You’ve misunderstood me from the start. As I descended that escalator to announce my Presidential campaign on that fateful June day, this was my first act of performance art. In utilising movement, I was drawing attention to the usually stagnant nature of social change. I am so surprised that no one got that.
Every single one of my rallies was in homage to Zurich’s Cabaret Voltaire. Chaotic, violent, ruthless — this technique intended to invite the audience to attack. But it was supposed to be confined to the theater of the rallies. How could you miss that? Should I have made it more obvious and read the Dada manifesto aloud? Is subtlety that dead?
There was a moment when people started thinking of me as an empty-headed narcissist. I thought, Finally! Yes! That’s it, exactly! You were beginning to get at the heart of what I’ve been trying to do through my art. My words, and in particular my tweets, are a dance. They draw the eye to our most base instincts, to our naked need for love, and to the vacant soul of a culture obsessed with money. But as quickly as you began to decode the dance, you got distracted by the mundane — pneumonia, emails, the failure of a woman to smile. Joaquin said you would all understand, but no one did. I don’t want to make too much of your failure, but imagine putting all this work into your art, and not having your voice being heard, not feeling like you’re being “seen”. I was devastated.