Laden and people like that should be banned from having an imagination, and people who don’t normally say anything should be able to tell us about their dreams.

I think the less you are a part of existing institutions and structures, the easier it probably is to imagine something that people are trying to tell you is impossible. Why take anything for granted? And what is really “real”?

It kind of comes back to your first question, which I think is mostly about power and conformity. Conforming in order to be powerful, or so they think. If people forgot about the need to prove that they are someone, or someone powerful, it might be possible for example for world leaders or even ordinary people to have an online discussion like this instead of fighting a war. And this is where we arrive at John Lennon’s “Imagine”.

Discuss!

Ebe Oke : What unique gifts do you have to offer to this world?

SO: A unique perspective. BIG Balls.
I like to think I have a unique musical and lyrical instinct. But maybe this is something only Ebe can really answer.

MS: What question should be added to this list?

Susanne Oberbeck: What is your vision for a future society, I mean in terms of political system, families, human relations, architecture, reproduction and so on?

Photo: Iphgenia Baal

Matthew Stone and friends interview Iphgenia Baal.

• Matthew Stone : How can we change the world and what is there to be done?

Iphgenia Baal: It is impossible not to change the world. But, I reckon you are asking how to change the world for the better which I just have to be mainstream about and relate back to Star Wars. No, I could do Hindis and Christians. Someone once explained Hindi to me (I bet I miss loads of things). Essentially you are reincarnated time after time after time and the purpose of each life is to have as little effect on the world as possible, to change things as little as possible, to focus your energies inside instead of making other’s understand your point of view. Depending on how well you do, your reincarnation makes things more or less easy. If you have hardly any impact on the world, you come back as tree, then an ant, then a gnat, then as an amoeba (I missed out some stages but you get the idea) and then eventually, one day you die and, if the life you have just lived has changed nothing, effected nothing you die and then you cease to exist. Ping! Nirvana. Christians on the other hand have marched all over the world pillaging villages in the attempt to ‘spread enlightenment’. Christians march and conquer and preach. Which essentially means they fight and lie. I think the problem is that, if you want to get noticed in this world, you have to start early, put in the time to promote whatever it is you are doing from a young age when, in fact, that is the time you should be figuring out what it is you mean. But, if you take that time to figure out what it is you mean, by the time you have figured it out you will probably dead. And so, have no time to tell everyone else about it.

I think you just have to trust everyone else. I mean, there are exceptions to these rules. I mean, you need Ghandi. And Kapil. So, you can make exceptions in certain lifetimes based on trust. Change the world for the better one this time round and then make up for it in the next by shutting the fuck up. But screw it, no one needs the Catholic Church.

I guess my answer is, you don’t have to change the world, just make sure you don’t fuck it up anymore. And yes, that includes ridiculous attempts at self-promotion for “the good of the world”.

• MS : Can we ever be truly free?

IB: I don’t think any group of people can ever be truly free. The provisos protecting human rights and freedom which any entity governing a body of people, by their very existence detract from the freedom they are protecting. But, any one individual can indeed be free. Find the middle of yourself, arrange the rest of it in an order which allows you to exist. Congratulations. You are free. Now, what are you gonna do?

• MS : What do you have faith in?

IB: That lies, deceit and bad intentions always reveal themselves. And the learning of a collective consciousness. I mean, that’s not something I believe in, I don’t have to. You can just see it and it’s awesome. Like how people learned to draw. Crazy.

• Nicola Lane : What does success mean to you?

IB: No idea.

• Jack Brennan : What film fits your vision of the future best and why? (The film needn’t be set in the future.)

IB: The future? Or my future? The future - Doom Generation My future, I can’t give you the plot, but the setting (it’s not a film) is described perfectly in The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman by J.P. Donleavy. Only, I hope less lonely.

• MS: What question should be added to this list?

Iphgenia Baal: What is the one thing about you that undermines all the opinions you have made above?

Photo: Ellis Scott

Matthew Stone and friends interview Jack Brennan.

• Matthew Stone : What do you have faith in?

Jack Brennan: Not much. Maths. Some Science. I like Darwinism.

• MS : How can we change the world and what is there to be done?

JB: Here I’m slightly fatalistic. We are changing the world, by heating it up for instance. In this area we need to achieve controlled nuclear fusion power production, because no one is going to change.
If the question means “how can we young leftists change the world for the better?”, then I think that we have to chuck out the notion of slipping through the cracks of our crappy society whilst enjoying an interstitial bohemian lifestyle. I’m against this slogan from 1968: “Be realistic: demand the impossible”; it’s a recipe for impotence, because it’s easy to refuse the impossible. When you make a just demand for a freedom, it should be impossible to refuse! Then you highlight something negative in a government. I think what needs to be done is more action, maybe violence, and certainly a willingness to take leadership. So, strange as the idea of revolution in the UK is, maybe we should all start doing push-ups in case things get rough.

• Kate Moross : If you had the choice between either being able to manipulate space or time which one would you choose, and what would you do?

JB: I think that there is a way to show that these two powers are fairly equivalent in Special Relativity, but I’m just going to go for TIME. I’d use all of the extra TIME I had to learn languages and then fly to other countries in seconds. If I got bored, I’d speed up my bodyclock and die of old age, tomorrow.

• Nicola Lane : What does success mean to you?

JB: I’m really stumped by this one. I think I’d rather not succeed, just have a good reason for not doing so.

• Terence Koh : NOTHING MORE NEED BEE SAID?

JB: I like this question. That’s kind of the state I am aiming for…

• MS: What question should be added to this list?

JB: What film fits your vision of the future best and why? (The film needn’t be set in the future)

Nicola Lane pictured with Jack Birkett (The Incredible Orlando).

Nicola Lane’s 2006 film SPLITSCREEN funded by Arts Council England will be showing throughout April 19th –20th at the Lighthouse, the Chubb Building, Wolverhampton, as part of the 2008 Wolverhampton Disability Film Festival.

www.artsunwrapped.com
www.kingsgateworkshops.com
www.adornequip.com

Matthew Stone and friends interview Nicola Lane.

• Matthew Stone : What is most important to you?

Nicola Lane: Love for my family and friends and making art.

• MS : How can we change the world and what is there to be done?

NL: The world is being changed all the time- change is the engine that drives the universe. What needs to be done is more thinking about change: can we co-exist with each other, other animals and environments?

• Norman Rosenthal : Why are we alive at all? It is after all a very strange state to find ourselves in.

NL: To me being alive means consciousness and I remember the moment when I was 4 years old and realized I was me and nobody else. It was very strange and wonderful. One theory is that consciousness is the firing between connections in the brain. Whatever it is, it is marvellous and I do not know why it exists.

• Steph Raynor : Are we anywhere near where we need to be?

NL: The planet is having a mid-life crisis.

• Boo Saville : What do you think happens when we die?

NL: I think that the moment of death (perhaps as long or as short as a dream) is a journey away from consciousness and that the journey is meaningful.

• Matthew Stone: What question should be added to this list?

NL: What does success mean to you?