It is obvious that any project involving medium or large-scale productions will encounter some difficulties. However, in the series of events presented in Publico Transitorio and its affiliate The Political Equator II, the issues they generated simultaneously carefully reflected the theoretical basis of the project: borders, margins, public space, urban transformations, displacement, movement. The idea of generating the work under these conditions, garnering experiences on these planes, meant an exercise in displacement, not just in the material aspect (works and people representing the invited groups, etc.), but in terms of how to conceptually "shift" or "move" the cultural work of those invited to take part in the discussion. A shift that perhaps was not too far-fetched or conflictive, since many have maintained a practice that swings between spaces of "intervention" and formal, institutional, academic spaces. It is clear that aim was largely accomplished, although it led to many tangles that brought to the fore differences in ideas, in non-formal boundaries such as language, or in previously established stereotypes. It is also possible that the actual approach to the production of the project, involving a "collective" practice that is not the norm, helped in both senses: breaking away from "formal" limitations, while at the same time opening up new avenues for debate. Many of those involved in this kind of work gave the project that mobility, acting as "double" or even "triple" agents, with the organizational team itself being another collective in Publico Transitorio.

It is also clear, that even while responding to common pursuits and practices, that there inevitably would be differences in approaches and analytical methods. The realities that came together in Publico Transitorio reopened the debate on the forms, the factors, and the concrete realities of action while keeping within the realities of each context. It is obvious that an approach stemming from the Latin American reality cannot be reproduced in other contexts such as that of Europe or the U.S., regardless of the strength and impact of the aesthetic construction per se. As Mónica Mayer says, "it is obvious that the issues facing young women within their condition as "women" are not the same as ours. Not just because it's a different time, but because of conditions of class, geographical dimensions, culture." These are concrete factors within these realities that make it hard to ruptures these borders, even from within today"s struggle against Global Capitalism.

Marginless margins

An important point regarding the development and the initial idea behind Publico Transitorio was the possibility of intervening in it. It is important to point out, however, that participants in Publico Transitorio in Los Angeles and those taking part in The Political Equator lI in San Diego and Tijuana had different experiences that brought to light clear-cut differences between the two projects. In the case of Publico Transitorio, the discussions were held in city of Los Angeles and with a broad range of participants (artists, activists, scholars, alternative spaces, universities, theoreticians, etc.), thusly the possibility of going beyond the "encounter" itself arose very naturally, as did exchanges between the participants and different local social, cultural and political spaces. Those encounters created the possibility of carrying out new joint work and parallel dialogues beyond the margins of "art" itself. Today several of the experiences that took place outside the formal margins of the encounter are being reproduced in specific projects, work content, and dialogues without spatial and temporal constraints. New encounters, exhibitions, theoretical underpinnings, and exchanges of ideas and experiences have provided continuity.

The unfolding of events in The Political Equator II in San Diego and Tijuana was different. It would be important to consider how many of the factors referred to above were at play. Ranging from the conjugation of the "topics" addressed, to those who took part in the panels (it is worth recalling Suzanne Lacy's comment on the lack of women panelists, which is symptomatic), to the tight timeframe for activities and debates and the lack of translation services, which made the debate inaccessible to many. As I have already stated, this last point was not a minor consideration, since it marks one of those non "formal" boundaries in which "subjectively" carries greater weight when the context is a city such as Tijuana, a border city of sharp contrasts with an imaginary shaped from the outside. In this sense the debate on which the event was based took on a more clearly formal approach, characterized by conceptual categories such as urbanism, transformations of public space, design and the city, displacements and neo-liberalism, rather than the real context in which spaces such as Tijuana are developed: a mistake that was not the sole domain of this program, but is repeated constantly in debates, exhibitions, encounters, etc. on these subjects. (3) In fact, during this "displacement" it was paradoxical that the Los Angeles-San Diego ride took place by means of public transport such as a train and that a tour of Tijuana to witness local urban issues was viewed from the window of a private bus.

That leads to a future challenge: how these experiences can help to create mechanisms, devices, from the standpoint of aesthetic and experiential development, to break with such barriers, so that those "internal" barriers, which in turn create new limits, can be dismantled. What is very clear, however, is that our artistic, militant and activist practices are searching for a collective "construction" in the ceaseless "battle" against the current conditions imposed by the dominant system.

The undoubted power of projects such as Publico Transitorio and The Political Equator II lies precisely in outlining new strategies with which to break away from the formal mechanisms that exist in the world of ideas and in foolishly self-referencing and elitist contemporary debates. The continuity of the processes undertaken should focus on joining forces through the ongoing building of networks and new aesthetic and discursive strategies.

Quotes:

(1) Huyssen, Andreas. World Cities, World Cultures, and the Debate about Modernity. In this regard it is interesting to see how Walter Benjamin shows what the future of the so-called "modern city" will be in his work, "Arcades Project".
(2) See the websites of cultural centers in the cities mentioned: www.cccb.org, www.citechaillot.fr, www.nai.cl, www.mfa.if.
(3) Projects such as Barcelona's Centro de Cultura Contemporanea's Post It City also refer to these formal "views" on urban issues: http://www.cccb.org/es/llibre_o_cataleg?idg=22202