OwA @Activist Technology Demo Day [EYEBEAM]

Occupy with Art will be a presenter at Activist Technology Demo Day.

Saturday, January 28

Jan 28 3~6pm at Eyebeam Art and Technology Center 

[Details TBA]

From Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street, technology has played an important role in shaping contemporary resistance and the representation of these events in the media.

We do not believe technology is the main force behind these events and disagree with mainstream media’s phrases such as “Facebook Revolution” as it can lead to a misguided perception of the different movements in general and overshadow the more complex social conditions and regional characteristics specific to each. However we do believe technological innovation has always played a role in social movements and there is a need for collective investigation into the current potential of technologies deployed for activist purposes. Learning from Occupy Wall Street in the fall of 2011, we can collaboratively plot a blueprint for works in near-future.

  

                 

By using the term Activist Technology, we want to focus on tools of protest and occupation for this event.  We are curious about anything from strategic use of social networking sites to bicycle powered generators, instant architecture to anti-police violence suits, real-time video streaming to counter-surveillance tools. Our interest extends to the creative use of technology and designing its social implications.

We invite activists, technologists, artists, designers, and community organizers who have a working prototype or a proposal for collaboration to occupy a desk at Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, NYC on Jan 28 3~6pm. The Activist Technology Demo Day will be open to the public and promoted through Eyebeam and collaborators’ media channels. It will be an opportunity to meet with other makers with similar interests. The day will culminate with a discussion with members of the Eyebeam Urban Research Group and The Public School New York at 5pm.

Eyebeam Urban Research Group and The Public School New York

For more information on the organizers 

Tue - Sat, 12 - 6PM / 212.937.6580 / 540 W 21st St. New York, NY 10011

(map)

Occuburbs

Among the most widespread and enduring forms of progressive organization in the suburbs are environmental groups, food co-ops, and politically oriented arts groups and small galleries. These work with the domestic ethos of home and garden rather than against it, and they do a lot of good. They support open space preservation and local farms, particularly organic farms, and establish neighborly micro-economies as alternatives to the mall and highway hegemony.

Much of what the Occupy Wall Street movement advocates in the way of human-scale, participatory, and sustainable social organization already exists amidst the country clubs and ranch houses of the suburbs. It is small in scale and particular organizations tend to struggle with the attrition of a difficult economy and, alongside that, the general drift toward the preoccupied life; people have kids to take care of, things to do. Nonetheless, the alternative economy persists, resistance is fed in the most seductive way by local honey, herbs, cheese, beer and vegetables, and in a more spiritual sense by local art, music, and poetry. Seduction is not revolution, clearly, but it is something not to be scorned.

In thinking about Occupying culture in the suburbs, then, the coop and the alternative arts space came to mind as institutions to enlist. The challenge is to introduce the dynamic of a vanguard social movement, Occupy Wall Street, into these institutions and, beyond that, to determine a format that would best encourage a creative exchange of ideas and approaches among the participants in a given project. This is partly a matter of striking a balance between contributions from local artists and those based outside the area. It wouldn’t do simply to install an exhibition of Occupy-related work from downtown Manhattan in a suburban gallery; this would run the risk of being a show rather than an action. Similarly, one would hope that any event would advance the principles of the movement rather than support or illustrate them.

Occupy Wall Street is inherently transformative; it arose, and continues to arise outside of and in contradistinction to the parameters of party politics, class and social divisions, established forms of mobilization and resistance; it is a profoundly cohesive and inclusive civil rights movement, civil rights understood in terms of economic as well as political enfranchisement. If an expression of art and social activism in the suburbs is to reflect and engage the Occupy movement, it should be internally transformative, not just another cultural event in the suburbs but one that is informed by the questions that have impelled the occupations and street demonstrations worldwide: what does democracy look like? What does art for the ninety-nine per cent look like? Is an occupied suburb possible, an occupied suburban culture and social expression?

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Arts & Labor Informal Discussion: Thinking Through Collectivity

Arts & Labor is a working group founded in conjunction with the New York General Assembly for Occupy Wall Street. We are artists and interns, writers and educators, art handlers and designers, administrators, curators, assistants, and students. We are all art workers and members of the 99%. Arts & Labor is dedicated to exposing and rectifying economic inequalities and exploitative working conditions in our fields through direct action and educational initiatives. By forging coalitions, fighting for fair labor practices, and re-imagining the structures and institutions that frame our work, Arts & Labor aims to achieve parity for every member of the 99%

Arts & Labor Informal Discussion: Thinking Through Collectivity

When: Friday, December 16^th, 7:30-9PM

Where: H.E.N.S. (Hanns Eisler Nail Salon Gallery/Solidarity Center)

Southwest Corner of Bergen and 3^rd Avenue

Directions: H.E.N.S.  is located 3 blocks from the 2,3,4,5,B,Q,D,M,N,R stop at Atlantic/Pacific Ave. or 4 blocks from the A,C,G train to Hoyt/Schermerhorn. (It is a gallery with glass windows).

PLEASE JOIN ARTS & LABOR FOR AN OPEN, UNSTRUCTURED DISCUSSION at 7:30PM:

What are the challenges of maintaining one’s place in the “real world” vs. striving for the utopian goals of OWS? 

What are the challenges of maintaining the concerns of the singular/particularistic within the framework of the collective embodied in the GA model? 

How is curatorial practice implicated in perpetuating the 1%?

Is the notion of “singular authorship” incompatible with a notion of a politically engaged art activism?

What is the “turning point” at which an artist leaves their studio practice and makes activism their main focus? Is this a false dichotomy? Can studio practice ever be activism? Have we all reached that turning point?

Is it necessary to share our personal histories in order to effectively organize together? How do we define efficacity, and is that our highest goal?

OWS Temporality: because time moves so fast within the landscape of OWS, and within the space of a week an entirely new situation on the ground may transpire, how does this effect our process and thinking within OWS?

The above is but a provisional sampling. To see the full list of questions compiled by Arts and Labor Members, join our discussion list at ows-arts-and-labor@googlegroups.com!

After the informal discussion, join us for a potluck and Holiday Party from 9 to 12AM as we make banners and signs for D17!

Cam-vid by Jim Costanza

Occupy Sotheby's!

Rally at Sotheby’s Thursday, Oct. 20 @ 1:30pm 1334 York Ave (b/w 71st & 72nd)
6 train to 68th St.-Hunter College
Leave directly from #OccupyWallSt!
Buses depart from Liberty Pl b/w Trinity and Broadway at 1 PM!

Things are peachy for the 1%. Sotheby’s made $680 million in 2010 and gave their CEO a 125% raise—he makes $60,000 a day. 

Not so for the 99%. Sotheby’s demanded concessions from their workers and then locked them out of work. The workers have been locked out for 11 weeks.

Come support the locked-out workers.
Tell the 1%: STOP CORPORATE GREED
Keep in touch with our campaign. Text 917-657-7890 with your email to get added to our mailing list and receive updates on where the campaign is going. 
Sponsored by OWS Labor Committee: owsnyclabor@gmail.com



Occupy Museums!

On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Noah Fischer <fischer.noah@gmail.com> wrote:

Occupy Museums!

Let’s dance in front of the Cannons

and tell the cultural pyramids:

You are NOT our MoMA!

I know that many people have been thinking in this direction and I’d like to add my voice.  It just might be time to band together And do some museum hopping! We'll state loud and clear and publically that the game is up: we see through the pyramid schemes that museums have set up whereby the 1% sit on boards and presume to speak with cultural authority while increasing the profit margins of their private collections. They have disempowering the hundreds of thousands of living artists - the 99% through rarified gatekeeping that has directly equated art with Wall Street capital- with all of the same shady business and BS hierarchy!!!  

As long as we accept the authority of these oppressive cannons, I’m not sure we can move forward with new aesthetics and movements:  art that is truly by and for everyone!  Art that isn’t rehashed and boring and pre-packaged and dead on arrival! Art that is alive! Art that is powerful! I think it would be wonderful to give the museums notice of the impending paradigm shift. Some serious truth to power, playfulness, and mockery is in order!

-Explaining Art to a Dead Museum.

-Reading the GA statement or A & C statement or autonomous statements in front of the Frick, using people’s mic.

-etc etc.

-etc. 

There are many museum nights in New York with long lines, which may be fruitful audiences. We can also go inside and play.

So I propose Occupy Museums next week- Thursday afternoon and evening. I’ll bring this up at an A & C meeting beforehand.

A couple Museums to Occupy:

-New Museum: Showcased Dakis Joannou’s personal collection, bumping up auction prices: use and abuse of the whole concept of “public” for personal profits. Dis-gusting!

-Frick Collection: dedicated to a long term PR campaign for the one of the “Worst American CEOs of All time.” Whose draconian policies included murdering workers striking against unhuman working conditions. We say- what the Frick is going on here! 

It’s easy to do research on these museums and who is standing behind them:

http://www.moma.org/about/trustees

Noah



From "A Curator"

Sotheby's has locked out workers in the context of immense corporate profits. Details can be gleaned elsewhere.

I find myself working with Sothebys in my job, and am disturbed to know I am doing business with an anti-labor organization.

I would respond favorably to a challenge to propgressive sellers of art (collectors, museums and galleries) to insist that a portion of the premiums Sotheby's collects in auctions be redirected to the Teamsters or AFL/CIO. This can be insisted upon in giving consignments. If an entity usually pays 5% sellers premium, they can now insist that 2% of the 5% goes to AFLCIO. Or they can negotiate a lower premium and send the difference themselves. Given that Christies will usually match Sotheby's negotiated terms  in order to get
consignments, Sotheby's will lose consignments, or lose cash.

I am not in a position to PROPOSE this idea, but I am in a position to RESPOND to it if some individual or group can begin it.

Contacting high-level collectors might result in a much better response than you imagine. Many of them are real progressives....