The Illuminator

(Concept sketch by Isaac Moylan)

[NOTE: Below is the BETA/Draft text for Mark Read's (99% Bat Signal) Illuminator project, which will debut at Low Lives: Occupy on March 3, 2012. The Illuminator promises to be one of the coolest things to emerge from OWS arts & culture, yet! Stay tuned for more exciting Illuminator updates from OwA. We will be creating a special section for Mark on our site soon.]

The Illuminator
Description and Mission Statement
By Mark Read

I am currently overseeing the design, fabrication, and deployment of The Illuminator, a mobile video projection system and library/info shop.  Its primary function will be to serve as an outreach tool for Occupy Wall Street and the #occupy movement as a whole.  I hope to shortly form an ad-hoc group comprised of representatives from various working groups that will ultimately decide how to use this powerful new tool.  Working groups to be initially included on that Ad-Hoc committee will be Arts and Culture, Movement Building, Outreach, The People’s Library, Media, and PR.  If other working groups feel they should be included they should let me know.

In design terms, The Illuminator is a modified Ford Econoline cargo van in which a video projector, soundsystem, and magazine racks have been installed.  The projector and speakers rise out of the roof on a periscoping platform.  The side doors of the van open up to create an infoshop alcove, with shelves or racks, mounted on the doors, and a bookshelf between the doors inside the van bolted to the van floor.  The exterior of the van is un-modified so as to allow it to travel in “stealth mode.” When desired, large magnetic decals of the "99% bat signal" (white circle with 99% in the middle) are placed on the exterior of the van to announce its presence, and a banner can be attached to the outside.  The Illuminator is, in essence, a shapeshifter and a transformer of public space.  When it parks it becomes (1) a cinema, and (2) a library/infoshop.  
 
Illuminator Cinema:  The hatch opens, and a platform with a projector and speakers is raised.  Instantly, a cinema setting is created.

The programming of the cinema will ultimately become a collective process that is undertaken with Occupy Wall Street working groups like Arts and Culture and Occupy Cinema.  While the programming may therefore vary, it will follow certain patterns and be based on certain criteria.  

While the van is moving slowly down the streets of a neighborhood, or at the beginning of any cinema event, it will project the 99% Bat Signal along with inspirational messages such as those that were seen on the night of November 17th.  It will play music to go along with those images, loud enough to draw the attention of a crowd.  In short, it will be a spectacle.

Ultimately it will stop moving.  It will first project one of a growing roster of animated cartoons with progressive or populist messaging (search YouTube for “Greedy Humpty Dumpty” to see an example).  I have been collecting such material for a while and am compiling a roster, mostly from the depression-era.  The choice of this material is meaningful and important in several ways. (1) It’s family-friendly and explicitly non-threatening.  (2) The historical nature of it connects our current economic crisis with the great depression, and therefore our current struggle with earlier struggles.  (3) It will catch people off-guard.  They won’t expect cartoons.

After the cartoon, short informational videos about the #occupy movement will be screened.  These are intended to debunk some of the false mythologies about the #occupy movement that are propagated by the mainstream media, and to let people know about some of the work that activists are doing which isn’t making it into the press.  These sorts of videos are constantly being produced all over the country.  The job of the curators will be to select the most interesting and sympathetic stories.  

Depending on the circumstance, Illuminator Cinema could potentially show feature films.  Documentaries like Inside Job, Wal Mart:  The High Cost of Low Price, On Coal River, If a Tree Falls, or Better this World come to mind, but there is no shortage of political documentaries.  Also feature narrative works could be shown.  Films like Erin Brokovitch, or Network, or even animated features like Wall-E.  There will be a roster of films on a hard drive on board, and people will be able to choose from that roster what they wish to play.  Compiling that list is one that I hope to do in collaborative fashion with representatives of Occupy Wall Street working groups .

Illuminator Infoshop: The side doors of the van open up to create an alcove that has been designed and decorated to be appealing and inviting (picture hand-painted signs, stained wood shelving, dog-eared books, quilts.) Volunteers will give away hot cocao or lemonade depending on the season, as well as buttons and stickers and- most importantly- literature.  

In keeping with the principles and sensibilities of the #occupy movement, The Illuminator Infoshop will be stocked and operated by working groups from Occupy Wall Street- The People’s Library, The Infoshop, Outreach, and Movement Building come to mind.  They will choose the books or pamphlets or zines or posters that the infoshop will carry.  They will also determine who comes along on outings to talk to people about the issues that concern the #occupy movement.  This could be a performance in and of itself, of course, and it would be interesting to think about asking performers or public intellectuals to come along and participate in this project.  As the coordinating artist of the piece I will have input on all of these choices, but the ongoing operation of the infoshop will very much be a collaborative work.

Summary/Statement
This piece is a follow up to the N17 99% “Bat Signal” project that I organized on November 17th, 2011 as a participant in the Occupy Wall Street movement.   The Illuminator represents a significant shift in design and function from this earlier work, and something of an evolution in my thinking about the use of spectacle in the service of political movements.  Most importantly, however, it arises from a very different intention than the earlier work. While the N17 99% Bat Signal was primarily declarative in nature, and sought to engage a large body of people to engage in a singular, unifying activity, The Illuminator aims to create a discursive space within which conversation, with all its subtleties and unpredictabilities, will be the primary outcome, or interaction, that is generated.   

The Illuminator will carry echoes of that earlier action, literally and figuratively.  The 99% Bat Signal itself will of course be projected along the streets and sidewalks of neighborhoods all over New York City, as well as other cities.  Later on it will project that same sign onto the abandoned shopping malls of suburban America, and in other situations yet to be discovered.  In projecting that particular image, it will reference that earlier moment of unity, while generating new and very different contexts within which the politics that both create and complicate that unity can be more fully discussed and interrogated. The Illuminator’s contribution to the ongoing struggle to create a more just and sustainable future will be to temporarily create the kind of space that the Zucotti Park encampment and other encampments created- spaces where people can come together simply, as equals, to experience the pleasure of each other’s company; to become better informed; to engage in dialogue, even debate; to find one another and find that we are strong; to give each other hope that together we can change this world.  This is what democracy looks like.

Update on Sunday, February 26, 2012 at 04:10PM by admin

Comments

[Thomas]

Take a look at the results on youtube:
Illuminator 99%: Occupy Wall Street with Light. Guerilla Lighting in New York City
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHFwQ4UX0FY