The people who made this happen, NewHive, did an interview with each other of what it all was about (mostly about making a connection and dropping the celebrity vs public wall). Some talk about intellectualising performance art and the elitism of the art world. It's pretty neat and humbling.
"...after Lawless, the movies got harder but the experience got easier."
#ALLMYMOVIES: a Conversation With LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner
"This shit changed my coffee order name, which in turn, changed my sense of self."
LaBeouf: I cant articulate how big this was. I dont even know yet. All I know is I feel the weight of it. Im walking through the streets and Im smiling, like a cartoon character
I felt extraordinary support
Once you press play on your life and you open up and theres that vulnerability and not only are people getting the artistic side of you but theyre getting the human side of you, watching that, youve shared everything. And the fact that you can walk out of there and people are still nodding at you and giving you a thumbs up
its something else. I really dont even know what it is yet, because I havent sat on it or done any writing or thought about it at all. I just know if I can explain a feeling, I feel lighter today. I feel love today. Its as simple as this: I used to order my coffee and when theyd say, Hey whats your name? Id say James, because I didnt want them to say my name.
Turner: Someone walked up in the gallery we were in today and said, Hey, are you Shia? and normally every time were together its like no no no. But for the first time ever today, Hey are you Shia? Yeah.
LaBeouf: I would never claim my name. And today its just something different, its as simple as that. And its not through thought its just thats me and Im cool with that. Its the first time really in my life, before the other shows, because all of the other shows never changed my coffee order name. This shit changed my coffee order name, which in turn, changed my sense of self.
"I feel distance in the movie game."
LaBeouf: Its just lonely
all I really want to do is be a part of
I feel distance in the movie game, because I dont do it the same way they do it
and then you feel exiled from life, because youre some celebrity character or a fuck up, and then you get in part of this art crowd and youre like Oh this where all the people who feel like outsiders go and then you go to the outsider club and youre an outsider in the outsider club. But then when I looked at the [event] poster, not even the site, but the poster and saw NewHive was right there I was just like wow this shits official. I have respect for a lot of the NewHive artists. I go to NewHive, I like their work. My favorite digital artist is on your guys site and she showed up at our show. And I was trying to kill my fanboy but I was like wow this is fucking huge. May [Waver] is my favorite digital artist. Period. Shes affected me more than any of this other arty shit Ive seen. I listen to her Lullabies on my own time, not for a show-off, not for a diatribe, learning art, none of that. I listen to her because I like listening to her work and watching it. Its peaceful, like some kind of meditation. So when shes at the show it just felt like fuck this is crazy. And I walked back into the theater like, Youre a part of this
youre part of this club that youve always wanted to be a part of.
Me just trying to intellectualize it now, I dont have the words. My feelings, though, didnt lie to me.
Cynical journalists changed their tune when people responded to the event favourably.
Verdin: With this project, the reach that it got right out the gate, its almost as if the journalists who were trying to separate Shia from the work, call him crazy and sort of be done with it, it was almost as if the masses were just speaking up so loudly that by the end of the project a lot of them changed their tune.
Turner: Such warmth.
Verdin: It was almost as if they reached this point where they couldnt lie to themselves. The initial voice that they had about it, that fit this mold of what they were expecting, got drowned out by the response of the people.
"Making pizza can be an art."
LaBeouf: ...Youre not born an artist, or everyone is. Youre not born an actor, or everyone is. Its about drive, a dedication level to this very specific thing. Roofers, pizza guys, anyone can be an artist. Anybody whos great at anything. Making pizza can be an art.
Rönkkö: We were getting pizza in London once and this guy had a massive I love pizza tattoo on his neck. He was so dedicated.
LaBeouf: That guy is an artist. If you eat his pizza you get it. But you gotta eat the pizza. If youre over here and just staring at the pizza you dont get it. You see that it might be aesthetically brilliant, you might even smell it from here
Verdin: Or you might be like this dudes fucking crazy, hes got I love pizza tattooed on him.
Turner: Exactly. And you havent tried his pizza yet.
Turning down celebs to come in like Kid Cudi, nostalgia over Even Stevens, "in that room it was egalitarian".
Verdin: ...What really stood out was turning away the celebrities who were showing up and wanted to cut the line.
LaBeouf: It would be cool as fuck to have Kid Cudi sitting in your movie theater. Hes Kid Cudi, I like his stuff, but none of that shit was about me when we were in there. Im there and Im in it, but that would change the whole environment, and then the show becomes about something totally different. In that room it was egalitarian. Yes, I was being stared at and Im the focal point and the pointing is happening, but the pointing is happening for me too. If were all pointing, then were on the same level. Yes its a film festival where youre watching all of my movies, but a lot of this stuffespecially Even Stevens
the Even Stevens Movie was interesting, its all of our childhood. Its mine and its yours. It wasnt just me smiling like that. If you look at the freeze frames, everyone is smiling like wow, I remember Beans. I remember that stupid-ass song. We were all looking at our yearbook together and were all in the yearbook. It felt like family, we were sitting there like a high school class. These are strangers, people I never met before. You dont leave a museum friends with people. One guy was telling me he had just moved to New York three months prior and didnt know nobody
he said he had 13 new friends, 13 new contacts of people he wanted to hang out with
.The goal walking in is to highlight the connectivity of the networks.
Turner: Not just to highlight it, but to engage it.
LaBeouf: When you simplify it and take away all the art shit waffle talk, thats really what it comes down to.
"They expected me to do some high wire act."
LaBeouf: I never really looked around the room until the last couple of movies. And when I started looking around the room, no one was looking at me. The last couple of movies it became more than what it started as. When it first came in, Man Down is a movie that hasnt been released yet, we just showed it at two film festivals, and no one was watching the movie. Everyone who came into the theater sat down and stared at me. And I felt it. And then they left with-in ten minutes, because they expected me to do some high wire act. Thats not what we were there to do. Towards the middle you caught a bit of both, people would laugh when I laughed, so they were still hyper-aware, I would laugh at things that werent necessarily jokes and then the room would start laughing. But by the third day, nobody in the room was focused on me. Not one person was looking at me and I thought, Wow this has nothing to do with me and nothing to do with the movies. Because were watching a movie thats dubbed in Russian, none of us understand what the fuck this is about, it has to do with the fact that we all got through this and it became something else. You cant really articulate it and say Oh, it was for this it was for that. It was for the event that was created. And when we all got through it, it wasnt just an applaud for me
it was like this cool little pause in life where all of the hubbub and all of the Bzzzz of running around and the busy-ness and the phones shut down and everything got really intimate and quiet. For what reason? No one knows. We still dont fully know. But it created something that is bigger than all of us, all of the movies and all of the crowd. Its connection. We were all connected for that moment. More-so for this show, then any other show weve done.
Nostalgia of Even Stevens, newly formed.
Rönkkö: One of the most interesting parts of the show for me was Even Stevens, because thats not my childhood. I didnt know the show before meeting Shia, like two years ago. The room went crazy during that movie and just the atmosphere of the room made me so happy and feeling connected to everyone. Sometimes there were a few moments where I was like, Wait why am I laughing? This is not even funny, but it is because everyones laughing. I was nostalgic because everyone else was nostalgic. I was feeling the feelings with them and through them.
Turner: I was really emotional during that. I was feeling this kind of weird nostalgia for something that Id never seen before, because there was this nostalgia in the room, which had something to do with the tiredness of the people going in, you have no barrier.
LaBeouf: Theres no intellectual explanation for why when you yawn I yawn. Theres something magical that goes down. Im sure theres science but theres also something beyond the science.
Yeah, LaBeouf, there is some science to it. Mirror neurons.
"When the movies started getting shit...I'm in the same boat as you."
Turner: There was one point, I dont know if you noticed it, where the audience suddenly realized that you were in the same boat as them.
LaBeouf: I think it started after Lawless. When the movies started getting shit. Im telling you. When the movies started getting shit and they knew that I felt it too, it was the shared secret that we all had
not just because Im in it
Im in the same boat as you, Im a viewer in this and this is hard for me to watch too. In fact, Im gonna go take a nap cause I hate myself, not cause Im tired, but because Im dying right now. And nobody had a problem with that. When I woke up an hour later and watched Transformers 2 they could feel when I sunk in my seat. Thats not a performative thing. Thats me going through some kind of crisis. And Im not the only one. I remember right before I fell asleep I looked next to me and the guy next to me was falling asleep. You can see it on the screenshot were both asleep. And the guy behind us is asleep.
Rönkkö: I think its almost like synching of emotions. I did this performance where I was holding peoples hands and we couldnt see each other. And the people who stayed for a long time, our heartbeats synched. It was such a strange magical experience. If you hold someones hand for half an hour you will feel it, their pulse synchs. Slowly, but it does. Same thing happens with emotions.
LaBeouf: We were laughing at things that werent jokes onscreen.
Turner: Or the utter sexism of Dumb and Dumberer. Sexist, racist, homophobic, it was utterly deplorable.
LaBeouf: We were all feeling it. There wasnt one person in that movie who didnt feel it.
Turner: Except maybe this one guy who thought it was the funniest film ever. That was very strange.
The girls who ordered pizza, reminiscent of Shoe On Head, to see it delivered to Shia on-screen.
Verdin: ...One of the things that happened was these girls called and they were young and were like Were going to send a pizza! and to look out for it. The pizza shows up and I take it downstairs and put it in the break room. You were still on a film. And about 15 minutes later they call me and they say, Did you get the pizza? Did you give it to Shia? And I said, Yeah, I put it down in the break room. Ill definitely go down and let them know that you delivered a pizza when its over. And then they called me about ten minutes later, Can you actually just like bring the pizza down the aisle and like give it to him. And you could tell these girls, I dont know how old they were, it was like a medium pizza from Dominoes, but they were sitting around the phone, watching this live stream, just like all they wanted was to see you have the pizza. So I went there and I said to you, like, Hey man, these girls gave you the pizza.
LaBeouf: Pepperoni jalapeño. Amazing.
Verdin: I dont know if you realized this but there was a moment where you walked back in the theater and you sat down and you were finishing the piece of pizza. I dont know if you were consciously doing that
LaBeouf: No. I was just eating pizza.
Verdin: For me, I got chills, goosebumps, in that, because all I was thinking about was these girls, watching that live stream, knowing that they had just bought you that pizza. And now theyre connected to it too.
LaBeouf: Not just me, but that pizza went around the room. It was the first time I had really looked at people. I remember saying, Hey man, you want pizza? and they looked at me like, Holy shit. Yeah I want pizza. And they took the pizza and everybody started sharing pizza around the room and we were all sitting there eating pizza that these girls had ordered, we dont know nothing about the girls who ordered it, everyone was enjoying a meal together. There was a point where I remember eating the pizza and this guy in the back got the pizza and he was like, Fuck yeah! Pizza! Everybody giggled. It was humanizing for me.
"I think people hate me. That's just what goes on in my head. And all I want to do is be liked."
LaBeouf: It amplified it being in a small room like that. Everyone in that theater could throw popcorn at me. See I thought it was going to be
Turner: Really, you thought people were going to throw popcorn at you?
LaBeouf: Yeah, I always go into these things every timeand this is my self-hate at workwhat if they light my hair on fire? And Lukes like, Nobody is going to light your hair on fire. But this is a genuine fear of mine. I think people hate me. Thats just what goes on in my head. And all I want to do is be liked. Men, women, people dont really want a lot. A person to talk to, and not have problems with nobody, I think it gets really simple when you get to the bottom of it. For an actor, for a fireman, it dont matter, you just want to be liked. You dont even necessarily want to be liked or loved. You just dont want anyone to hate you. I walked out loving myself. Not in some grandiose, youre fucking awesome way, but in like, youre a part of a community. Youre a part of this human thing. Youre in this human thing. Ive always felt as though, Im just an animal in this human thing. And Ill play the human game. Ill wear the human mask. But coming out of there, its the first time Ive actually felt part of this it was very humanizing for me. I walked out loving myself. And I dont think I was the only one to feel that.
"Sincerity is the new punk rock."
Turner: When I first started talking to Shia and he said straight away, lets do something, lets collaborate, gallerist friends were like Stay away from this. Dont go near it. They were so closeminded, I was really surprised.
Rönkkö: The art world is closeminded.
LaBeouf: The world world is closeminded.
Rönkkö: Yes!
Turner: But that seemed like an elitist thing as well. Like, hes not an artist. Yeah you have this gallerist who gives off this air of the edgy, open-minded gallerist, but at the same time
Rönkkö: Theyre scared.
LaBeouf: The movie world is just as elitist. I get emails from people in the movie world, people telling me, You gotta maintain mystery.
but truth will always find its way out there. Sincerity is the new punk rock.