...
Well, we're close to the Indian Station, it's a brook-class area of Lisbon.
You can see the train line goes right here, and this whole area is going to be used for
the high-speed train in two years.
Most of these buildings have been abandoned maybe for some years or something, so usually
I do urban exploring and we've got a group together that wanted to square a building,
so one day we just came here, we saw this one.
This was an old office building, so we had no plumbing, we had no electricity, we didn't
have anything, so we had to build everything.
All these are abandoned, people up in the front and all around, there's like, I don't
know, a dozen abandoned buildings, and they're all squatted, kind of, with homeless people
directly living here.
These places are also kind of squatted, they're from the train company.
Back in the day they used to have people working in every station, in this station they closed
it down, but they kept people living there, they don't pay rent or electricity, but usually
the train company keeps the people there.
On the first floor we have the venue for parties, medium-sized concerts, guys are finishing
the stage.
I think one of the main objectives is having, at least in my perspective, the objective
is to have many objectives, so no objective, that's my perspective.
So keep it so random, so personalized, and all this so dynamic, that we never really
know where we're going, but that's going somewhere, that's my personal perspective.
I like the way new people have new ideas and they put the new ideas into practice.
I wanted to build a cultural center where everybody could go, not only people from this
tribe, from that tribe, I wanted to make dynamic, so instead of being just a group of people
or just a single person doing something, I would like for it to be made by everyone,
so this guy's guests from all over the world.
We started off with just thinking about making a green roof and solar energy, solar panels
and stuff like that, but at some point, with the people coming and going, it started moving
really fast, we started making dry toilets, we didn't know how to do it, but one guest
said it's easy, just do this and this and this, and we did it, and the solar energy
thing, I set it up because the police cut down the electricity, but then all these things
started moving really fast, so people wanted to fix the part behind us, people wanted to
start the stage, we wanted to do this, we wanted to do that.
I never thought about making a windmill, for instance it's Christophe's project, but he
just turned to me and, hey, I want to do a windmill, whatever, so why do you need, and
he did a windmill, it's working, we're still working on making it our power source, but
I would never thought of it, and that's one of the projects that just emerges out of nothing,
I mean, probably one of the funniest projects was the video projector with an old LCD and
a flower projector, it was a guest that stayed here for two days, he told us he could do
it, I got the material, we made a workshop, we got it working, and now we have a projector,
and it was just because whenever someone has an idea, instead of saying, no, no, no, that's
not how it works, it's too expensive, don't do it, we just say yes, let's do it, what
do you need, we're trying, please, in my case, I'm trying to get that into a local culture
so we encourage people to say yes to moments, so we encourage people to be empowered and
not just having a core of people say, oh no, you can't do this, you can't do that, you
can't do this, you can't do that, I think it's better to live in a community where someone
has an idea and they ask, oh, what do you think, you say, yeah, yeah, yeah, just do it, and
then you help them, if they need materials, you give materials, if they need food, you
give food, and then people start doing things, it's a bit naive I think, but I think it works,
I think it works.
This is now the silo.
I had the idea to make a place where people can enjoy a book, enjoy a CD, so something
more quiet, where people can relax.
This here is going to be the projection room for movies or documentaries or presentations,
debates, whatever you can do.
The basic principle of the free shop is if you have something you can always leave something
or if you don't have anything to give to the free shop you can always take it.
I think it works better.
Here is the hosting floor.
This is the silo space for our guests and residents.
Again, the concept is...
Is that loud music?
The concept is the same.
Recycle as much as possible.
We didn't want anything.
Even the fridges are recycled.
We found it on the streets and whatever.
Here, this is the other of my designs.
It's a rainbow.
We thought that people would like to wake up and see colors instead of abandoned buildings.
I thought about fabrics because we wanted to make a communal space.
You can have your own privacy in this case.
There's a room that's covering you, whatever, but you can still hear things.
I think it kind of forces people to know how to live in a communal space.
From the yellow to that one, that's residence.
For guests, we have the green, the blue and purple.
It's all communal space.
The stars are just like the night.
It's true.
Just like the night.
The stars are just like the night.
The stars are just like the night.
Just like the night.
Just like the night.
The stars are just like the night.
Just like the night.
Just like the night.
Just like the night.
Just like the night.
What the hell is this?
There's a lot of empty houses, but the prices go up.
They always go up because of speculation.
They became so high, the working class left Lisbon.
Lisbon had 1.3 million in the 80s.
There was a peak of population in Lisbon, and now Lisbon is below 500,000 people.
It's still going down, but it's not that it's less working class.
Now Lisbon has more upper class.
If you just look across the train tracks, all these apartments are deluxe apartments.
With an empty city, all these huge buildings are empty and abandoned.
Just like the night.
Quite the way you open the door to people makes a difference, I think.
Especially homeless people and travelers, people that get lonely.
Sometimes we get hugs from travelers.
You get lonely, I think.
I think cities are a very dehumanizing place.
They close you up in a tiny apartment, and you say hi to your neighbor.
If they put their music too loud, you shout, and you say, oh, I'll turn down the music.
We're kind of offering a bit of a different perspective on how a city can work.
So open houses, you can visit anytime you want.
Obviously, it's always necessary to have some space where you can be on your own, like your room or whatever.
Some sense of personal space.
But in general, an open house makes people happier, I think.
That's it for this video.
Thanks for watching.
Well, we...
We're 100% solar energy right now.
Today I've been doing the wiring for the concerts, and right now I'm testing the generator if it works.
That's it, kind of.
Our plan originally was to be 100% sustainable.
What we've been finding is sometimes there's no sun, no wind, nothing, so it's good to have a backup system.
We're also not planning on running it for too long, just for concerts.
And other than that, hopefully we can continue to just live 100% solar.
So far it's been like that.
So far it's been mostly solar energy.
With a lot of people here, it's not easy.
With four or five people, it's fine.
And we only have, like, a 60-watt panel, but we designed it.
So everything that we use is very low-power, so LED lights.
We can further networks instead of big PCs.
I don't know, all kinds of stuff like that.
So that's the energy part.
Kristoff is working on the windmill.
We're not getting it properly working yet, he's been working on it.
We're also planning on getting some bike generators.
That's it, I think, on the energy part.
I'm going to start the generator now, actually.
Oh, that's a very tough one.
I would call myself an extremer relativist, so I would say it doesn't really matter what facts are.
Because facts, even though they undermine everything we do,
I think politics and stories are much more important than facts.
It's not so much the fact, but actually each perspective should be nurtured as a story
and as a vision for the reality, like old cultures would do.
You know, the turtle swims and the earth is on top of the turtle,
and every night the god sleeps with the night goddess,
and then the next morning he gets up and it's day.
I think those perspectives should be nurtured.
I think in the middle of this full relativism, where all perspectives are valuable,
I think there are some perspectives that are destructive.
If that perspective is destructive in a thermodynamic sense, meaning it makes entropy go forward,
you break shit, you kill people, it's just a simple fact of physics.
If they're too destructive that they stop other perspectives from existing,
then it should be fought, but in a defensive style.
So we should empower cultures in different perspectives to defend themselves,
but not to destroy others.
In that sense, this relativism is compatible with most ancient cultures and modern cultures,
but not compatible with individualist capitalism,
because individualist capitalism tends to prey on other cultures, destroy other cultures and pollute.
So hiding in this relativism is also a sense that it should be preserved
at a global perspective on preserving stories.
I think freedom is just a false question.
It's an easy word to apply, but let's just say, what am I free to do right now?
I'm free to do some things.
I'm free to channel my calories, which are mostly spent just keeping my temperature.
The tiny bit that's left, I might channel it to do something...
What? I don't know. I call it reversing entropy, doing useful work.
We're one, just like a big piece of clay,
that your parents start molding it in a certain way,
and then you have to, when you're 16 or 17, realize that they molded you the wrong way,
and then you say, no, fuck you, but then a lot of things are already set.
In that sense, I don't think we're that free at all.
The few freedoms we have, we should really encourage them,
but it's very hard nowadays with the society to really encourage people to be free.
And to be free just like we do here.
I mean, just being able to reverse entropy in some way,
not necessarily change the world, but fuck man,
just create beautiful things around you and make people happy.
Spend six hours working, so people have shade.
Spend eight hours working so people have a stage to sing.
It makes you a bit more human.
It makes you a bit more human.
You can make it community anywhere. All you need to do is open the door.
You can open the door.
You can open the door.
You can open the door.
You can open the door.
You can open the door.
You can open the door.
You can open the door.
You can open the door.
You can open the door.
You can open the door.
