'Families in Transit' by The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home Two Degrees, Artsadmin, 22nd June 2013

GARY: Hello everybody. Welcome to 'Families in Transit' a performative lecture by the Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home about The Great Transition.

LENA: They don't know who we are.

GABRIEL: I know, you have to introduce us, Dad!

SID: Yes!

GARY: We are the Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home. We represent the nuclear family. I am the father. This is the mother. We have three children Neal, Gabriel and Sid aged 12, 10 and 5. We are nice. We are reliable. We work full-time jobs. Children go to school full-time. Children are relatively well behaved. We shop, travel and generally consume. We are proper active citizens of our neo-liberal empire. In some ways we are the perfect capitalist unit, the mechanism through which consumer capitalism and our neo-liberal economy finds its zenith, its finest expression, its poetry. We are the rhyming couplet of the current system ruining our planet, the sonnet of our destroyed future, the epic poem of our dashed hopes and dreams of a better life to come. We are the dirty limerick of the fossil-fuel economy.

LENA: Oh come on Gary! It's not all our fault! Are you saying that single people are better?

GARY: No, no, listen

There was a nice family from town,who kept taking off from the ground,they consumed lots of oiluntil the world spoiled,then vanished from earth without sound.

LENA: Oh, that's just awful and so preachy.

NEAL: Dad, you're such a saddo.

GARY: We can change! We want to change! We want change! We are here to tell you how we can change. We've got flags and everything! By the end of this short piece (about 20 minutes) we'll all be waving the flags for The Great Transition. We've designed our own flags for The Great Transition.

LENA: Well that's not strictly true Gary, we got these flags made for The Liverpool Anarchist Communist Sunday School a few months ago. It's not nice to trick people Gary. Why are you always lying?

GARY: I'm not tricking them or lying. I'm letting people know that we are re-using

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these flags, recycling them, letting their meaning carry over into another event. The Liverpool Anarchist Communist Sunday School would fit right into the Great Transition anyway. We need to set up anarchist communist eco warrior family schools across Europe. If you know any young people, are part of a family of any description, you can join.

LENA: Don't use this platform now to advertise your other projects. Tell them we've come here from Liverpool and that we took the Virgin train. But after the Great Transition it will no longer be Richard Branson's train it will be the People's train. I really dislike Virgin Trains!

GABRIEL: Yeah, but will we still get the Virgin Kidz fun packs on this new People's train?

NEAL: No, we will get colouring-in guides from the New Economics Foundation.

SID: Can I colour in the Great Transition?

LENA: The Virgin Trains really need to go! When I was booking our train travel here, I made a mistake when booking return tickets. Instead of booking return travel for tomorrow I managed to book it for today. As a result of my mistake, we have unneeded, non-refundable train tickets for Liverpool today at 15:07. One mistake and you loose £49. Virgin Trains make me want the Great Transition. This is my complaint to Virgin:

I booked these tickets today, family trip to London. When booking the return tickets I thought to have pressed 'next day' for return travel, but either I didn't or the server was faulty and I booked the wrong date (same day) for return travel. I contacted 'chat' immediately, who told me to call customer services. Customer Services told me that as my return ticket is 'advance' they will charge me £10 per person per ticket and book new tickets for me... As the value of my tickets is less than charge for change, I realized I might as well just book new tickets myself via your or any other train website. I know you won't refund or change my ticket (without incurring a large sum of money) and I am no longer asking for that. I just wanted to let you know that I made a mistake as a human being (or possibly my computer made a mistake) - it doesn't really matter... but your systems will not acknowledge that. This system we live in (corporate capitalism) of which your Virgin Corporation is part, is inhumane and unsustainable. The time will come when we will be human again, in proper contact with one another. And I hope Virgin realize that sometime in the near future.All the very best to the workers/people in Virgin - but not to the corporation and the system you work for.

I got an email back saying they will answer in 20 working days. GARY: We are here at the Two Degrees festival for the third time. This probably means that the first time we came in 2009 preaching against Climate Change didn't work. Back then we had destroyed our Easy Jet airplane tickets from Liverpool to Dubrovnik and slow travelled there instead. Then the second time we came talking about austerity cuts and climate change in 2011 didn't work either. Now here we are again! Third time lucky! Let's hope it works this time and Artsadmin can solve climate change by the end of this festival.

GABRIEL: What's that? Tomorrow?

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SID: No, it's today!

LENA: In 2009 and 2011 we were paid £500 for our failed performances. This time, the money has gone up to 2500 euros. (hushed tone) We haven't signed any contract though. Are you sure we gonna get anything?

GARY: (hushed tone) I don't know. I think it's just about sending an invoice, actually two separate invoices, one for 2500 euros commissioning fee and one for 500 euros fee here.

LENA: (hushed tone) Why is the Artsadmin fee calculated in euros? What's the scheme? Is Mark expecting us to travel? (pause) We are funded by the Imagine 2020: Art and Climate Change, an eleven European performing arts venues and festivals that explore causes and effects of climate change.

GABRIEL: Why are we being paid in euros? So, it does mean we will get to travel around Europe.

LENA: (excited) Maybe!

NEAL: Again?! Can I have some of that money for the new Xbox 1 instead?

SID: What's euros? Can I have some crisps?

GARY: (hushed tone) Emails says that euros will be transferred to pounds and 2500 euros commissioning fee is for us to pay for our time working out logistics with other families... OK let's have a chat with Mark later, over a beer, and persuade him that we DO want to travel round Europe preaching the dangers of climate change.

LENA: The audiences need a bit of background story here! Back in January we got this really exciting email from Mark about the commission for Imagine2020 across 11 different arts centres and festivals and lasting two years. We were dead excited, until we realized it is about climate change and we can't really travel around and preach about climate change... so we settled for setting up a network of activist families across Europe instead.

NEAL: You can't fly round Europe burning fossil fuel and telling everybody else not to. That's stupid!

GABRIEL: But it would be much better and more fun to travel ourselves and not let others take the fame!

SID: Yeah, let's slow travel across Europe with euros. Can I sleep on the train again?

NEAL: Oh GOD!

GARY: Anyway, our piece is a response to the The Great Transition, written by the New Economics Foundation back in 2009 when we first started slow traveling. The money is high this time, we better deliver...pressure's on, kids! Before we get started our delivery of excerpts from the Great Transition, we need to make sure

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the audiences know what the Great Transition is. Many of you will already know, but just to work with those who have wandered in off the street looking for a fair trade coffee The Great Transition is a document that seeks to outline how we may move from a fossil-fuel addicted economy which reproduces global scale injustice to an economy of people before profit that reproduces social and environmental justice.

GABRIEL: Could the audience please say: whooo! each time you hear the words the Great Transition? (Practice three times).

NEAL: The Great Transition (whooo!) is a document that some clever economists wrote which proposes how the UK and the world can change the way we live and stop catastrophic climate change.

SID: What's wrong with how we live?

LENA: Sid, be quiet now. We'll explain when you are a bit older. Gary, shouldn't we tell the audiences about some responses we've had to the Great Transition?

GARY: Oh yes, two dads responded! And I just happen to have their responses here.

Hi Gary and Lena,Thanks for sending this through. I am happy to perform all types of environmental measures in and around the home: I load up my car with glass and then drive 5 miles to the recycling centre; I buy loads of stuff at the supermarket, but take care to reuse my plastic bags; I get rid of all the old light bulbs and buy a load of new ones that are energy efficient…etc etc. These acts are all important for me to perform to some kind of imagined audience - not sure who exactly, but probably myself most of all (and perhaps my great, great grandchildren in some torrid Terminator-style future).These kinds of domestic performances help me to feel that I’m a pretty good kind of person, but I think do little to help the broader transition that this document is calling for. And I think, deep down, I know when I’m doing these performances that I’m faking it. Indeed, it may be that these performances actually hinder the cause of broader change, by displacing a broader set of considerations about how my Western lifestyle can be put on a more sustainable and socially equitable footing. Anyway, that’s my initial reaction to the document – not sure if it’s in any way useful, but happy to continue the conversation if needed.Great to see you last weekend, and I hope that you and the gang have a decent break over Easter.With all best wishes,Dad 1

Dear GaryIt's a fascinating document. I feel the report becomes most compelling when it talks about what we can actually do as individuals: (e.g. cycle, grow vegetables). But this can't be separated from what governments need to do (e.g. Put in place a plan to rapidly decarbonise the economy and hit these targets). I think somehow we have to join the dots. Wouldn't art and performance be the perfect medium to do this? My idea would be to do something that draws attention or joins the dots between and across all the things people are already doing. A journey, a network, a story, a virtual community, a game, a global conversation, something that acts on those bullet-points listed on page 95-98, but makes them more visible and countable and significant. Look at what those people are doing! [It seems] everyone wants to do something revolutionary that will lead to them being invited to give a TED talk. Ha ha.All bestDad 2

LENA: Well, I think it's good that the funders and organizers know that we've been spreading the word about the Great Transition (whooooo) beyond our brief just

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today in London. GABRIEL: Dad, can we just get on with the reading of excerpts?

GARY: Yes, we like the part 'How It All Turned Out Right' in the Great Transition (whoooo) as it describes a utopian vision of UK society post the Great Transition (whoooo). Each member of the Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home has chosen their favourite, or the most contested, bit from the report.

LENA: Also, it was the part of the document which was easiest to understand for the children, and adults.

NEAL: It wasn't in fairy tale language though.

There we were back in 2009 feeling as if the four horsemen of the apocalypse were bearing down on us. The global economy was falling apart, we were accelerating towards the cliff edge of catastrophic climate change, and our oil-addicted economies were set to go cold-turkey as their fossil-fuel fix grew much more expensive and harder to get hold of.

I remember us at G20 protests in London for Financial Fools Day in 2009. And the four horsemen of the apocalypse. We went down with the red one, the war one, or was he black? And Sid was really little, he was 2. And we sang: Anti Anti Capitalista....

LENA: A, An-ti An-ti Capitalista, A An-ti An-ti Capitalista. Oh, I miss 2009. Everything seemed possible back then. Everyone was super concerned. Now we seemed to have forgotten our environmental issues – or is that just in Liverpool?

GABRIEL: Well, I don't remember 2009 much. I do remember the Emergence Summit last year and rapping... and writing songs...

Stories and music are as old as campfires. For a time we forgot it, but being actively involved in making entertainment made us feel much better than just passively watching others perform. Perversely, though, the fashion for reality TV talent shows early in the twenty-first century triggered a widespread revival in people wanting to do things for themselves so, in any case, we started to spend fewer and fewer hours in front of the television. It’s now common in pubs, clubs and in any available hall to find groups of friends showing films they have made on inexpensive, easy-to-use equipment, and putting on a wide range of music and other performances.

GARY: This is life post the Great Transition (whooo). Everyone's making home movies and singing and dancing. It's a big party.

LENA: Gary do you wanna show your Mini Mundus film? That's a homemade movie.

GARY: No Lena, There's no time. We only have 20 minutes overall. We can give people the link afterwards if they ask us nicely.

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LENA: Either way, this is a wonderful family film made in Mini Mundus, Klagenfurt, Austria. Miniature world. This extract from the Great Transition (whooo) worries me:

While the big increase in the cost of fossil fuels has seen international travel become a much rarer experience, it tends to be much better – and longer – when we do head off on our travels.

We slow travelled to Dubrovnik, my hometown, from Liverpool, our resident home, we slow travelled to Copenhagen for COP15 (that didn't change anything) and just last month we slow travelled to Klagenfurt for an arts exhibition.

GABRIEL: We will be slow travelling again across Europe if we persuade Mark to let us carry the message of the Great Transition (whoooo) ourselves.

LENA: Can we really live without planes given our transnational family status? Kids, do you like slow travel?

SID: I like it....

NEAL: I don't! We have to share rooms with randomers.

GABRIEL: Yes, if we get to travel and perform in all these different countries. I like slow travel for art.

GARY: My turn! And just for the record, I can totally get used to slow travel for art or life.

With less time spent working in the formal economy and more flexibility over when we work, the choice is ours – take the kids to school, go for a run, read a book. With a new focus on real wealth and well-being, previously overconsuming rich countries have now cured most cases of the twin evils of work addiction and unemployment. The huge debts and interest payments that kept us chained to our desks have been designed out of the system by new forms of credit and ownership, for land, homes and other big ticket items. Because we’re more content, having more time for ourselves, friends and family, we need less income too for the false consumerist promise of buying happiness.

SID: I haven't said anything yet. I want to read my bit.

EVERYONE: Come on Sid!

SID: Streets are safer for children to play in, with some entirely car-free, and many towns have reclaimed central plots of land as public squares.

EVERYONE: Well done Sid!

GARY: Is this it then?

LENA: I think so. We won't tell them that the proposition to stroll around in the

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early evening, like they do in Italy or Croatia is the most preposterous peacock-ing. I grew up in this culture.You know the bit, I'm talking about:

Just as people are happier to go out more locally during the day, because towns have become more pleasant places to be, the same is true at night. As in countries like Italy, in the early evening people of all ages take to strolling around town, just for the sake of it.

GARY: Sure. And also, the whole Great Revaluing – that's need a bit more work... How do we get rid of our capitalistic subjectivities? The Great Transition happens here, now, on the ground, with family, friends, strangers, randomers and the way you think. Lena, shall we destroy the Virgin Ticket in the name of the Great Transition? Or shall we give it to someone who wants to go back to Liverpool tonight?

LENA: Well, the advanced tickets are for 15:07 train, it's a bit too late, and they need to have family railcard. Would you like to see us destroy the tickets in the name of the Great Transition? An end to Virgin Trains and a beginning of the People's Trains. Or the Great Transition juggernaut of social justice?

GABRIEL: Can we go travelling on the People's trains all around Europe to get a network of activist families for the Great Transition going? Can we? Can we?

SID: Yes. Can we? Can we?

NEAL: Yeah, come on. It'd be a good laugh. As long as I can skip school!

LENA: We are off now across Europe, across the sites of Imagine 2020 to recruit families for the Great Transition. We will slow travel and hand other families these flags to wave, get them to set up their eco anarchist communist schools and give them this script to read and ask them to write a new one to perform. We will come back in two years (if Artsadmin haven't had enough of us) to introduce you all to the new families for The Great Transition. Gary, lead us in song.

GARY: Children hand out the flags to people and get them to join in. Wave them. As we began with a dirty limerick, we'd like to end with a collective sing-song. I'll sing the main line and you sing the answer. The Answer is 'Of course we fucking can'.

NEAL GABRIEL SID: Ahhh, Dad you swore!

LENA: Gary, you can't use language like that if you want to recruit families. Tone it down a bit.

GARY: OK. How about 'Of course we freekin can'? (Sings) Can we make the Great Transition? X3 Of course we freekin can!

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