Hyper-Imaginary [Movie]: A Screening Program for the Spatial Occupation residency at Hyperallergic: F7

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
February 6, 2012

Hyper-Imaginary [Movie]: A Screening Program for the Spatial Occupation residency at Hyperallergic
Tuesdays 7PM, February-March 2012
Start Date: February 7, 2012 (orientation)
Contact: ows-arts-and-culture-spaces@googlegroups.com

HYPER-imaginary MOVIE

[SUMMARY]: For February and March of 2012, Hyperallergic has invited the Spatial Team [Occupy Wall Street/NYCGA/Arts & Culture Working Group] to occupy the Hyperallergic office in Williamsburg/Brooklyn/NYC/NY/USA. On Tuesday evenings at 7PM, we will meet to consider the moving image in relation to Occupy Wall Street. We will watch movies, videos, animations and maybe create some of our own. We'll also talk, share ideas, and invite guests to inspire the occupation of the moving image.

[PROPOSITIONS]: Is a fully occupied life better than any movie? Does a movement have a movie?

When Occupiers appeared as an intervention on the Law & Order: SVU set in December of 2011 did they re-establish actuality to the "Mockupy" scenario made-for-TV, or did something more profound occur? [1] What would Baudrillard say? One sign carried by a protester read, "WE ARE A MOVEMENT - NOT A TV PLOT." Is this true?

How has Occupy Wall Street inspired filmmakers to re-examine cinema as a project? Is filmmaking by consensus possible? Is Hollywood immune to horizontal structures and transparency? Will OWS inspire a 99% cinema? What would that be, and who will produce it? What of the "director," the "actors," the "star," or the "crew?" How does the production praxis of the moving image, and the roles of the players within its context, shift in the 99% movie's creation? How will the final cut be distributed?

Which films would be on a Top Ten Movies of Occupation list?  

Regarding online video [2]:

>>In his rather grim assessment of the domain of small screen video in the introduction to Video Vortex II: Moving Images Beyond YouTube, Geert Lovink writes, “The Attention War is real.” [3] Nothing has authenticated Lovink’s claim more profoundly than Occupy Wall Street. Earlier in the short but seminal text, Lovink doggedly propositions us with a sequence of questions about the future of online video, finishing with this one: “Is online video liberating us from anything?”

Post-9-17-2011 (the day OWS materialized as an occupation of Zuccotti Park), we have some new answers about the utilitarian value of online video. I’m not referring to anything remotely art-centric here, yet, with regards small-screen, networked video transmitted on/for/by electronic devices.

I mean moving images that seemingly erupt from the societal margins and shoot into the monopolized global perceptual space, disrupting the placid managed surface of acceptable 1% talking points. I mean movies that project a 99%-oriented iteration of real events into the stream of content wired people access to figure out what’s happening now, and not just what’s happening in one’s particular, preferred info-silo.

Online video has occupied Big Picture reality, finally offering more than laughing babies, cute kitties and bedroom guitar maestros. Online video is maturing as a decentralized syndicate for unmediated transmissions. What OWS has proven is that the “margins” are really the main, and the Dark Matter Greg Sholette describes in his book by the same name, [4] the 99% - is us, to paraphrase Pogo.<< (Paul McLean, “Low Lives: Occupy”)

Will we make our own movie, starring ourselves? Is this a "game" project for the Novads, and what are the stakes?

REFERENCES:
[1] http://www.thewrap.com/tv/column-post/law-order-svu-occupy-wall-street-set-overtaken-real-ows-protestors-video-33468

[2, 3] http://www.occupywithart.com/llo-supporting-text/ + free download of Video Vortex Reader 2: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/videovortex/vv-reader

[4] In the Occupy with Art library: http://www.occupywithart.com/occupennial-library/2011/10/9/dark-matter-art-and-politics-in-the-age-of-enterprise-cultur.html

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