Search results for 'politics'

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Facial Weaponization Suite (2011 - 2014) 

Facial Weaponization Suite protests against biometric facial recognition–and the inequalities these technologies propagate–by making "collective masks" in community-based workshops that are modeled from the aggregated facial data of participants, resulting in amorphous masks that cannot be detected as human faces by biometric facial recognition technologies.

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CHANCE 2000: Vote yourself! Just do it! 

Germany 1998: 2 years before the New Millenium a new form of Political Party came into existence: CHANCE 2000 - The Party of the Last Chance. In the midst of an election that was one of the most important in postfascist Germany an artist jumped into the political arena to "make politics more aesthetic and aesthetics more political". The film- and theatremaker and talk show host Christoph Schlingensief started the Campagne: "VOTE YOURSELF!" In Berlin he started the project with an "Election Circus". Together with a famous circus-family from former East Germany and with his crew of actors and his family of handicapped performers he founded "CHANCE 2000 - Party of the Last Chance" in a circus tent in Berlin/ Prenzlauer Berg. The message for the Republic was: "Vote Yourself, we know how to do it!" Every citizen was asked to become an independent candidate for the new Bundestag. Manuals were sent out how to become a direct candidate. And many different people realized their chance to "prove that they exist" by bringing their name on the ballot sheet: "Chance Meier", "Chance Mueller", "Chance Schmidt". If you managed to collect 200 signatures of support in your political region you were part of the game and you could vote yourself. Why not voting somebody you know by heart, you trust and love?

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The Concept of Tactical Media 

Tactical Media emerged when the modest goals of media artists and media activists were transformed into a movement that challenged everyone to produce their own media in support of their own political struggles. This "new media" activism was based on the insight that the long-held distinction between the 'street' (reality) and the 'media' (representation) could no longer be upheld. On the contrary, the media had come to infuse all of society.

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Publication: Legacies of Tactical Media - The Tactics of Occupation: From Tompkins Square to Tahrir. 

Out now and available for download:
INC Network Notebooks 05 - Legacies of Tactical Media
Tactical Media employ the 'tactics of the weak' to operate on the terrain of strategic power by means of 'any media necessary'. Once the rather exclusive practice of politically engaged artists and activists, the tactical appropriations of media tools and distribution infrastructures by the disenfranchised and the disgruntled have moved from the margins to centre stage.

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Interfund report 

Subject: [Interfund] - Create Your Own Solutions
Date: 03.12.98, 21:54:24

Interfund meeting  {AT}  Xchange Unlimited, Riga November 29, 1998.

During the Xchange Unlimited Baltic New Media Culture Festival in Riga a meeting was held to discuss the creation of the Interfund. The participants were Diana McCarty, Rasa Smite, Manu Luksch, Pit Schultz, Eric Kluitenberg, and others.

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    Notes on the Future of Activism 

    Contemporary activism begins from the realization that for the first time in history, a synergy of catastrophes face us. Our physical environment is dying, our financial markets are collapsing and our culture, fed on a diet of junk thought, is atrophying -- unable to muster the intellectual courage to face our predicament.

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    Art and the Paradoxical Citizen 

    To the Arts, Citizens: it's a fantastic title. Hearing it, anyone who's been involved in political activism will probably think: "At last we're getting somewhere." The idea that art is part of citizenship, that there is a democratic exercise of the arts within the framework of public life, and that this appeal to the citizen-artist can be supported by a major cultural institution, is about as progressive as you could get today. Especially since this is a direct echo of the French republican tradition, where the phrase, Aux armes citoyens, is nothing less than a call to rise up and institute democracy against tyranny ? in other words, a call to revolution. The Portuguese know the meaning of this revolutionary call to arms from decisive historical events that are still in living memory. So one can imagine that the organizers of this exhibition did not take their title lightly.

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    The Logos Fight back 

    The culture jammers tried to subvert the big brand names. But the smart advertisers now use guerrilla tactics themselves, according to James Harkin

    In a recent newspaper interview, Kalle Lasn was interrogated about Adbusters, the Canadian anti-advertising magazine that he founded.


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    1st ArtLeaks Working Assembly 2012 

    ArtLeaks invites you to a public working assembly around the issues that are at the core of the group's mission - exposing instances of abuse, corruption and exploitation in the art world. This is the official public launch of our platform, which began to operate in September 2011, and will be followed by a series of debates and workshops in the near future. These present a unique opportunity to engage more directly with conditions of cultural work that affect not only artists but creative workers in general: those from the traditionally creative fields as well as those generally involved in cultural production.

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    Art is not "Bioterrorism' 

    A live benefit concert and performance event with Snowcrash (.nl), The Yesmen and Critical Art Ensemble in support of artist Steven Kurtz and scientist Robert Ferrell, both threatened by an unjustifiable prosecution for "bioterrorism".

    Presented in collaboration with:
    Transmediale Festival, Berlin
    & The Arts Catalyst, London

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    Debates & Credits 

    Media Art in the Public Domain

    Debates & Credits was a Russian / Dutch art and media project which has invited four artists and artist collectives from Russia and four from The Netherlands to develop interventionist (media-) art works for the public space.

    The project happened in three stages:
    Amsterdam, September 11 - 22
    Yekaterinburg, September 26 - 29
    Moscow, October 7 - 13

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