If, at first, it seemed like an outrageous idea, it later became our outrageous reality. For one year, our (Diego’s and mine) apartment became a kind of inn. Not in the bed-and-breakfast kind of way, but rather in the bed-and-breakfast-and-work-and-dinner-and-work-and-bed-and-breakfast-and-work-and…etcetera kind of way.
From the moment we’d abandon the airport parking lot, guest-in-car, Mexico City’s billboard-plagued skies ushering us in, I could almost hear a trigger go off in the distance: “and off they go!” Trudging along into the sea of traffic, the remarks and observations from within the car, almost systematic after a while, would nevertheless emanate from Diego’s mouth with the freshness and excitement of having said for the very first time: “That huge, triangular building over there, belongs to Banobras- involved in a scandalous banking fraud. It cost a fortune to build and it’s never been occupied. Some people have proposed to make it a prison!”, or, “See that kind of palace over there? It was commissioned by Maximillian, once the emperor of Mexico. After Mexico’s war of independence from Spain, we decided we still couldn’t govern ourselves, so we asked Napoleon III if he’d do us the favor. He was too busy, it seems, but promised to ask a distant relative of his if he was interested. Maximillian accepted to be emperor, under the condition that his castle be replicated on Mexican ground. He was killed some time later.”, or any from an array of similar anecdotes.

Upon our arrival home, we’d introduce our guest to the building’s caretaker, local commentator and knower-of-all-gossip, Mr. Baez. He and our usually foreign guest would exchange a couple of words, in a language that could easily be the forerunner of Esperanto. Once settled into our apartment, we’d sit around a bottle of wine (the first of the lot we’d consume over the course of the stay, each visit contributing its own batch to what is now an unsettling collection of corks), and get acquainted- or, reacquainted. Some of our guests were practical strangers to Diego, and total strangers to me. Immediately submerged in conversation around the project, any distances between us would promptly begin to fade. And fade they must, for we were in for a staggering level of intimacy which most consanguine relationships wouldn’t survive.

Our guests stayed in “the room upstairs”. An “appendage” construction not uncommon to most Mexico City rooftops, these rooms are designed for the specific use of in-house servants- and, hence, usually rather austere quarters (at least ours has got a real window). For the purpose of the project, we conditioned it as a mini-hotel-room, with all of the expected amenities, including a single-channel-reception TV (which we never got to working properly). The times when there were two guests, one would take asylum with the computers in Diego’s studio. It didn’t make much of a difference whether a guest would stay in the room upstairs or in the studio, really, since sleep was pretty much the only thing they’d do there, and virtually the only task accomplished individually. The rest of the time was spent Together, whether in discussing, out filming, out eating, in eating, out working, in editing, etc. The time demands and nature of the project were such that dispersion or “sightseeing” unrelated to project simply didn’t happen.

It’s possible that such a concentration of intimacy can muddle one’s perspective in a schizophrenic kind of way. A friend and specialist in schizophrenia once told me that a person with this illness, when asked to copy a drawing consisting of a horizontal row of dots, will do so in the form of one uninterrupted line. Apparently, this is considered an indication of a lack of distinction between separate parts, between the self and the other, which is one of the manifestations of the illness. Whether this is true or not, I can’t say, but it serves the point. I can’t help but imagine that something similar took place around the project. As collaborators, we were so close to one another, that perhaps this very closeness is what allowed us to believe that we could approach and get close to the people that appear in the documentaries.
Knowing how dramatic that might have sounded, maybe now’s a good time to mention the fact that stepping across the social boundaries of a place like Mexico City (whether these borders be physical or psychological), is a practice which only the most insane or most courageous inhabitants engage in (of course, I don’t really believe that- it’s a rhetorical statement, and I’ll try to explain in the lines to follow).
In Mexico (as, no doubt, is also the case in many other countries), your “place” within society is practically inherited and definitely stationary. I would describe it as a highly-sophisticated caste system. Moving outside of the established parameters is simply too difficult and painstaking for most people to attempt. If you do, you are therefore transgressing, and automatically suspect of, basically, being up to no good.
I’ll illustrate. Take the case of Tita, the “protagonist” of the first documentary. Once we started filming and Tita began coming round the apartment on a regular basis, neighborhood eyebrows were raised and chins were rubbed in suspicion. Tita is a young, attractive woman whose manner, dress, color and background, place her outside of the context of Diego’s and my own manner, dress, color and background. It is assumed that the only business she could possibly have coming to our place would be that of employment (as a domestic worker). Which wasn’t the case. The notion that there might actually be a friendship between us, was not a consideration. We sensed that people thought we were involved in something dodgy. Regardless of, months back, having explained to Mr. Baez, the building caretaker, the nature of what we were doing, it was only upon having seen the “Tita” documentary, that he was able to open-heartedly admit that, for a time, he’d been under the impression that we were... involved in child pornography.
I’ll illustrate further. Our apartment window overlooks the corner across our street, adorned with awesome clouds of balloons, on sale to passersby. The group of men who sell these balloons have become known among us as “the ballooners”, as we fondly refer to them in conversation, although we know one another by name and exchange the occasional conversation or “hello”. One of the “ballooners”, Gabriel (or “The Ballooner”), actually lives on that corner for periods at a time. He’s got a tent, a TV going on a twenty-four-hour basis, and an around-the-clock drinking habit. One evening, Diego was on his way to the corner store when he was intercepted by Gabriel and invited to share a beer. Diego accepted (must have been a spell of that schizophrenia I mentioned earlier). No sooner had Diego sat down to do what Gabriel does all day long (drink), did a police car drive up and the officers attempt to arrest Diego and the others for loitering and drinking on public property. While Gabriel convinced the cops to release them, Diego has yet to accept another invitation.
Gabriel once said something to the effect of (and, surely, I misquote): “The man that owns the house next to your [our] building has been living there for twenty years. I’ve been on this corner for thirty-six years. During that time, we’ve never exchanged a ‘hello’. We don’t have to. He doesn’t mess with me, and I don’t mess with him.”

Will “the ballooners” always be “the ballooners”? Will we will always be… what?… “the white folks?”- regardless of the fact that we know one another by name? Can we transgress? I don’t think we’re prepared to accept the idea that we’ll all just have to stay on our side of the fence.
After one year of thinking, breathing and living the project, we’re still reeling from the intensity of it all. I can’t help but hope that at least a bit of that schizophrenia will still be there once we stop spinning. Whichever way, the likelihood of coming away from this project unchanged, is doubtful.