Son[i]a #275 Roberto Jacoby

“Having fun takes a huge effort. You can only have fun if you resolve to do so and actively pursue your goal.” Whenever Roberto Jacoby’s work is discussed, his interdisciplinarity usually comes up. Jacoby moved from sociology to conceptual and political art by way of underground journalism, writing, activism, music, cultural management, publishing, and poetry. Although as curator and researcher Ana Longoni has said, “undisciplined” may be a better adjective than “interdisciplinary” to describe his career. An irreverent journey intent on constructing spaces for emancipation and new collective ways of inhabiting the world.

A member of the Argentinean avant-garde of the sixties, Jacoby participated in projects such as the "Anti-happening" (1966-1967) and "Tucumán Arde" (1968). He challenged the dictatorship from the trenches of underground culture, through nocturnal activism, and by writing songs for new wave group Virus. Jacoby has always understood art as a collaborative, ensemble process of creation, a view that has underpinned his orchestrating of communities such as "Proyecto Venus" (2000-2006), the magazine "ramona", and the Argentine Brigade for Dilma at the Sao Paulo Biennial in 2010.

In this podcast, Roberto Jacoby opens up his poetry books and talks about writing, inspiration, plundering and dematerialisation; about blacks and whites, sofa-beds, politics and activism. Referring to the South, he makes a distinction between soft and hard dictatorships and talks about the neo-fascisms that are on the horizon. Also from the South, he conjures up the spaces of political imagination that opened up with the Argentinean avant-garde, the Instituto Di Tella, and the collective experience of Tucumán Arde.