Is it a permanent or temporary city?
AL.Despite the compelling size of the sculpture, it has an ephemeral life: it can survive in the same place only for a week. It will be in Mexico city in April, then it will move to Los Angeles and, at last, to New York. It has a typical North American skyline, even though lunatic, bizarre and moody: hence Chili Moon Town. It also has an inside, which can’t be seen from the outside. The city can be accessed by boat: you can come near it, enter in its secret womb, a place oozing legends and recounts. Chili Moon Town brings with it a number of events involving art and also desires, part of which are its utopian character and its highly dream-like dimension.

How did you come up with the project?
AL. Simply, because two people, totally autonomously, imagined to create a city and succeeded to build it. It is a massive and magically fulfilled dream.
The odd thing about Chili Moon Town is that its image is starting to circulate, and is increasingly more exposed. This way, it will start entering the symbolic image inventory of the people who see it, and I think there will be many. An important factor, which has to be kept in mind is that lake Chapultepec is a landmark for the people who live in Mexico City; it is a place people like to go to and kick back for the weekend - almost a million people go there. Chili Moon Town will most likely become an important event for the collective symbolic image inventory of people from Mexico City, taking on an almost urban legend character.

Andrea, in capacity as curator, are you able to give us a privileged interpretation key?
AL. As in all rich and deep works, one can discover many potential critical dimensions or possible interpretations, which have partly been designed and partly generated in the process of the city’s making. Anna and Daniel are making different narrations living around the city, almost mythological, which develop into a series of performances. Some may deem the events taking place in Mexico City as almost farcical, yet they are the activators of the scaffolding of the city’s narrative. The work has also some symbolically important aspects, because they touch upon issues, or rather, political criticalities and problems concerning the art market, especially in its current conjuncture.

And the mobility element seems to be an important part of the project as a whole…
AL. As a matter of fact, the city will move from Mexico to the United States, stop in Los Angeles and reach New York. It might be of interest that a mad city, with a vaguely North American shape, first will appear in Mexico and then move to the United States, bringing with it all the symbolic image inventory typical of that migratory movement towards the USA which is Mexican culture’s dream par excellence.

Can you tell us about the real-estate part of the project?
AL. Of course. There’s a real estate project behind the city: the flats, palaces in Chili Moon
Town are, in fact, for sale. The Chili Moon Town Tour Real Estate is a real estate agency, thanks to which collectors and investors can purchase parts of the city, from berths to entire buildings. This evening, here in via Ventura, there’s going to be a party during which, all those who wish to, will be able to buy the flats still available. So far we’ve sold almost half of the city: and, in this way, the work pays for itself.

AG. We invented the real estate project to try to cover the expenses, because we didn’t want to commit to a sponsor; and neither Daniel nor myself are famous artists, so nobody would have given us 200 thousand dollars to start off a project. Therefore, we started thinking about a way to cover the effective expenses, and to manage to involve other people to collaborate with us in the project. Normally, the way to ask someone for money is to give something in exchange: we give a dream in the shape of a sculpture.

So, can anyone just buy any available building and space?
AG. Gli appartamenti di Chili Moon Town sono in vendita, e la gente li può comprare. Poi, in base all'investimento che le persone fanno, diamo in cambio sculture che sono nuove edizioni o variazioni dell'opera originale, decorate a mano con brillantini, pelo, paillettes... Ad esempio chi compra le penthouse, che sono gli appartamenti più costosi, ha in cambio una chiave fatta a mano, grande 50 cm, in edizione limitata.

How much do the apartments cost?
AG. The penthouses cost around 2200 Euros, the nicest one costs 3000, whereas the less expensive pieces are the berths, which are about 120 Euros. The buyer receives a personalised road Atlas, on which we drew the itinerary Chili Moon Town will cover from Mexico to the United States. What is more, all those who buy something, will have their names on the website placed next to what they’ve bought. And then, each time the city is assembled in the three stops, a map of the city will be distributed with the names of all the tenants placed by their properties, so who goes aboard the boat to visit the city will know who the buildings belong to and the tenants will be able to see their windows…

Which is the metaphorical meaning of this real estate project?
AL. For us the real estate part of the project has an ironical and visionary value: obviously we are well aware of the art market’s state today; how much has contemporary art meant in symbolical terms in the last few years. Even this vision comes from the idea to sustain a work through the metaphor of the real estate investments. We also know very well how in real cities, one’s real estate value can increase because artists decide to go and live in that part of the city or because art galleries open: it is the classic phenomenon of induced agglomerations, cultural districts generating a commercial value. In Chili Moon Town this mechanism is overturned.

In what way is it overturned?
AL. We present a large community, not a restricted one, with a highly visible and symbolically representative object. And instead of coming up with a specific investment concerning a restricted area, whose evaluation in ten years time is the hands of fate, we offer a larger one on an entire city, which doesn’t really exist, or rather, it does in its sculpture form, but from which, though, nobody can actually derive a housing profit, they can gain a belonging profit, which, at the end of the day, is exactly what we are all looking for in a city nowadays: a sense of belonging and sharing in a community.

Is today’s choice of being in via Ventura a coincidence? Because in actual fact, via Ventura is experiencing the same real estate dynamics you have just described...
AL. It is an “extraordinary” coincidence. And that owing to the fact that the first person to have believed in this project was Mariano Pichler, who decide to invest in it, and he was also the one to have ignited the engine to make the project start at the right speed, because this work requires all the willpower, commitment, desire and moreover speed of action – almost furious.

Odd – but, perhaps, not accidental – for all this to happen in via Ventura…
AG. Yes, that’s right. When we decided that we could give life to both a communication and sales event, that it had been noticed and made effective, via Ventura seemed to be the most wonderful metaphor and the most suitable place. And what is more, is that the work in the end will retrace these places….
It is also very interesting that our work triggers visually a symbolic imagery which isn’t the typical one of this place, allowing Chili Moon Town’s, much more familiar, atmosphere to break in… we have been literally sticking paper fish on the walls…

How does Chili Moon Town’s productive mechanism work?
AL. This work is a team up of an unexpected human aggregate: I think there are at least 50 people involved in its construction, with people involved in works ranging from crafts to design. The human bonds are like those that take place amid people working on a film set, where a group of people with different skills gather to put together a project they believe in. In the end, the story of the commitment of 50 people is similar to the one involved in the foundation of a city: someone decided to found a city and all the other people chip in to give their energy and willpower.

AG. This participation is based on enthusiasm, since many of the people who have worked on the project don’t actually get paid! We managed to pay for the steel structure thanks to Mariano Pichler, who bought a whole skyscraper: the structure is made of 10 tons of steel, which we then cover with vinyl, sequins, glitter and other materials. The most incredible thing is that we’ve had an impossible idea and that we are creating it at an impossible speed, working in the most amazing conditions… only in Mexico could this have been possible.

Could a project like this be carried out in Italy?
AG. I think no one in Italy would ever allow us to make something float in a lake; however, now we are doing it in Mexico and we already have all the permits we need to do it anywhere in the world.

What’s your relationship with Chili Moon Town’s tenants – the owners of the flats?
AG. Amazing as it may seem, there’s a real community of people buying the flats forming. A spontaneous phenomenon, all we were trying to do was to try and find a way to involve people and make them feel part of a project, that was the main thing, really. Now we are organising the first owners’ meeting of the block of flats in Mexico sometime in the near future.

How will this “owners’ meeting” work?
AG. We will organise a cocktail party to make everybody meet, because that’s what the people want. They want to meet each other, know who is their next door neighbour, they ask if they can bring the dog, or whether it will be a nuisance or too noisy… we have received wonderful letters and I think we might even comprise them in some catalogue sooner or later. We have set off people’s dreams, and this is fantastic.

Part of Chili Moon Town’s functioning has a lot to do with the virtual and the communities aggregating on the web, such as Second Life…
AL. It’s rather odd, but we noticed this as we were going along. Indeed, the dynamic has a lot to do with Second Life, but I don’t think we’ve ever thought about it that way before; it is quite a coincidence.

AG. Let’s go and get those Internet aliens, just like I used to be, and pull them out, put them into the real world and show them what a dream is all about and what it means to fulfil it.

How did you work to build Chili Moon Town ?
AG. Both Daniel and myself love the family atmosphere, where affection is very important. We always ask for our relatives’ help: uncles, aunts and cousins, nephews… he asks his mum to make pompons, my nephew glues the glitter on. We always make sure we are surrounded by emotional power because we have always worked with and on feelings, it’s a fine line we never want to interrupt. This is why we are working in Mexico, it’s a country bursting with emotional force. What we are trying to do is build a Mexican dream which will travel across America. This work is a symbol, the representation of a symbolic image inventory.

What’s the relationship between art, collective consciousness and reality? Where’s the short-circuit?
AL. Personally, I think that there’s a great load of work to be done today (which I’m trying to set up as a research) and it is all about understanding which are the contemporary collective consciousnesses connected with the shape of the cities. Which doesn’t simply mean how the city is recounted in video or depicted in a photograph, but what ever there is inside and underneath the city can turn some of its parts, districts, quarters, pieces by way of creative interstice into image and therefore contribute to generate what will then be called the collective consciousness.

Can you give us an example?
AL. In the 70s, in Los Angeles, due to the incredible drought that had hit the country, a group of kids decided to temporary occupy some swimming pools and transform them into uncommon open-air skate parks. Those guys couldn’t possibly imagine that what they did would have generated a reference symbolic image inventory for a culture that would diffuse all over the world 25 years later. Trying to understand how those aggregative phenomena, with a high artistic value factor interact with the collective consciousness is an extraordinary challenge. Art appears to be very detached from the real world, yet, there are artists who are creators, producers and condensers of symbolic image; they work as laboratories, and the fabulous thing is that these artists continue to exist, at times to resist, even, but for sure they still create and produce symbolic image inventories.

And in this case?
AL. In Anna and Daniel’s case it is obvious: there certainly is a symbolic image inventory which takes shape in relation to the place where Chili Moon Town is, namely Mexico City, and this outside reference interacts with the shapes that come from Daniel and Anna’s personal symbolic image inventory. Even though it isn’t possible, even this could be nice, to look inside the city, which deliberately remains a secret and can only be seen on location, because somehow that very secret and hidden symbolic image is this work’s hidden thread, which triggers a phenomenon of visual sharing. Therefore, I believe that the symbolic image at play here would be one, rather obviously, related to half-cast, openness, with a strong sense for sharing and a need to meet, a willpower to overcome a whole lot of both social and symbolic fractures and disproportions.

Going back to a more general theme, namely to our Chili Moon Town and world on the whole?
AL. If you ask me what relation links art and symbolic image inventory, I can say that it is a relation which will always exist. Some artists work on that thread and dimension, likewise others deal with topics strictly related to the state of the art, the structures (and that personally I’m less interested in, yet which I observe with interest… but this is related to my training and background). However, the relationship between symbolic image and reality is always a fertile relationship, and it is always very interesting to investigate it and cast a light on it, because it is this very relationship to set the way people live and behave in a city.