hurrengoa
ai ama    Who puts together Ai ama?

At first, we were a small group of friends but, now, I’d say that everyone who turns up at the parties takes part in Ai Ama. As some people have retired, we’ve recruited new people at a lot of parties.

How did you come to think of doing a website? Why did you start?

First it was the parties, then the web was because we needed to upload some photos.
At that time almost nobody used Facebook, and Fotolog didn’t let us upload more than one photo a day. Our project has been aimed at the Internet from the start.

And how did you come up with the name Ai ama (“Oh, Mother!”)?

Expressions like that are used in many languages to express amazement: Oh my god!, Madonna mia!, Nossa!… and we have our expression in Basque: Ai ama.

They’re live photos, close-up portraits... What type of cameras do you all use? How many cameras do you all have?

Any type of camera’s fine, the moment’s what matters. But flash is very important when we take photos. Overexposed photos are appropriate for publishing on the Internet. We haven’t lost any cameras, but one of us did lose all his teeth during a party at Eibar.

A party mood, happiness, a night out, vice, desire ... Photos are very suggestive things, (imagining how the subject of each photo finished the night). Do you have to drink or get doped to take photos?

When you take photos, the drunker the photographer is, the better the photos turn
out, that’s what I think, anyway. But all we ask of the people in the photos is to be shameless. I wouldn’t say they’re good parties for Straight Edge people, but there are all sorts at them. It’s a matter of losing your inhibitions, going out without having any preconceptions. After that, anyone who sees the parties from the outside, in the photos, is bound to say “Ai ama!”.

Do you sometimes use Ai ama as a strategy for getting off?

Not as a strategy, but there is a lot of getting off, and couples get formed too. You know what I mean by formed ... No doubt about it: our parties are the Basque Country’s sexual paradise. We are quite certain that preconceptions have to be left behind if you want to have a good time.

What’s the wildest party you’ve had so far?

At the first party, we showed a short film for the first time, and a few day’s later they
called us from the town hall because we’d shown lascivious images. But the wildest moments probably aren’t on camera. In fact, the photographers often disappear. For instance, at one party the lights went out and suddenly the hall was in darkness. Then we really did say “Ai ama...!”

And anything else?

Well really we’re a bit stuck right now, the website’s not up-to-date. We haven’t found
any interesting parties for quite a long time now; what we really want to do is renovate
our image and our website and that’s what we’re doing. We want to get right on to the new platforms: phones, tablets and other Internet platforms.