Interview about Off Road with Uta Kögelsberger and Tom Leeser - First published on Viralnet in 2014 and abbreviated in 2020

T.L: I was drawn to your statement: “freedom is a fantasy that is also instrumental in sustaining the political system that houses it.” Is your work and practice attempting to disengage the political and expose freedom merely as a phantom of desire? 

U.K: I prefer to think of things as “as well as” than an “either or”, so work can be political and at the same time use a visual language to communicate on a different level than a piece of journalism would do. I am not trying to present a particular opinion or perspective on what is happening at Grover Beach. Yet the work looks at a set of conditions that have a political background.

I am really interested and fascinated by the underlying social and political mechanisms that drive the SVRA. It is a wonderfully metaphoric example of how the notion of freedom is promoted and implemented in the US, the relationship of freedom to United Sate’s history, how freedom seems to be intrinsically linked to a sense of American national identity and pride, and how this notion is constantly renewed and reinstated in order to legitimise a political system. Equally I am interested in the dynamics of the community that has developed around Grover Beach, an alternative, alternative community that centred first and foremost around a shared interest, how certain values are maintained through this activity (family values keep coming up in discussion), how a location that seems to be a physical manifestation of uncontrolled capitalism at the same time through the shared interest (according to its users) seems to cuts through social boundaries.

By pointing my camera at this location I want to highlight the complex, multi layered nature of the location, the inherent dynamics of what is already going on:

Here is this geographical location that is cut in two. North side SVRA, south side Nature reserve. One unlimited access, the other no access at all. This division is enabling two kinds of beliefs.

One of the people I am interviewing talks about the US as being one of the most radical capitalist systems on the planet. He claims that the SVRA is a social manifestation of this system. Now this may or may not be true, but for instance the place operates on a first come first served system. Whoever gets there first chooses his site, and fences it of with caution tape. It’s like an act of claiming land; of occupying territory; a conquering that is reminiscent of the pioneer spirit. Then again at the same time it comes with the understanding that everybody who passes the gate becomes part of the group, becomes family. So there is a real spirit of community, hospitality and generosity, which contradicts his claim of uncontrolled capitalism. A spirit of generosity without which I never would have been able to make this work.

These ‘controlled pockets of freedom’ in part exist so individuals can go to live out a notion of freedom. That is slightly different than calling freedom a fantasy. I don’t feel qualified to make big statements about freedom. I am more interested in the dynamics created by desire and desire as a political tool particular in the case of this very specific location. In this case desire is tied up with a notion of freedom. However here the notion of freedom is packaged. It is marketed. You can buy it. You can consume it. It becomes a commodity. So in that sense it is a construct. An entire industry (the car industry) is based on it and this town depends on it.

These ‘controlled pockets of freedom’ in part exist so individuals can go to live out a notion of freedom. That is slightly different than calling freedom a fantasy. I don’t feel qualified to make big statements about freedom. I am more interested in the dynamics created by desire and desire as a political tool particular in the case of this very specific location. In this case desire is tied up with a notion of freedom. However here the notion of freedom is packaged. It is marketed. You can buy it. You can consume it. It becomes a commodity. So in that sense it is a construct. An entire industry (the car industry) is based on it and this town depends on it.

What I mean is, the location contains set of conditions that correspond to one version of an interpretation of freedom. The way this site functions is through a make believe. So for instance for a weekend ‘I’ will believe that this piece of dune that ‘I’ have fenced off is mine.

A lot of it has to do with control, empowerment, and danger. So, there is a the sense of adventure of being in a natural environment, yet people are mostly arriving with their RV’s where they have all mod cons (showers, toilets, microwaves, TV, Internet etc. depending on the funding available to them). Then there is the driving element; driving at 70 miles per hour over some dunes feels very exhilarating and a little bit scary, so there is the element of conquering your fear and rising to a challenge, which feels empowering and when you have a somewhat risky encounter it releases bursts of adrenaline, getting rid of all that tension you have acquired over a the working week in a matter of seconds.

It is interesting to a European to see how the notion of freedom changes when it moves over to the United States where it becomes very closely associated with financial independence and means. It's a very pragmatic approach to a philosophical question. I am not sure I am in a position to judge which approach will bring you closer to an actual experience of freedom. John Stuart Mills was instrumental in shaping North American definition of freedom and his essay ‘On Liberty’ was written specifically with white males in mind. It’s interesting when you take this thinking back to Pismo Beach, The amateur Rocket Festival or the Big Sandy Shoot. All these events are really all male dominated. It is an interesting fact that here freedom needs to be made visible in a shared public way in order to achieve its value. So for instance when you jump or drive up a particularly steep hill you usually do it in front of an audience.

At Grover Beach freedom of speech is very much visually manifested in the T-shirts that people wear (what it says on them) and the logos on the RV’s Weekend Warrior, Attitude, Blaze’n, Stealth. They are all expressions of power and testify to a sense of entitlement, a claim to-, a right to occupy, to be somewhere. In this sense I think the activity that goes on at Grover beach sometimes reads like an extension of the pioneer spirit and destiny manifest. The central projection starts like a pilgrimage, a migration, except of you don’t know what people are migrating to or what they are fleeing from. Now that the whole of the American continent has been occupied there is nowhere else to go. If you wanted to go any further you would have to drop into the Pacific Ocean.