TEMPORARY SERVICES

The bright start and untimely death of innovative young arts administrator Ben Schaafsma

By Laura Pearson

December 11, 2008

When Ben Schaafsma applied for a job in New York last year, his thesis adviser at the School of the Art Institute’s arts administration department was reluctant to write him a reference letter. It wasn’t that Schaafsma, then a 25-year-old grad student, wasn’t qualified for the position, overseeing the studio program at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. In fact, he was an ideal candidate. But the adviser, Brett Bloom, felt his departure would be a huge loss for the Chicago arts community. This is where “the best independent thinking and practice is quietly being done,” Bloom says, and Schaafsma had already—quietly, collaboratively—made an impact with ideas like InCUBATE (Institute for Community Understanding Between Art and the Everyday), a project space and research center in Logan Square. He’d established an innovative grant-giving program with money raised from the sale of homemade soup, served as public art curator for the 2007 Around the Coyote Fall Festival, and published articles about arts funding for small journals—all while still earning his MA.

But Bloom ultimately wrote him a glowing reference, and late last summer Schaafsma moved to Brooklyn. On October 23 he was struck by a cab while walking to his apartment. After two days in a coma, he died.

THE ARTICLE ABOUT BEN CONTINUES HERE: http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/ben_schaafsma/

TS's good friend Matt Bua sent us this call for folks to submit drawings to be a part of an exhibition he is in at Mass Moca in the near future. Matt has a piece of land in the Catskill mountains and is populating it with really interesting, small structures made of scrap. The image above is of a sauna.

Here is the call:

Call For Submissions: Visionary Drawings
We would like you to submit a drawing that reflects one of a number of categories to be collected under the theme, Visionary Drawings. The collection will be compiled into a book format that will be presented in an upcoming museum exhibition. Drawings can be made in any medium, and should convey a dwelling/structure/architectural concept. The attached document includes details about the required submission information.

Deadline
January 15, 2009.

Exhibition
Visionary Architecture will concentrate on un-built (impossible or speculative) structures that exist on paper. This project begins with an invitation to a wide range of participants, including artist, designers and architects of renown, as well as those presenting ideas for the first time. The book will reveal an array of works that convey alternatives, byproducts, expansions or critiques of one's environment. The book will be presented in conjunction with the exhibition, Cribs to Cribbage, which will begin at Mass MOCA in March 2009 and expand throughout the year. The book, together with the exhibition, will highlight many visions that exist outside of established channels of production, and conventions of design.

Contact
Email m49@earthlink.net with inquiries and submissions. Subject: Visionary Drawing

http://bhomepark.blogspot.com/

Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn - former Weather Underground members - are heroes to many for their militant resistance to US imperialism in the 1960s! During the recent presidential campaign, Ayers was used by the far right wing to try and reignite the culture wars that brought the shittiest, stupidest, most ideologically blind president to power for 8 abysmal years. It didn't work! Ayers and Dohrn, to their credit, refused to speak to the press during the campaign because their activities had been so grossly mischaracterized, distorted, and turned into out right lies, and a battle cry for hateful right wing lunatics. They broke their silence and appeared on Democracy Now on Friday, November 14th. The interview is fantastic as they confront the lies, distortions, and show that they are still brave, and fiercely passionate about confronting American imperialism in all its forms. Check this one out!

Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn on Democracy Now

http://www.letsremake.info/publications.html


http://www.justseeds.org/nicolas_lampert/03ifvoting.html

I have received various versions of the text below, via email, from Ken Knabb - Bureau of Pubic Secrets and publisher of the Situationist Anthology - several times over the past years and it still resonates deeply for me on each reading. Real change is not going to come in this country from voting - a token of participation in a system that excludes you on every other day for four years. When you vote, you not only dis-empower yourself - giving your freedom to someone else to administrate on your behalf and to violently control you if you don't behave properly - you also dis-empower me and others around you. It is incredible that so many people are rounded up, and hand over their freedom in a single act, abdicating responsibility for themselves and the world around them.

Voting is not a right or privilege; it is a way to control.

Representation is a form of abstraction and violence.

Change will only come when we make politics a daily affair and something everyone is empowered to do, de-professionalize the decision making that effects us most, and dismantle the massive, abusive power structure that is the rancid melting pot of lobbyists, corporate interest, think tanks, PACs, politicians, an upper class with access to power, and the entire rotting governmental structure we call democracy.

Yes, this won't happen because of my post, but I guarantee it is even further away when you go and vote.

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THE LIMITS OF ELECTORAL POLITICS
Roughly speaking we can distinguish five degrees of "government":

(1) Unrestricted freedom
(2) Direct democracy
(3) Delegate democracy
(4) Representative democracy
(5) Overt minority dictatorship

The present society oscillates between (4) and (5), i.e. between overt minority rule and covert minority rule camouflaged by a facade of token democracy. A liberated society would eliminate (4) and (5) and would progressively reduce the need for (2) and (3). . .

In representative democracy people abdicate their power to elected officials. The candidates' stated policies are limited to a few vague generalities, and once they are elected there is little control over their actual decisions on hundreds of issues – apart from the feeble threat of changing one's vote, a few years later, to some equally uncontrollable rival politician. Representatives are dependent on the wealthy for bribes and campaign contributions; they are subordinate to the owners of the mass media, who decide which issues get the publicity; and they are almost as ignorant and powerless as the general public regarding many important matters that are determined by unelected bureaucrats and independent secret agencies. Overt dictators may sometimes be overthrown, but the real rulers in "democratic" regimes, the tiny minority who own or control virtually everything, are never voted in and never voted out. Most people don't even know who they are. . .

In itself, voting is of no great significance one way or the other (those who make a big deal about refusing to vote are only revealing their own fetishism). The problem is that it tends to lull people into relying on others to act for them, distracting them from more significant possibilities. A few people who take some creative initiative (think of the first civil rights sit-ins) may ultimately have a far greater effect than if they had put their energy into campaigning for lesser-evil politicians. At best, legislators rarely do more than what they have been forced to do by popular movements. A conservative regime under pressure from independent radical movements often concedes more than a liberal regime that knows it can count on radical support. (The Vietnam war, for example, was not ended by electing antiwar politicians, but because there was so much pressure from so many different directions that the prowar president Nixon was forced to withdraw.) If people invariably rally to lesser evils, all the rulers have to do in any situation that threatens their power is to conjure up a threat of some greater evil.

Even in the rare case when a "radical" politician has a realistic chance of winning an election, all the tedious campaign efforts of thousands of people may go down the drain in one day because of some trivial scandal discovered in his (or her) personal life, or because he inadvertently says something intelligent. If he manages to avoid these pitfalls and it looks like he might win, he tends to evade controversial issues for fear of antagonizing swing voters. If he actually gets elected he is almost never in a position to implement the reforms he has promised, except perhaps after years of wheeling and dealing with his new colleagues; which gives him a good excuse to see his first priority as making whatever compromises are necessary to keep himself in office indefinitely. Hobnobbing with the rich and powerful, he develops new interests and new tastes, which he justifies by telling himself that he deserves a few perks after all his years of working for good causes. Worst of all, if he does eventually manage to get a few "progressive" measures passed, this exceptional and usually trivial success is held up as evidence of the value of relying on electoral politics, luring many more people into wasting their energy on similar campaigns to come.

As one of the May 1968 graffiti put it, "It's painful to submit to our bosses; it's even more stupid to choose them!"

[Excerpts from Ken Knabb's The Joy of Revolution]

SOME CLARIFICATIONS
My intention in circulating these observations is not to discourage you from voting or campaigning, but to encourage you to go further.

Like many other people, I am delighted to see the Republicans collapsing into well-deserved ignominy, with the likelihood of the Democrats recapturing the presidency and increasing their majorities in Congress. Hopefully the latter will discontinue or at least mitigate some of the more insane policies of the current administration (some of which, such as climate change and ecological devastation, threaten to become irreversible).

Beyond that, I do not expect the Democratic politicians to accomplish anything very significant. Most of them are just as corrupt and compromised as the Republicans. Even if a few of them are honest and well-intentioned, they are all loyal servants of the ruling economic system, and they all ultimately function as cogwheels in the murderous political machine that serves to defend that system.

I have considerable respect and sympathy for the people who are campaigning for the Democratic Party while simultaneously trying to reinvigorate it and democratize it. There are elements of a real grassroots movement there, developing in tandem with the remarkable growth of the liberal-radical blogosphere over the last few years.

But imagine if that same immense amount of energy on the part of millions of people was put into more directly radical agitation, rather than (or in addition to) campaigning for rival millionaires. As a side effect, such agitation would put the reactionaries on the defensive and actually result in more "progressives" being elected. But more importantly, it would shift both the momentum and the terrain of the struggle.

If you put all your energy into trying to reassure swing voters that your candidate is "fully committed to fighting the War on Terror" but that he has regretfully concluded that we should withdraw from Iraq because "our efforts to promote democracy" there haven't been working, you may win a few votes but you have accomplished nothing in the way of political awareness.

In contrast, if you convince people that the war in Iraq is both evil and stupid, they will not only tend to vote for antiwar candidates, they are likely to start questioning other aspects of the social system. Which may lead to them to challenge that system in more concrete and participatory ways.

(If you want some examples, look at the rich variety of tactics used in France two years ago.)

The side that takes the initiative usually wins because it defines the terms of the struggle. If we accept the system's own terms and confine ourselves to defensively reacting to each new mess produced by it, we will never overcome it. We have to keep resisting particular evils, but we also have to recognize that the system will keep generating new evils until we put an end to it.

By all means vote if you feel like it. But don't stop there. Real social change requires participation, not representation.

BUREAU OF PUBLIC SECRETS
October 2008

The first part of this text was widely emailed and posted during the American elections of 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008. The “Clarifications” were added in the 2006 mailing and slightly updated for the 2008 mailing.

No copyright.

Karl Rove is an enemy of democracy, equality, and the truth. Karl Rove deserves to rot in jail for the amount of damage he has done to our country, the war he helped start in Iraq, the presidency of the stupidest and most destructive man ever to take up residence in the White House, the miserable hateful campaigns he masterminded, and in general for being the worst piece of shit human one can imagine. Karl Rove should be harassed mercilessly every time he tries to open his mouth in public, on tv, and in print. He should not receive opportunities to speak publicly nor reinvent himself as a "political commentator." He lies at every opportunity he gets.

Brave activists from Codepink tried to arrest the scumball in San Francisco.



Reposted from Alternet:

Karl Rove slapped away a woman who tried to place him under citizen's arrest during an event in San Francisco, CA. The following is a press release from CODEPINK, who organized the bold act of civil obedience.

When Karl Rove took the stage at the Mortgage Bankers Association annual convention at the Moscone Center in San Francisco today, CODEPINK women in the audience staged a citizen's arrest of the former Bush Administration chief of staff, under California Code 837. This action follows on the heels of yesterday's appearance on stage of Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK, who disrupted the convention to ask for a moratorium on foreclosures.

Janine Boneparth, 58, of Ross, CA, walked on the stage with handcuffs and placed a cuff on Rove's wrist before he yanked it away, while stating, "I have to make a citizens arrest. You are under arrest for treason."

At the same moment, Nancy Mancias, 38, of San Francisco, CA, held a banner in front of the stage that read, "Rove (hearts) torture, treason and fraud!" "Ladies and gentlemen, Karl Rove is not fit to address you today," Mancias said. "Karl Rove was involved in lying to the American people about the Iraq war."

The moderator responded by asking Sen. Mitchell and Rove, with a chuckle, who will win the World Series. After Rove talked about who in Congress is responsible for the economic crisis and who people should believe, Rae Abileah, 25, of Half Moon Bay, stood up. "Karl Rove, how can we believe you when you lied to get us into the war in Iraq?" Abileah said. "You are under arrest for contempt of Congress." Abileah held up a banner that read: "ARREST ROVE/ Lying about War/ Outing C.I.A. Agent/ Contempt of Congress/ Supporting Torture." Three security men tackled her and clasped their hands over her face. She broke free and repeated, "Rove is under arrest for treason."

A few minutes later, when Rove was talking about the war, Keiko Schnelle, 21, of Albany, and Blaine Clarke, 28, of San Francisco, stood up with a banner that said "Rove = War Criminal." "Karl Rove is the one misleading the American people," Clarke shouted. "Karl Rove is a war criminal. Arrest Karl Rove!"

Security then pushed Clarke to the ground and dragged her out along with Schnelle. All five CODEPINK women were escorted out of the building by police without charges. They asked police to assist with the future citizens arrest of Karl Rove.

COPENHAGEN





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TAIPEI



A WORLD WHERE MANY WORLDS FIT

A section on the counter-globalisation movement for the Taipei Biennial 2008

Curated by Oliver Ressler

The trope “A World Where Many Worlds Fit” goes back to the Subcomandante Marcos, when talking about the Zapatistas’ struggles in the Lacandonian Rainforest in Mexico. Since their uprising in 1994 the Zapatistas have been fighting for a less-hierarchical, autonomous world with more options to offer in democratic decision-making processes. They fight against an existing world, which calls itself “democratic”, but should rather be seen as a form of sophisticated oligarchy that functions especially in favour of the interests of the political and economic elites. In other parts of the world the stick that punishes people who envision another world is usually not so visible. But, this can change suddenly when those in power assemble in the framework of the summits of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organization (WTO), World Economic Forum (WEF), or the G8. Though the decisions made by politicians and business leaders at such meetings affect the lives of all people in the world, the negotiations take place hidden from the public gaze, behind fences and under massive security with the protection of thousands of riot-police. These gatherings have become a symbol for the undemocratic and illegitimate formation of global capitalism.

At each of these summits individual and collective singularities from all over the world come together in order to express their opposition to the way global decisions are taken and realised. These mobilisations of attendance at summit meetings are the movements’ most visible public appearances. According to most narratives, the action taken against the WTO in Seattle in 1999 launched the birthplace of the new movement. The events at Seattle articulated a form of resistance and protest of the centres of capitalism that proved strong enough to shut down the WTO summit there. Since 1999 this global movement has shown up at each meeting of World Bank, IMF, WTO and WEF – unless the scared politicians decide to meet in the mountains, in deserts, or in dictatorships in order to avoid publicly shown dissent at their summits, which were originally introduced for publicity purposes. Even though this movement is the first that is truly globalised, it is usually described as a counter-globalisation movement. It can actually be called the “movement of the movements”.

At the demonstrations, counter-summits and mass blockades many individuals and collectives come together: media activists, clown army, pink block, naked block, black block, anarchists, socialists, Trotskyists, members of ATTAC, human rights activists, feminists, migrants, indigenous people, artists, etc. Many activists switch between these identities. All these singularities have their own images, banners, different public appearance and slogans, that do not only represent something, but contribute to the creation of effective blockades and to the creation of a space. This space is both one of representation, as well as a space for action that in the best cases also spreads to other areas such as the local neighbourhoods of the activists. This new social subject, sometimes referred to as the “multitude”, builds horizontally organised networks and has a radial transformation of society in mind.

“A World Where Many Worlds Fit” attempts to present a global movement as an example of collective intelligence through a variety of artistic practices, and wants to function as “a space for thinking”. The 12 artists involved in the project demonstrate a strong commitment to social movements and do not position themselves as “neutral” in relation to them. Many of the included works focus on the cities that have now become known for past demonstrations, counter-summits and/or blockades and are used as shorthand descriptions for these events: Seattle, Prague, Salzburg, Genoa, Buenos Aires, Gleneagles, St. Petersburg or Heiligendamm. The exhibition can be seen as a kind of course, which addresses important steps of the movement of the movements.

Whether or not this globalisation of resistance will be successful in the future will depend on whether upcoming summits can be mobilised to show our dissent to the world and our desire to create other worlds. As Tadzio Mueller eloquently outlines*, it will be essential for the global movement to develop a critical and convincing anti-capitalist strategy to fight climate change, as this is a central issue of world-wide importance that the G8 exploit to legitimise their meetings in the public, and that “asks the question of property and class struggle” and “talks about collective social transformation”. If we manage to bring such an agenda into public debate, the movement of the movements will probably also play an important role in the political landscape in the ten years after the upcoming G8 summit in Maddalena in Italy.


*In: “What Would It Mean to Win?”, A film by Zanny Begg and Oliver Ressler, 40 min., 2008

Artist’s works in the exhibition:

CHRISTOPHER DELAURENTI (USA)
Four Protest Symphonies

An audio track by Seattle-based composer, improvisor, and phonographer Christopher DeLaurenti permeates the exhibition. “Four Protest Symphonies” is a series of front-line recordings made at various actions, including the World Trade Organization protest in Seattle in 1999. Spattered by pepper spray, enshrouded in tear gas and pelted with rubber bullets, Delaurenti was engulfed in a maelstrom of drums, slogans, chants, screaming and violence. These are cemented with combative field recordings of the various protests, art actions, police transmissions, National Oceanic And Atmospheric (NOAA) weather alerts, radio broadcast anomalies (splashes and sprays of tape hiss, enigmatic numbers glossolalia, crude phase encoding), and wild card audio snatched from the airwaves to compose a vivid sound-scape of dissent.


NOEL DOUGLAS (GB)
Whose World? Our World, 2008

The artist, designer and activist Noel Douglas presents an installation based on graphic material that he has produced over the last seven years as part of his involvement with different social movements. The banners, posters, t-shirts, books and magazines included in the installation have been used and disseminated during many recent anti-capitalist and anti-war protests. In “A World Where Many Worlds Fit”, Douglas arranges these objects in a nine-metre long vitrine. Displayed on a panel in the vitrine are numerous spreads from books and magazines promoting and popularising the ideas of the movement. Alongside these are laid out the popular “Regime Change Begins at Home” playing cards, which satirise the playing cards handed out to troops by the US military in Iraq. On the floor of the vitrine thousands of “Capitalism Means War” dollar bills are spread out, these were handed out during the major demonstrations against the impending War in Iraq held on February 15th, 2003. On the glass window, a vinyl tape with the text “Ceci N’est Pas Le Capitalisme” (This is not Capitalism) frames the work. This tape was used at demonstrations across Europe and the US as a temporary street “line” to hang posters from. Shown here hung on the walls, these posters called for demonstrations against the G8 and instead for participation in the European Social Forum. There are also those that simply visualise the problems of capitalism using a more direct agit-prop approach with many proclaiming one of the central slogans of the movement, “Another World Is Possible”.


ETCÉTERA (ARG)
To eat, to create, 2008

The Argentinean artist/activist collective Etcétera presents documentation of their Buenos Aires based street actions in an installation that includes information about the original local context and situation. Since late 1997 Etcétera has implemented a poetic, absurd and surreal artistic practice into street actions that take a crack at important issues such as social injustice and human rights agendas. Their work became even more pertinent in the midst of the enormous economic crisis that peaked in 2001 and that sent Argentina spiralling down to levels of emergency and starvation. Etcétera's actions, like many enacted in the public space, are ephemeral and circumstantial. They re-imagine the activity of the street as a performance in a specific space and a specific time. As a result of the dissemination their amazingly humorous and bitter sparks of activism into cultural institutions, artistic circuits and the web through videos, cartoons, pamphlets and manifestos, Etcétera have inspired numerous kindred spirits and related projects.


PETRA GERSCHNER (GER)
History is a work in process, 2007/2008

Petra Gerschner produced a photo-documentation of the activities made against the G8 summit held in Heiligendamm. She celebrates the work of activists, who aim to become the subjects of their own history, by literally illuminating them in the form of a light-box with a precise selection of four photos. “Join the Winning side – Smash Capitalism”, reads a light-installation on a truck in one of the images. This slogan represents the approach of the global movement to not only comment on social conditions, but to also actively change them. The work attempts to transpose the energy and enthusiasm of the activists and hints at the possibility that with collective experience and action, resistance is feasible and can be successful. At the same time Gerschner raises questions about the visual representation of the movement of the movements in the collective global consciousness.

In a second work, a digital print from the series “What does memory mean to you?” (2001/2006), Petra Gerschner lays bare the demonstrative power of state forces by confronting political advertising and slogans with pin-ups, which all came together in the public space during the protests against the World Economic Forum in Salzburg.


JOHN JORDAN (GB)
The Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army: Operation “HA HA HA”

One of the works in the exhibition that ventures beyond a documentation of the activities of the “movement of the movements” is by the British artist/activist John Jordan whose practice merges art and social engagement, and favours transformative actions over representation. He is one of a number of artists who consider themselves part of the “movement of the movements” and intervenes wherever and whenever possible. Jordan's installation consists of documentation from the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army’s operation “HA HA HA”, which took place during the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland in July 2005. The central element of the installation is a large canvas map that shows the area around the G8 summit, which was used by activists for organising protests. Two video monitors are placed on opposite corners of the map, with pink ribbon connecting them to locations on the map where the activist's events occurred. One short film shows a performance of police and clowns competing in a strange game together, and the second documents clowns magically breaking through a line of riot policemen and occupying a road.


ZANNY BEGG (AU) & OLIVER RESSLER (A)
Timeline Piece, 2008
This is what democracy looks like!, 2002

A timeline of the global movement, spanning from the momentous actions against the World Trade Organization Conference in Seattle in 1999, up until today, is layed out by Zanny Begg in a 12 metre long wall drawing. It is a kind of framework for “A World Where Many Worlds Fit”, that not only sets up a relationship between the various works, but also tells its own stories. Embedded in Zanny Begg’s huge timeline is Oliver Ressler's video “This is what democracy looks like!”. The video presents the events of July 1, 2001, which took place surrounding a demonstration against the World Economic Forum in Salzburg in Austria, where 919 demonstrators were encircled by the police and detained for more than seven hours. In the video the demonstrators take the role of active spokespersons and describe what was happening from their own individual perspectives.

What Would It Mean To Win?, 2008
This film, a collaboration by Zanny Begg & Oliver Ressler, was made on the blockades of the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany in June 2007 and focuses on the current state of the movement of the movements. Combining documentary footage, interviews, and animation sequences, the work is structured around three questions pertinent to the movement: “Who are we?” “What is our power?” and “What would it mean to win?” The protests in Heiligendamm seemed to re-assert the confidence, inventiveness and creativity of the movement of the movements. In particular the five finger tactic – where protesters spread out across the fields of Rostock in order to slip around police lines – proved successful in establishing blockades on all roads leading into Heiligendamm. Staff working for the G8 summit were forced to enter and leave the meeting by helicopter or boat thus providing a symbolic victory to the movement.


RTMARK (USA)
The Archimedes Project, 2001

The objects and photographs of the “anti-corporate corporation” RTMark chronicle the corporation's commitment to direct intervention. For the protests during the G8 summit in Genoa, RTMark produced pink, blue, black and purple mirrors that were distributed to a thousand activists. The mirrors focused and reflected sunlight at police helicopters and other aggressive assault vehicles, as well as into the eyes of attacking police. The work is titled “The Archimedes Project”, after the ancient Greek mathematician who reputedly used several large mirrors to focus the glare of the sun at invading Roman ships, burning them to a crisp and thus saving the city of Syracuse in what is now Sicily, Italy. The Italian press hilariously characterised these mirrors as weapons and included them amongst the police's other official weapon classifications, which included cell phones and Swiss army knives.


ALLAN SEKULA (USA)
Waiting for Teargas, 1999

Allan Sekula's slide installation “Waiting for Teargas” was produced from the photographs he had taken during the protests against the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference that took place in Seattle in 1999. Sekula’s concept was, in his words, “to move with the flow of protest, from dawn to 3 a.m. If need be, taking in the lulls, the waiting and the margins of events. The rule of thumb for this sort of anti-photojournalism: no flash, no telephoto zoom lens, no gas mask, no auto-focus, no press pass and no pressure, to grab at all costs, the one defining image of dramatic violence... The alliance on the streets was indeed stranger... varied and inspired... There were moments of civic solemnity, of urban anxiety, and of carnival. Something very simple is missed by descriptions of this as a movement founded in cyberspace: the human body asserts itself in the city streets, against the abstraction of global capital. There was a strong feminist dimension to this testimony, and there was also a dimension grounded in the experience of work...”


GREGORY SHOLETTE (USA)
WTO Action Collectible, 1999

Gregory Sholette’s “WTO Action Collectible” comprises a “commemorative” action figure and an accompanying poster that refer to the police tactics that labelled unarmed protesters as violence-prone during the now legendary Seattle World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in 1999. Sholette's plastic figure – which comes equipped with interchangeable “action arms” that are useful for deflecting tear gas grenades and an authentic “radical” mascot carrying a Molotov Cocktail – also makes reference to the long, if little known history of militant political resistance in the United States: from the great rail strikes of the late 19th century to the National Student Strike and mass demonstrations of May 1970 that followed the shooting deaths of anti-Vietnam war
protesters by National Guardsmen at both Kent and Jackson State Universities.


NURIA VILA & MARCELO EXPÓSITO (ESP)
Tactical Frivolity + Rhythms of Resistance, 2007

This video focuses on various forms of protest that occur across the European continent. It brings into play femininity, and blurs gender-expectations. As a work about a particular moment of joy and expectation at the global movement's early days, “Tactical Frivolity + Rhythms of Resistance” questions the social order through unanticipated role reversals and confuses the response of the media and the police to label such forms of protest as violent. As the artists write, “Tactical frivolity sought to undo classical anarchists vs. police, one-to-one confrontational tactics, by multiplying front-lines and making an extremely ironic use of femininity and kitschy representations of the body in direct action. Music and dance provided this radical redefinition of street protest not only with a powerful tool to practically dissolve or détour police violence, but also with the strongest possible image (and soundtrack) to realise how street demonstrations can become the unleashing of the body’s desires in the moment of protest itself”. The work demonstrates that resistance can result in a lot of creativity and fun, which is important to draw in larger crowds who are not necessarily active and who normally see activism as a sour and professional exercise of a singular political inclination.


DMITRY VILENSKY (RUS)
Protest Match – Kirov Stadium, 2006

In his video “Protest Match – Kirov Stadium” Dmitry Vilensky focuses on the heavy security tactics enforced upon the Russian Social Forum that ran parallel to the G8 Summit in Saint Petersburg in 2006. These tactics included the detainment of former delegates long before their arrival in the city; coercion of print-shop owners to not print pamphlets, blackmailing and arrests. The video reviews the situation at the Russian Social Forum in the Kirov Stadium, the space that was offered by the authorities. A series of interviews with Russian political activists discuss this particular event, where it was impossible to demonstrate and where even participation in the forum became a perilous pursuit.

On September 12, 2008, between 2 and 4 pm a round-table discussion with participating artists will take place in the framework of the Taipei Biennial: With Zanny Begg, Noel Douglas, Petra Gerschner, Oliver Ressler, Dmitry Vilensky and Federico Zukerfeld & Loreto Garin Guzman from Etcétera.

The 6th Taipei Biennial is curated by Manray Hsu and Vasif Kortun.
Organizing institution is the Taipei Museum of Fine Arts.
Dates: 13 September 2008 - 4 January 2009
Press preview: 11/12 September 2008
http://www.taipeibiennial.org

Please join us at a party to celebrate the conclusion of Haha's 20 years as an art making collective and the release of our book:

With Love From Haha: Essays and Notes on a Collective Art Practice

Published by WhiteWalls Press and distributed by The University of Chicago Press
with essays by Doug Ashford, Brett Bloom, Mary Ceruti, Margaret Crawford, Franco La Cecla, Dan Wang, and the original members of Haha: Richard House, Wendy Jacob, Laurie Palmer, and John Ploof

Friday, September 19, 6—9 pm

Jane Addams Hull-House
Residents' Dining Hall
800 S. Halsted St.
Chicago, IL 60607
312.413.5353

pale green dinner served

CONTINENTAL DRIFT THROUGH THE MIDWEST RADICAL CULTURE CORRIDOR
A CALL TO FARMS!

June 4-14, 2008

CONTINENTAL DRIFT is an invitation to look at our collective existence on all the relevant scales: the intimate, the local, the national, the continental, and the global. Continental Drift is a mobile assemblage of people presenting their projects, observations, experiments, discoveries and questions, and producing value through social exchange. Continental Drift through the MRCC is a self-educating tour through our concrete world and its abstract representations, discovering distant lives in familiar situations, and embracing the interdependency that links what is usually treated as separate. Continental Drift is intended for anyone seeking to locate global forces in daily life and to reorient aesthetic invention in response to an ethics of equality.

Urbana-Champaign

DAY 1 – Wednesday, June 4
8 PM – The CU Indymedia Center, 202 S. Broadway, Urbana.
The Audacity of Desperation, Conversations with artists/curators Jessica Lawless & Sarah Ross about the exhibition.
http://www.desperationexhibition.blogspot.com

Kevin Hamiliton: “That Happened Here?” Sorting through the Records of an Earlier Radical Moment
A new(ish) resident of Champaign-Urbana discovers some old radicals in the archives. What was the Biological Computing Laboratory? What research and teaching took place there? In the modern history of struggles to live out justice and freedom, one sees so many different models, different relationships of seeing to knowing, of knowing to being, of being to being with others. Who knew that right here in town were a group of faculty and students who worked as a group to integrate these things, to teach and research from what they believed to be radically true? This presentation will provide some material for discussion of that moment, and hopefully without too much nostalgia from people too young to have been there. If you were around campus in 1968, come help us complicate the picture.

Brian Holmes & Claire Pentecost introduce the Continental Drift.

DAY 2 – Thursday, June 5
10:30am-12:00 PM – Backyard talk with Lisa Bralts
910 S. Lynn St., Urbana
Lisa Bralts is the City of Urbana Farmer's market director. She's been a food activist for years, on the board of the local Co-op and former communications director of the Illinois Food Bank. Lisa will share her knowledge on regional food sustainability and challenges for local populations.

12:30 – Visit to Tomahnous Farms in Mahomet, IL.
Meeting point: 910. S. Lynn St., Urbana at 12pm, carpool to the farm.
Tomahnous Farms grows organic fruits, vegetables, farms meat, eggs and honey and sells through a CSA and local vendors. Located in a growing 'suburb' of Champaign, Lisa Haynes, grower and land use activist, will give a tour of the farm and discuss issues with losing farm land.

7:00 PM – Exhibition and potluck, Garage & Garden, 706 E. Fairlawn,Urbana.
This is the first gathering at Garage & Garden. There will be projects about the re-use of locally produced waste, imagined neighborhoods, and things to take with you. Garage & Garden is a space for discussions about re-making our neighborhood in relation to current food production, energy consumption, political organization, and more.
http://www.letsremake.info/garagegarden.html

DAY 3 – Friday, June 6
10:00 AM – Fighting Toxicity, Douglass Branch Library, 504 E. Grove St.,
Champaign. Local scholars and activists from C-U Citizens for Peace & Justice will discuss their fight against social and ecological toxicity in Champaign.

Drift to Chicago. Rest stop presentation/discussion.

Chicago

DAY 3 – Friday, June 6
6:00 PM – Movies & discussion: Who controls our food? Our Daily Bread (1934) & The World According to Monsanto (2008), Mess Hall, 6932 N. Glenwood, bring homemade bread to share. http://www.messhall.org

DAY 4 – Saturday, June 7
2:00-4:00 PM – Release party for AREA Chicago #6: City as Lab, Paseo Prairie Garden, next to the Logan Square Blue Line stop. This issue of AREA Chicago looks at Chicago as a policy laboratory in which experimental public policy in the areas of housing, labor and education are tested on the residents of Chicago.
http://www.areachicago.org

7:00 PM – Art and Revolution! Gerald Raunig (author: Art and Revolution:Transversal Activism in the Long Twentieth Century) with Dan S. Wang, InCUBATE, 2129 N. Rockwell.
http://www.incubate-chicago.org

DAY 5 – Sunday, June 8
1:00 - 5:00 PM – Tour C/CURE initiative with Naomi Davis & Martha Boyd,
Carver Park, 900East 134th Street.
7:00 PM – Screening: The Spook Who Sat by the Door, filmmaker Sam
Greenlee in person, Backstory Cafe, 6100 S. Blackstone.
(1968.areachicago.org)

Wisconsin...Westward

MILWAUKEE

DAY 6 – Monday, June 9
Times and Schedule TBA – Trip to Milwaukee: visit Brady Street Pharmacy and Growing Power.

DAY 7 – Tuesday, June 10
Time TBA –Travel to Elk Mound the long way, arrive in the late afternoon

12:00 PM – Break, Marl Lake, swimming

Time TBA – Evening meal with the Langbys and some friends/collaborators of theirs from progressive home schooling and local food networks. Camp at the Langbys.

DAY 8 – Wed, June 11
Time TBA – Walk a mile from Langbys’ and tour an organic dairy farm – members of CROPP. Help out around the garden.

Time TBA – Evening event, The Eau Claire Public Library.

DAY 9 – Thursday, June 12
Time TBA –Travel to Viroqua/LaFarge/West Lima, See the Brown Family land

Time TBA – Evening picnic and walk-through Heavy Duty Acres, with Mike Koppa.

DAY 10 – Friday, June 13
Time TBA – Tour the HQ of CROPP. http://www.farmers.coop

Time TBA – Work on trellis projects at Dreamtime Village. Followed by an evening discussion “Articulating our Visions.”

DAY 11 – Sat, June 14
Time TBA – Travel to Madison, stop somewhere for U-pick strawberries. Strawberry jam making party at the home of Dan and Sarah, plus strawberry shortcake feed. Late-night Selections in Dan’s basement/print shop/listening station.

Urbana: saralross@yahoo.com
Chicago: cpente@saic.edu
Wisconsin: danwang@mindspring.com.

Anyone is welcome to join the Continental Drift and to help articulate what the MRCC can be and become.

Calendar & updates: http://radicalmidwest.blogspot.com

This is really good news. Finally some sanity and a rejection of the corrupt, ideology-driven, paranoid, authoritarian persecution of Kurtz by the Justice Department and asshole extraordinaire, John Ashcroft!

---

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 21, 2008

CONTACTS:
Email: media@caedefensefund.org
Edmund Cardoni: (716) 854-1694
Lucia Sommer: (716) 359-3061

JUDGE DISMISSES MAIL FRAUD CASE AGAINST BIO-ARTIST KURTZ

Buffalo, NY—A process that has taken nearly four years may be coming to an end. On Monday, April 21, Federal Judge Richard J. Arcara ruled to dismiss the indictment against University at Buffalo Professor of Visual Studies Dr. Steven Kurtz.

In June 2004, Professor Kurtz was charged with two counts of mail fraud and two counts of wire fraud stemming from an exchange of $256 worth of harmless bacteria with Dr. Robert Ferrell, Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

Dr. Kurtz planned to use the bacteria in an educational art exhibit about biotechnology with his award-winning art and theater collective, Critical Art Ensemble.

Professor Kurtz’ lawyer, Paul Cambria, said that his client was “pleased and relieved that this ordeal may be coming to an end.”

The prosecution has the right to appeal this dismissal. How the prosecution will proceed is unknown at this time. If an appeal were undertaken the case would move to the New York Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City.

Lucia Sommer, Coordinator of the CAE Defense Fund, which raises funds for Kurtz’ legal defense, said, “We are all grateful that after reviewing this case, Judge Arcara took appropriate action.” She added that “this decision is further testament to our original statements that Dr. Kurtz is completely innocent and never should have been charged in the first place.”

BACKGROUND ON DR. STEVEN KURTZ AND CRITICAL ART ENSEMBLE

Critical Art Ensemble (which Kurtz co-founded in 1987 with Steven Barnes) has won numerous awards for its bio-art, including the prestigious 2007 Andy Warhol Foundation Wynn Kramarsky Freedom of Artistic Expression Grant, honoring more than two decades of distinguished work. The group has been commissioned to exhibit and perform in many of the world's cultural institutions—including the London Museum of Natural History; The ICA, London; the Whitney Museum and the New Museum in NYC; the Corcoran Museum of Art in Washington, DC; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; der Volksbüne, Berlin; ZKM, Karlsruhe; El Matadero, Madrid; Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; Museo de Arte Carrilo Gil, Mexico City and many more.

For more information about the case, please visit: caedefensefund.org

--

The Library of Radiant Optimism for Let's Re-Make the World is a side project I do with my partner Bonnie Fortune - we usually use the shortened Let's Re-Make for easy-reading purposes. This is an exhibition we have contributed to.

Brett





The Audacity of Desperation

First stop: The Urbana- Champaign Independent Media Center
May 7th - June 15
202 S. Broadway Suite 100
Urbana, IL 61801

Urbana Opening Party: May 7, at 7pm with a screening of video shorts

Urbana Closing Party: June 4, at 7pm, with the kick off of Continental Drift an itinerant discussion on Neoliberal policies and cracks in global power. Continental Drift will be traveling though the Radical Midwest Cultural Corridor, starting at the IMC with conversations about the Audacity of Desperation and presentations by Kevin Hamilton, Brain Holmes, Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri. For more information see:
http://radicalmidwest.blogspot.com/

Next stop: Sea and Space, Los Angeles, CA,
October 23- November 16
(more details this summer - watch election results with us there)

The Audacity of Desperation is an art exhibition, political action, and on-going dialogue. This show confronts, expresses and unravels states of desperation. Artworks by activists, artists, enthusiasts, and very concerned people, are made in editions of 100 with the intention of free distribution to audiences. In this way, these artworks will be activated outside of the exhibition space and in domestic spaces, on bodies, clothes, bags, and in public spaces.

Public Release

In front of the Alvarado Blvd Taco Truck in Echo Park.

Sunday April 20th

Celebrating An Atlas of Radical Cartography
event in collaboration with Routes and Methods (www.routesandmethods.org/)

---------------------
email contents

1. fun parking lot event!
2. public space and public art problems down by the LA River

---------------------

1. fun parking lot event!

Public Release!!*
Sunday, April 20th, 2008, Echo Park, Los Angeles
--> 7-8pm bookstand opens
--> 8-10ish Public Release!!* (performances and such)

Public Release!!* is a parking lot collaboration between RoutesAndMethods and the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest in celebration of the Journal Press' An Atlas of Radical Cartography and Issue #5.

An Atlas books will be on sale for $25 (a $5 discount)
Issue 5 also available.

Location:
The Vons parking lot by the Taco Truck on Alvarado, just north of Sunset, right before Alvarado merges with Glendale Blvd.

You are invited
--> bring something or someone picked up along the way
----> park, lock, walk; then processions and car-iographies
----> consume late night tacos and groceries
----> extend invitations without alienations
----> rant away with radio play
--> and your departure


*a Kaprow inspired event, though not endorsed by moca

More info is on the website www.RoutesAndMethods.org and there is even a downloadable Poster of which we made 100 to be hung throughout Los Angeles // drawing by Jane Tsong // design Dept. of Graphic Services

-------------------------------

2. public space and public art problems down by the LA River

Our friends over at NatureTrumps, an LA River Blog (http://naturetrumps.wordpress.com) have been telling us about an issue. It seems that there is a conflict brewing between the city and FOLAR (Friends of the Los Angeles River). FOLAR sponsored a permitted mural painting event on the concrete banks organized by graffiti artist and gallerist Man One. The city doesn't ike the artwork and now wants FOLAR to remove the work or pay $70,000 cleanup fee.

For more info, go to http://naturetrumps.wordpress.com/


-------------------------------

3. Stop the war


-------------------------------

4. Other announcements

Oh Yeah, An Atlas For Radical Cartography Editor Lex Bhagat will be at Farmlab this friday. Farmlab (for out-of-towners) is a eco-art center down by the LA River and the train tracks.



Hello!

We always appreciate your comments, suggestions, ideas and feedback. Be in touch.
Look below to get off this list. We finally got a real list serve service (thankfully).

Right on.

The Copenhagen Free University ceased its activities by the end of 2007 and in connection with the abolition of the project we have written the following statement:

WE HAVE WON!

In the spring of 2001 we demanded: All Power to the Copenhagen Free University. We had just opened a free university in our home in the Nørrebro district of Copenhagen. This impossible demand was put forward in the form of a manifesto intented to provoke and unsettle the collective imaginary and open new potential paths of action. We wanted to take power.

The manifesto was written in a very specific socio-political context preceding September 11th 2001. It was written in a mood of confidence. With the Copenhagen Free University we wanted to reclaim power and help undermine the so-called 'knowledge economy' - a term used to describe the new economy that was consolidating around the turn of the millennium. The unrolling of the knowledge economy was a part of the neoliberal campaign for control orchestrated by the financial and political elites and the term made clear what kind of ambition was at the core of this campaign: the financialisation of our brains, our nervous systems, our subjectivity, our desires, our selves.

In the midst of the unrolling of this economy, we intended to push the limits and develop new means to stem the invasion of our life by the abstract calculations of capitalist valorisation. It was our intention to picket the social factory, preventing an imminent and clearly hostile take over. We opened our flat as a space for social research and exploration within a context shaped by the hard material facts, fluctuating passions and affective instabilities that characterized our daily life. We wanted to turn the tide. We took power by using the available means: a mattress became a residency, the bedroom a cinema, the living room a meeting space, the workroom an archive, our flat became a university. Opening our private space turned it into a public institution. The Copenhagen Free University was a real collective phantom, hovering.

At the same time, many art workers in their hunt for a new function in society and new sources of income were getting involved in the corridors and boardrooms of the companies and corporations of the neoliberal economy. The artists acted as consultants and legitimators in branding and business activities relating to new ethical and social responsibility schemes and human resource management. The anger and hopes of the revolutionary avant garde had been deemed naive and artists were adapting to a new landscape of immaterial production. This told a sad story about society's lost ability to dream.

When turning to the education sector we saw that universities across the globe were increasingly restructuring and adapting to corporate practices. Ideas of autonomy and independence in research were quickly falling out of fashion. Not only was the usability of the knowledge produced in universities becoming a contested area, the distribution of intellectual property was becoming a key lever in the new economy. The Copenhagen Free University made it clear that universities do not necessarily have to reflect the hegemonic structures of society; universities could be organised and based in and around the everyday knowledge and material struggles structuring people's lives. Universities could in fact counter the hegemonic structures. We tried to open a new front at least.

By reclaiming one of society's central means of knowledge production, the machinery of the university, it was actually possible to create spaces that were not based on capitalist valorisation. For us 'free' mean gratis and liberated. Everybody can open their own university, it is a simple action. By self-organising universities people can, in a very practical way, counter the free market restructuring of the official universities by re-appropriating the concept of the university as a place for the sharing of knowledge among students (as the first universities were defined). With the Copenhagen Free University we wanted to break into the university as one of the imaginary institutions of neoliberal society and create a new image, and a new potential path of the possible.

Six months after we opened the CFU, 9-11 happened and the War on Terror pushed the anti-capitalist movement onto the defensive, having to react to all the emerging wars unfolding in the following years. The global civil war was invading our lives and imaginations. This broke the back of the anti-capitalist movement right after the victories of London, Seattle, Gothenburg and Genoa and turned it into the much more vague so-called Social Movement whose objectives became reformist and unclear. Despite this, arrays of de-centralised and self-organised initiatives were still developing and proliferating at grassroots level. Swarms of projects engaging in developing alternative ways of life, building on friendship, extending networks, and with clear cultural, social and political aims, were still coming into being. These community based initiatives were usually resisting formalisation and avoiding the spectacularisation of politics through the useless and pacifying academic seminars, art exhibitions and publications that have increasingly characterized the mediation of critical culture in recent years. We also checked into this circuit occasionally and got a taste of the forces that are producing schizophrenia and resignation in us.

During our life at the CFU we have encountered the way in which the authority of the word 'university' works on many levels. On a very practical level, people from across the globe started to write to us, applying as students and lecturers; people were using the CFU as a means of getting into increasingly privatized archives, people were using the CFU to obtain job references, people were using the CFU as a means to get into the fortified first world . . . These and other incidents make plain how embedded the authority of institutions is in the global imaginary. But it also tells us how fragile ruling power is when you play with its language and its basic definitions. The drive to self-determination despite the neoliberal knowledge economy was also demonstrated by all our sister self-organised universities that have mushroomed everywhere in parallel to our own development. It has never been about joining the CFU, or any other university, but about opening your own university.

One thing is the fact that a self-instituted university is messing around with the institutional power relations. But on a structural level the question is what conceptions of knowledge are actually pervading the self-institution? Knowledge for us has always been something that is evaporating, slipping between our fingers. It is not something that we treat as a truth or a possession but something living, a relation between people. Truth is always the truth of the masters, the proprietary knowledge is always the knowledge that separates people into those who posses and those who don't. Knowledge for us is always situated and interweaved with desire. The kitchen, the bed, the living room made up our anything-but-sterile laboratories. Dreams, unhappiness, rage were all over the architecture. Knowledge is at the same time about empowerment, making people able to understand and act closer to existence and despite the distortion of the spectacle. The research projects we initiated worked as invitations to share rather than drives to accumulate. There have been no singular end products; of importance were all the various experiences and conclusions that people carried into their own lives and networks after taking part in the activities at the CFU. This is why we haven't published papers or dissertations to wrap up the research projects that we have worked with. We found that the research and the knowledge spun at the CFU did not need a closure. But the institution did.

The Copenhagen Free University has never wanted to become a fixed identity and as a part of the concept of self-institutionalisation we have always found it important to take power and play with power but also to abolish power. This is why the Copenhagen Free University closed down at the end of 2007. Looking back at the six years of existence of the CFU we end our activities with a clear conviction and declare: We Have Won!

The CFU Abolition Committee of 2007 /
Henriette Heise & Jakob Jakobsen


Please note our last publications, e.g. Poster and Propaganda from the Copenhagen Free University and TVD's with television programs from FreeUtv you can watch instead of mainstream crabby television: http://copenhagenfreeuniversity.dk/pubdk.html. And the CFU website has been updated with new texts, video streams etc.


The Copenhagen Free University, Læssøesgade 3, 4. sal, 2200 Copenhagen N
http://copenhagenfreeuniversity.dk

WHERE WE ARE NOW: LOCATING ART & POLITICS IN NY
Wed Apr 2, 6:30-8:30 pm
Judson Church by Washington Sq. Park - 239 Thompson Street at W. 3rd (NYC)
Dear Colleagues and Friends,

In October of 2007 a call was circulated for a meeting amongst art, academic and activist institutions and individuals to discuss the merits of a coordinated strategy that would raise awareness around the multitude of art political discussions and projects in town while having a real impact on the politics of New York City, and beyond.

One month later more than 60 representatives from a range of institutions convened, and the Where We Are Now network was born. Our goal is to demonstrate how powerful critical voices still exist, ones that cry out for global justice, agency and participation. Using the pivotal moment of the 2008 presidential election, we share a sense that the times have changed and are ours to claim. Through activities as diverse as art exhibitions, days of decentralized action, street performances and pedagogical conferences, we seek to gauge the status of the political in contemporary art, and consider how we may act as resources to one another and to other communities within and beyond New York City. Please join us on Wednesday, April 2nd for a big meeting at Judson Church.

WHO IS WHERE WE ARE NOW? Individuals affiliated with the following institutions: 16Beaver, A.R.T. (Activist Response Team), ABC No Rio, Ad Hoc Arts, Alwan for the Arts, Culture Task Force, Art in General, ArteEast, Artists Against the War, Artists Space, Arts and Democracy Project, August Sound Coalition, Autonomedia, Bard, Billionaires for Bush, Bluestockings, Bronx Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Rail, Cabinet, Canal Chapter, CEA, Center for Urban Pedagogy, Circus Amok, Columbia, Conflux, Cooper Union, Creative Time, dBfoundation, Direct Action Project March, e-flux, El Museo del Barrio, European Courier, Exit Art, Eyebeam, Film Annex, Flux Factory, free103point9, Gallery Aferro, Newark, Global Medical Relief, Glowlab, Groundswell Mural Project, Hip-Hop Theater Festival, Hunter, J. Mandle Performance, Just Seeds, Kitchen, Little Switzerland, LMCC, Location One, Make Films Not War, MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, MoMA, Museum as Hub, New Museum, Nonsense NYC, Not An Alternative, NYSCA, NYU, NYU Environmental Health Clinic, Opsound, Parsons the New School for Design, People's Production House, Pond: art, activism, & ideas, Pratt, Precipice Alliance, Printed Matter, PS1, Queens College CUNY, Queens Museum, Queens Museum, Repo-History, Rhizome, Storefront for Art & Architecture, Studio Museum, School of Visual Arts, The Center for Civic Participation: Arts & Democracy Project, The Mexican Cultural Institute of New York, The Queens Council on the Arts, Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School, Wesleyan Center for the Arts, Whitney Independent Study Program, Y Gallery, The Yes Men and many independent cultural activists.

PROJECTS
The Conference and Pedagogy Working Group seeks to examine how individuals and groups acquire and exercise social and political agency through collective aesthetic practices and-taking its cue from the group's name-is particularly interested in the situation at this moment in this (porous) city. We probe the interface between theory and practice.

Projects:
* Two public assemblies in the Fall, bracketing the presidential election, to produce four or five distinct incidents of political agency. They will be structured like charrettes (modeled on design charrettes, an often entertaining and effective combination of concept and mobilization) with specific challenges that call for immediate practical solutions developed within a few hours. It will be required that the outcome of each charrette will find a public platform-provided by the institutional members of Where We Are Now and other organizations-to ensure long-term impact beyond the one-day event.

The Arts in Action Working Group is dedicated to facilitating projects that actively engage the act of voting. We relate to the act of voting as something that happens, not only once in every four years, but as something that could happen more often (perhaps all the time). Voting, as we understand it, can take the form of, but isn't necessarily limited to, the act of casting a ballot. It is an act that does not represent the end of an electoral narrative but instead is imagined as the beginning.

Projects:
* A distributed city-wide day of action in the early summer, and another in mid-Fall, to take place in galleries, lecture halls, and in the streets.

* Regular meetings for artists, activists, writers, curators to promote projects and plug in.

THE COMMUNICATIONS WORKING GROUP aims to create an infrastructure that allows us to deepen our understanding of existing resources, build new ones, collaborate, and impact New York.

Some of us want to marry art, activism, and critical practices here in New York.
Some of us want pandemonium in the streets.
Some of us want to offer a way to frame and interpret collective art-activist gestures.
Some of us want a bird's eye view of art and activism in New York City.
Some of us want to engage contemporary art and academic institutions in the service of change.
Some of us want to see New York City step into political discussion with all of the voices that we have at our disposal.
Some of us want art to inform and interrogate activist practices.
Some of us want technology to further art and activism and hurry things up.
Some of us want to broadcast diverse voices.

http://www.wherewearenow.org/

Our good friend, Nicolas Lampert, has organized this exhibition and series of events.

---


Jesse Graves, Mud Stencils

Seeing Green encourages artists to leave the confines of the studio and take an active role with the community, to collaborate and address issues of the environment, and to open a dialog with the public.
Guest curator Nicolas Lampert invited over 40 local artists to work on a project for the duration of eight
months. During the month of April, 2008 the show will be exhibited at Woodland Pattern Book Center in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin where the gallery will serve as a hub space, informing the viewer and the public of the many environmental projects taking place throughout the city, exhibiting visual work and books, screening films and holding discussions and events based around the exhibition.

http://seeinggreenartshow.wordpress.com/

Calendar:

Seeing Green opens at Woodland Pattern Book Center (720 E. Locust St., Milwaukee, WI.) on Saturday, April 12, 2008, 5:00-9:00pm

Additional events:

Reading by California author Rebecca Solnit, Sunday, March 30th, 2:00pm

Curator talk by Nicolas Lampert 4:30-6:00 / Film Screening, Wednesday, April 16th, 7:00-9:00pm (Screening of 5 minute films and videos on urban ecology issues by: Lane Hall, Lisa Moline, Lindsay Holden, Brandon Bauer, Ray Chi, Laura Klein, Eddee Daniel, Suzanne Rosenblatt, Spencer Tepper, Zachary Nesgoda.)

Artist/Scientist/Community Activist talk, Wednesday, April 23rd, 7:00-9:00pm (presentations by Susan Simensky-Bietila, Chris Cornelius, RiverPulse)

Artist/Scientist/Community Activist talk, Wednesday, April 30th, 7:00-9:00pm (presentations by Raoul Deal and Larry Adams; Mary Osmundsen, Andrea Fuentes, Jose’ Medina, Monica Gonzalez and Adolfo Garcia; Lane Hall, Lisa Moline and Dr. Rudi Strickler)

Seeing Green is co-sponsored by UWM Cultures and Communities/Institute for Service Learning Co-Sponsorship Award, the Milwaukee Arts Board, and the Windhover Foundation.

TS friend, and super-brave (the man leads expeditions to remote tracks of public land to take long-distance photos of secret military bases!) artist and experimental geographer, Trevor Paglen was on Public Radio International's "The World" show on Thursday, February 7, talking about his book of images of patches from groups working on top secret government contracts.

From "The World" web site:

The meanings behind the patches that some in the military sew on their uniforms can be obscure, but author Trevor Paglen did his best. His new book is called, "I could tell you but then you would have to be destroyed by me: Emblems from the Pentagon's Black World." Marco Werman speaks with him.

Listen: http://www.theworld.org/wma.php?id=0207083

Trevor's book:


"I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me: Emblems from the Black World"

Here is a link to an online collection of patches, and also a supplement to the book:

http://www.paglen.com/tellyou/index.htm

5:30 PM
Sunday, February 3, 2008

Experimental Station
6100 South Blackstone Avenue
Chicago
USA

"Past and Futures, Still" seeks to expand the network of discussion to include more people from Chicago and the surrounding area who are interested in looking critically at strategies for change. This event is an extension of 'What We Know of Our Past – What We Demand of Our Future' held at Mess Hall January 18-20, 2008: http://www.letsremake.info/whatweknow.html.

Description of the Event:
There has been an enormous amount of activity related to critical art practices over the last years in Chicago, making it an international hub for this work. In particular, we now see that there has been a kind of reliance on a certain form: the exhibition-as-symposia, festival, concentrated cluster of 'related programming.' We see the form proliferating, but also reaching its limits. Feel Tank and AREA have both in the past year used this form to mobilize large numbers of practitioners, activists, and folks in other fields working and thinking in parallel to make, talk, act, and learn together. Tonight we come together to further define this form as our way of blending exhibitions, activism, dissemination, and social life. And then, hopefully, begin to imagine new or different forms for future activity, forms which open possibilities not available through the exhibition vehicle strictly.

To begin with, we wonder: what impact did this past year's activity have? What are the lasting implications of all this activity? What are the limits of the forms used? In a short first half, the participants will offer their perspectives in the form of a question, which will have embedded within them certain understandings of our current socio-political conditions. For a long second half, presenters and audience together will take each question in turn, with plenty of room for other voices and views.

And, in between the first and second halves, as we mill, munch, and get resettled, we will hear a very brief invocation of what happened forty years ago, on the Tet holiday, just for added historical perspective.

So, please join us for an important discussion between Feel Tank and AREA, plus your contributions. Feel Tank will be represented by Rebecca Zorach and Mary Patten. AREA will be represented by Daniel Tucker. Dan S. Wang facilitates. Brett Bloom & Bonnie Fortune introduce. The wider network and community will be represented by... you! Together we look (and maybe find?) a way to keep moving forward.

Food provided, but bring something if you feel like it, it won't hurt.

Oliver Ressler continues to initiate interesting work. I hope to get a chance to see his latest film with Zanny Begg, which is listed here. We have posted announcements about other things that Ressler has been up to or controversies about his work. Check em out:

http://tempserv.livejournal.com/74753.html
http://tempserv.livejournal.com/74753.html
http://tempserv.livejournal.com/34274.html
http://tempserv.livejournal.com/36229.html


A film by Zanny Begg & Oliver Ressler
40 min., 2008

“What Would It Mean To Win?” was filmed on the blockades at the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany in June 2007. In their first collaborative film Zanny Begg and Oliver Ressler focus on the current state of the counter-globalisation movement in a project which grows out of both artists’ preoccupation with globalisation and its discontents. The film, which combines documentary footage, interviews, and animation sequences, is structured around three questions pertinent to the movement: Who are we? What is our power? What would it mean to win?

Almost ten years after “Seattle” this film explores the impact this movement has had on contemporary politics. Seattle has been described as the birthplace for the “movement of movements” and marked a time when resistance to capitalist globalisation emerged in industrialised nations. In many senses it has been regarded as the time when a new social subject – the multitude – entered the political landscape. Recently the counter-globalisation movement has gone through a certain malaise accentuated by the shifts in global politics in the post 911 context.

The protests in Heiligendamm seemed to re-assert the confidence, inventiveness and creativity of the counter-globalisation movement. In particular the five finger tactic – where protesters spread out across the fields of Rostock slipping around police lines – proved successful in establishing blockades in all roads into Heiligendamm. Staff working for the G8 summit were forced to enter and leave the meeting by helicopter or boat thus providing a symbolic victory to the movement.

“What Would It Mean To Win?”, as the title implies, addresses this central question for the movement. During the Seattle demonstrations “we are winning” was a popular graffiti slogan that captured the sense of euphoria that came with the birth of a new movement. Since that time however this slogan has been regarded in a much more speculative manner. This film aims to move beyond the question of whether we are “winning” or not by addressing what would it actually mean to win.

When addressing the question “what would it mean to win?” John Holloway quotes Subcomandante Marcos who once described “winning” as the ability to live an “infinite film program” where participants could re-invent themselves each day, each hour, each minute. The animated sequences take this as their starting point to explore how ideas of social agency, struggle and winning are incorporated into our imagination of politics.

The film was recorded in English and German and exists also in a French subtitled version. “What Would It Mean To Win?” will be presented in screenings in a variety of contexts and will also be part of the upcoming installation “Jumps and Surprises” by Begg and Ressler, which will present a broader perspective of different approaches to the counter-globalisation movement.

Concept, Interviews, Film Editing, Production: Zanny Begg & Oliver Ressler
Interviewees: Emma Dowling, John Holloway, Adam Idrissou, Tadzio
Mueller, Michal Osterweil, Sarah Tolba
Camera: Oliver Ressler
Animation: Zanny Begg
Sound: Kate Carr
Image Editing: Markus Koessl
Sound Editing: Rudi Gottsberger, Oliver Ressler
Special thanks to Turbulence, Holy Damn It, Conrad Barrett
Grants: Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur; College of
Fine Art Research Grants Scheme, Sydney

Further Information:
www.ressler.at
www.zannybegg.com

Download the poster (front and back)

Full listing with images and links: http://www.letsremake.info/whatweknow.html

What We Know of Our Past
What We Demand of Our Future
A three-day gathering to talk about socially-engaged, political, and critical artwork, its international iterations, history, and future
January 18-20, 2008
Mess Hall - 6932 N. Glenwood - Chicago

This weekend we come together to look at and talk about the intersections between art and activism. We want to take this time to address a range of concerns, to look at past strategies of creative resistance and build on them, to address our frustrations and anxieties about what we do, to play and laugh together, share food, and discuss the possibilities for going forward.

These three days are organized by the Library of Radiant Optimism (Brett Bloom + Bonnie Fortune), YNKB (Kirsten Dufour-Andersen + Finn Thybo Andersen) and Mess Hall. This is part of an ongoing series that asks how we can have optimism in our politics and work in the face of neoliberal globalization, war, economic, environmental, and other global crises. Our activities have included a poster show in Copenhagen and Chicago, and an upcoming discussion-based event similar to this one in Copenhagen.

This gathering is sponsored in part by the Danish Art Council and the Midwest Radical Culture Corridor.

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Friday, January 18, 2008
6:30-7:00 PM – Sunday Soup with InCUBATE
In an effort to find ways to fund art programming that is neither commercial nor non-for-profit, InCUBATE is experimenting with developing new infrastructures of support. They will be present to talk about their Sunday Soup fundraising efforts and to provide soup for the evening.

7:00-9:00 PM – The I.W.W. and the Paterson Pageant: Blurring the Boundaries Between Art and Life, By Nicolas Lampert
This talk will examine the myriad of issues that surrounded the Paterson Pageant, staged at Madison Square Garden on June 7, 1913 by 1,000 striking workers, playing the roles of themselves as they reenacted the past three months of their struggle. The talk will highlight the extraordinary collaboration between striking silk workers, I.W.W. union leaders and New York avant-garde artists that highlights the many positive, as well as negative aspects of collaborations between groups with such divergent backgrounds, with lessons that are applicable to today.

9:00 PM-12:00 AM – EXHIBITION RECEPTION: Celebrate Peoples’ History Poster Collection, The Library of Radiant Optimism, Summoning a New Queer Reality, & We Have Won! The Copenhagen Free University 2001-2007
This exhibition presents several projects that assess, each in their own way, histories of political art and activism, to open them up as a resource for action today.

The Celebrate People’s History poster series is an on-going project producing posters that focus around important moments in “people’s history.” These are events, groups, and individuals that we should celebrate because of their importance in the struggle for social justice and freedom, but are instead buried or erased by dominant history. The posters celebrate important acts of resistance, those who fought tirelessly for justice and truth, and the days on which we can claim victories for the forces of freedom. In the past 7 years over two-dozen posters have been produced on a variety of subjects from the Battle of Homestead to Jane, an underground abortion service provided by a women’s health collective.

The Library of Radiant Optimism for Let’s Re-Make the World was started as a way to gather, look at, and catalog a groundswell of optimistic and visionary activities in the late 1960s and early 1970s represented by how-to books. Many people organized around freely sharing information and materials. The books they generated embrace a grass roots exchange of information and themes of self and community empowerment. These books are written from the counter-culture. Their authors were interested in communicating their direct experience as it related to their experiments for living in harmony with the natural landscape, building sustainable communities, and more. They offer practical applications of optimistic ideas for radical change.

Summoning a New Queer Reality. Chances was at Pride ‘07 and encouraged parade goers to “summon a new queer reality” by following the example of revolutionary queers from the past and present. Chances dancers passed out masks of 27 different queers and allies that have all, in some way, made the world a brighter, safer, and more interesting place. The float decorations and costumes had a witch theme and incorporated the symbol of the phoenix, reinforcing the idea of looking to the past (and rejecting the present state of affairs) to conjure revolutionary and progressive ideas for the future.

We have won! The Copenhagen Free University 2001-2007. The Copenhagen Free University was a self-organized research and knowledge sharing facility founded in 2001. Based in a private apartment and in the messy daily life of a household, the Copenhagen Free University was a space treating the organization of knowledge in close relationship to the personal and conflicting desires that shape contemporary urban existence. Our main research projects have been ‘Women only organizations’, ‘Art and Economy’, ‘Escape’, ‘The Scandinavian Situationists’ and ‘Activist Television’. As a self-institution it is important to know when to self-abolish and we terminated the activities of the CFU at the end of 2007.

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Saturday, January 19
10:00-11:00 PM – Brunchluck
Begin the day by bringing food to share with others.

11:00-12:00PM – How to represent the other, By YNKB

12:00-1:20 PM – Short presentations
Marc Fischer, Sarah Ross, Chances, Laurie Jo Reynolds

1:30-3:00 PM – Short presentations
Ryan Griffis, Material Exchange, Feel Tank, Salem Collo-Julin

3:00-4:30 PM – What do we know of our past? What do we demand of our future?
There is an increased amount of discussion and anxiety about the current state of critical art practices and their relevancy to larger social resistance and change. This is an open group discussion about critical art practices, where they are now, their histories, successes, frustrations, potentials, and future.

5:00-6:00 PM – Mixed activities in public space, By Parfyme

* Dinner [Vegetarian Iraqi food will be served during the next talk] *

6:00-7:00 PM – Return, By Michael Rakowitz
Michael Rakowitz reopened his grandfather’s import/export business in 2007. Initially, members of the Iraqi diaspora and interested citizens were invited to send packages, free of charge, to recipients in Iraq. The project expanded to include the importation of goods from Iraq for sale and distribution in the U.S. The logistical difficulties and roundabout methods of sending shipments to a country under provisional government and foreign occupation illuminated the futility of “nation-building.” For both the displaced sender and the occupied recipient, some sense of statehood ceases to exist. A question of sovereignty thus becomes the transaction: What return can be yielded?

7:00-9:00 PM – Never grow up: The eviction of Ungdomshuset in Copenhagen, Presentation and discussion with Jakob Jakobsen and Brett Bloom
For the last year Copenhagen has been on the verge of a youth rebellion. The catalyzing event was the eviction of Ungdomshuset [The Youth House] an anarchist social centre in existence since 1982. The campaign for a new house has developed into a movement against gentrification, neoliberal normalization and control. A video presentation of the events in Copenhagen and an invitation to a discussion about potential new front lines of social struggle in Copenhagen, and Chicago, in the shadow of the global war on terror and neoliberal control.

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Sunday, January 20
12:00-1:20 PM – Short presentations
Mike Wolf, Nick Brown, CAFF, Sarah Lewison

1:40-3:00 PM – Short presentations
AREA, Laurie Palmer, Allium Collective, People Powered

3:00-4:00 PM – Claire Pentecost talks about her research on food while we eat a snack

4:00-5:00 PM – Wrap up discussion

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Upcoming Related Events

Sunday, January 27
1:30-4:30 PM – Radios Populares presents Liberation Radio Workshop
Radios Popularas – www.radiospopulares.org – is an organization that provides equipment and technical training for low-power FM broadcasting to communities working for social, political, economic, and ecological justice throughout the Americas. Members of the group will give a hands on workshop. We will assemble an antenna and broadcast from Mess Hall during this workshop. There will also be brief lessons in web casting and audio production. People attending this workshop will leave with the basic knowledge about how to make their own independent radio station. Spots are limited for this workshop. Contact Mike Wolf to register: mistywoof-at-gmail.com or 773-368-5875

Sunday, February 3
Dan S. Wang moderates a discussion between Feel Tank and AREA, and the public
There has been an enormous amount of activity related to critical art practices in the last year in Chicago making it an international hub for this work. Feel Tank and AREA both mobilized large numbers of practitioners, activists, and folks in other fields working and thinking in parallel to make, talk, act, and learn together. What impact did this have? What are the lasting implications of all this activity? What is next? Times and location TBA.

Summer 2008
Continental Drift through the Midwest Radical Culture Corridor
The MRCC is both an idea about the region we live in and its potential development, and a loose grouping of artists involved in socially-engaged artwork throughout the area. Making a vibrant space in our region for advanced art practices is a necessity. This includes inviting people to come to our region and move through it. We have invited Brian Holmes, Claire Pentecost, and16 Beaver to implement a roving art and experimental seminar called Continental Drift. It will wind its way through cities and towns, parks, vacant urban spaces, go on trains, meet in diners, in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin for 14 days. Dates and detail TBA.

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Contact: Bonnie Fortune (lefortune-at-gmail.com) or
Brett Bloom (brettabloom-at-riseup.net or 773-203-8788)

http://www.letsremake.info

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I accidentally came across this project recently, though I have been a fan of the Spacehijackers' work for a long time. This is a particularly nice intervention into the city spaces of London. The Spacehijackers decided to do a little bit of their own city planning and put benches back out into the public spaces from which they had been removed.




From their site:

Where have all our public benches gone? Remember the days when cars were not the most important things on our streets? Remember when streets were places of public interaction, where old ladies had somewhere to sit and chat, where children would play and we had this thing called a community. There seems to be a plan to rip up all of our public space and keep us off the streets and scared in our houses.

Camden council in London decided to remove several public benches, for the benefit of the public last year. Along with a scheme to convert all bus stops to be fitted with un-usable benches. The basic plan seems to be to move on undesirables and homeless people away as they don't fit in with the aesthetics of the area. Rather than addressing these problems they have taken the usual tactic of moving them on and hoping that someone else will deal with them.

It was therefore with relief that we completely randomly bumped into four people calling themselves "Guerrilla Benchers" at 7am one morning. It is worth remembering at this point that these people have NOTHING WHAT SO EVER to do with the Space Hijackers (Honest). Fed up with the state of public space these urban guerrillas have decided to start fighting back.

Turning up painfully earling in the morning, armed with 18v hammer drills, high visibility vests and two benches these daring builders arrived at the site of two previously removed benches to begin re-installation.

Due to the colossal and inorganised nature of local councils, and their cunning disguises the guerrilla benchers were not approached or questioned by anyone as they installed the benches.

Unfortunately however the drills ran out of batteries just after the first bench had been installed. In true workman style it was obviously time for a fry-up breakfast and cup of tea whilst the batteries re-charged.

A hearty concoction of fried eggs, beans, mushrooms, chips and omlette first thing in the morning put the wind back in the sails of our builders and it was off to install bench number two.

Bench number two was sucessfully bolted down and the builders work was done. Time to test it out.

A quick change back into civilian clothing and the team was able to try out the bench for real.

pecial thanks to agents Ladybird, Gemma and Shalini for their amazingly co-incidental timing,
turning up and photographing the action of these mysterious characters.

http://www.spacehijackers.co.uk/html/projects/guerrillabench/guerrilla.html

Front cover of Plans for Other Days

This is a sweet little book made by the London-based Janfamily, about whom, there is very little information either on their site or online. Their web site just has this book and you can flip through the pages. I have pasted some in here for a quick look, but highly recommend visiting their site to see the entire book. The book is filled with images of individual projects that the members of the group have made. They are nice everyday manifestations of ideas that work themselves into the fabric of what is at hand or already there with a fairly consistent sensibility throughout the book. You don't need to go to a stupid art supply store and fork out thousands of dollars for canvases and other paraphernalia to be able to make art when everything you need is surrounding you and waiting.

Click images to enlarge:







http://www.janfamily.com/