We, OccupyLA, agree that the legal state of affairs at many occupation
sites is unacceptable. Mass arrests are numbering in the thousands
across NYC, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Denver, San Diego, Long
Beach and many more cities.
The global occupy protest movement is proliferating by "contagion, epidemics, battlefields, and catastrophes".[1] Furthermore, it materialises and disperses in multiple ephemeral processes of transformation that construct a common for the multitude of protestors. The common produced by the global occupy movement is not a mutually shared opposition to the capitalist crisis, nor a collective identity (of the "indignados" or of the 99%), nor a consensual political project (for real, authentic democracy). The common does not even embody an identical strategy of occupying public space, but rather to a series of becomings that question established categorizations and taxonomies that normalize the production of subjectivities and the organisation of life.
ReadInternational public seminar on the new forms of protest and their media, hosted by De
Balie, centre for culture and politics in Amsterdam, on Friday September
30, 2011.
There is a last enterprise that might be undertaken. It would be to seek experience at its source, or rather, above that decisive turn where, taking a bias in the direction of our utility, it becomes properly human experience. (Bergson, 1991: 184).
ReadThere is a last enterprise that might be undertaken. It would be to seek
experience at its source, or rather, above that decisive turn where,
taking a bias in the direction of our utility, it becomes properly human
experience. (Bergson, 1991: 184).
October 2011.
The fight opposing financial dictatorship is erupting. The so-called 'financial markets' and their cynical services are destroying the very foundations of social civilization.
In March 1993, Kevin Carter took a photo of a starving Sudanese child crawling towards a UN relief camp less than a mile away. A few meters from the weary child stood a vulture, waiting for her death to begin his meal. Birds also must eat, and in southern Sudan they were eating because humans were not.
ReadNo borders = No nations? History of unification of the Europe is militant: Roman Empire > Napoleon's Empire > 3rd Reich. Economy is powerful weapon. Now this has all changed! Test yourself: Say at least three differences of the European Union with previous forms of European unification. Compare the results with your family, friends, neighbours and people you don't like. Than try it with the Migrant Navigator to see the difference!
Read"One formula [...] can be that of the mob: gullible, fickle, herdlike, low in taste and habit. [...] If [...] our purpsoe is manipulation - the persuasion of a large number of people to act, feel, think, known in certain ways - the convenient formula will be that of the masses". - Raymond Williams
ReadThe Furtherfield community utilizes networked media to create, explore,
nurture and promote the art that happens when connections are made and
knowledge is shared - across the boundaries of established art-world
institutions and their markets, grass-roots artistic and activist
projects and communities of socially-engaged software developers. This
is a spectrum that engages from the maverick media-art-makers and small
collectives of cross-specialist practitioners, to projects that critique
and change dominant hierarchical structures as part of their art
process.
This text will provide a brief background as to how Furtherfield, a
non-profit organization and community, came about and how it extends the
DIY ethos of some early net art and tactical media, said to be
motivated by curiosity, activism and precision, [01] towards a more
collaborative approach that Furtherfield calls Do It With Others (DIWO).
An Interview with John Jordan and Gavin Grindon
Furtherfield interview with Gavin Grindon and John Jordan from the
Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination about the User's Guide to
(Demanding) the Impossible. Published by Minor Compositions.
"Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is
an idea [?] and ideas are bulletproof."
- From the film V for Vendetta
We are ordinary people. We are like you: people, who get up every
morning to study, work or find a job, people who have family and
friends. People, who work hard every day to provide a better future for
those around us.
Some of us consider ourselves progressive, others conservative. Some of
us are believers, some not. Some of us have clearly defined ideologies,
others are apolitical, but we are all concerned and angry about the
political, economic, and social outlook which we see around us:
corruption among politicians, businessmen, bankers, leaving us helpless,
without a voice.
This situation has become normal, a daily suffering, without hope. But
if we join forces, we can change it. It's time to change things, time to
build a better society together.
How do I get started?
How does this work?
How can I become an excellent actor?
Can I get in trouble for this stuff?
Can I at lest be fined?
How do I videotape?
How can I go to a conference?
How can I speak at a conference?
How can I make a fake newspaper?
How can I hijack a Twitter backchannel?
Motivated by the theories of Richard Stallman, Lawrence Lessig, Geert Lovink and David Garcia, Brazilian Internet users, activists and artists are, more and more, developing attractive activism and tactical media projects.
ReadTactical media are the field being worked by artists adopting a positive attitude towards contemporary digital technology, in a critical, innovative spirit. Media artists reveal a preoccupation with aesthetics as a concept, not with a particular style. This trend is part of the creation of a new language for the communications network era, a user language which is successful as art because it transmits an effective activism. Media activists are a hybrid of artist, scientist, theoretician and political activist that shuns labels and categorizations. Their creations are characterised by integration of user and machine in the work itself, so that interactivity has an important place within it. The concept of tactical media allows Art with a capital and grassroots political activism to be combined and, in this sense, we could include in it the tactical struggle that is part of anti-globalisation movements. Media activists point to the power of tactics as a means of breaking down the barriers between mainstream values and alternative ones, between professionals and amateurs and even between people who are creative and those that are not.
ReadInterventions in Engineering Cultures
The most significant underwriter of engineering research in the United
States is the Department of Defense, largely acting through the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA exists to channel funds
from the military to academic and corporate research labs in exchange
for technological innovations that serve the needs of its clients - the
Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. As DARPA public relations officers
are fond of pointing out, innovations funded by DARPA grants may also
find expression in civilian applications, particularly in the
communications and aerospace industries.
Filmmaker and activist Gregg Bordowitz's passage through the
1980s mirrors the course of AIDS activism in that decade. From the very
first ACT up demonstration in New York to the triumphal storming of the
FDA headquarters outside Washington, DC, he deployed his art in the
battle against AIDS. Bordowitz leads off this two-issue series of
personal chronicles of the decade, recounting his experiences as an
activist and guerrilla filmmaker at the forefront of the fight.
"Art
does have the power to save lives, and it is this very power that must
be recognized, fostered, and supported in every way possible."
- Douglas Crimp, introduction to AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism (MIT Press, 1988)
Protest Signs, Graffiti, and Street Art - a special issue of Shahadat
This issue takes as its focus the popular literature of the Egyptian
Revolution. Drawing on protest signs, graffiti, and street art in Tahrir
to read the culture of resistance particular to the Egyptian
Revolution, the curators examine how protesters changed the political
narrative through the use of images, memorials, and expressions of daily
life. Featuring examples from an extensive gallery of online images
culled from the collections of several prominent Egyptian journalists
and activists, the online piece is a visual tour of some of the creative
production of Egypt's Revolution. A collaborative curation project
split between New York City and Cairo, this is ArteEast's first critical
look at the cultural production related to recent political
developments in the Middle East.
- Co-curators, Rayya El Zein & Alex Ortiz.