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Category Archives: Research Blog
Joseph DeLappe
Joseph DeLappe, Dead in Iraq, 2007 “It may not effect change in the kind of physical sense that maybe we’ve been talking about, but I think if you can get inside someone’s head, and make the synapses shift for a second, then there’s something really valuable to that.” Working with electronic and new media since …
10 New Year’s resolutions for designers
There’s some great chunks of wisdom in this .net magazine post from Mike Monteiro that we can creatively adapt to our own practices. Like this: from number one: “Choose better problems to solve” We have more processing power, affordable tools, and combined intelligence right this very minute than at any point in the history of …
Sarah Silverman, Comedy, and the idea of the meta-bigot
This piece from Slate in 2005 introduces the interesting idea of a meta-bigots: Silverman has become an important member of a guerrilla vanguard in the culture wars that we might call the “meta-bigots”…. The meta-bigots work at social problems indirectly; instead of discussing race, rape, abortion, incest, or mass starvation, they parody our discussions of …
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Party as a Political Act
“We pulled off an event that invoked the shock of something completely different, but was also universally familiar, and we did it in the middle of downtown. I feel good about that at the basest level.” We met Donovan McKnight last Spring when he participated in our School for Creative Activism in North Carolina. McKnight …
Always good stuff from ill doctrine
Frank Luntz on Occupy Wall Street
“I’m so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death,” said Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist and one of the nation’s foremost experts on crafting the perfect political message. “They’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.” Luntz offered tips on how Republicans could discuss the grievances of the …
Kids on Wall Street
7 year old Interviews Occupy DC protesters Wonder Showzen: Where will you hide when the revolution comes? This is from a couple years ago, but I have never forgotten it.
An Occupied Halloween
Big thanks to CAA’s friends Gan Golan and Mark Read for sending us these links to coverage of Occupied performances and protests that took place on Halloween.
Clowns Arrested in Near-Successful Attack on Wall Street Bull
From the Yes Lab Earlier today, a small group of Occupy Wall Street activists engaged in a near-successful corrida against the Wall Street Bull. The incident began when two clowns, Hannah Morgan and Louis Jargow, scaled the steel barricades protecting the landmark. The clowns began spanking and climbing the beast, traditional ways of coaxing a …
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APEC World Leaders Dinner Gets Occupied
From the Yes Lab Honolulu – A change in the programmed entertainment at last night’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gala left a few world leaders slack-jawed, though most seemed not to notice that anything was amiss. During the gala dinner, renowned Hawaiian guitarist Makana, who performed at the White House in 2009, opened his suit …
12,000 Encircle White House In Protest of Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline
Today, more than 12,000 people from across the United States and Canada gathered at the White House to call on President Obama to stop the TransCanada Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. After a rally in Lafayette Square addressed by elected officials, youth climate activists, environmental leaders, climate scientist James Hansen, religious leaders, Nobel Peace Laureate …
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Art and Subversive Humor
The New York Times Magazine published an excellent article about artists and activists in China who evade censors by coding their critiques of the government in humor and satire. The article is full of examples of beautiful – and effective – artistic activist gestures.
Tim DeChristopher’s OWS call to action from prison
Incarcerated climate activist Tim DeChristopher recently sent Occupy Wall Street a letter from jail, which was read by Russell and Ashley Anderson from Peaceful Uprising on October 30th. “The message should be clear,” DeChristopher wrote. “We’re not giving up on our future even if it’s difficult. And we need a president with similar courage.” You …
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Student Activists Pressure Colleges to Participate in Bank Transfer Day
Campus activists across the country are preparing for Bank Transfer Day, which encourages people to move their money from big banks to community-based credit unions on November 5. But student supporters aren’t stopping at encouraging their peers to close their accounts at major banks. They plan to leverage the energy from the Occupy Wall Street …
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The Age of Activism (and reclaimed pizza boxes)
Let me rashly and prematurely propose a name for our era: the Age of Activism. Here’s a preliminary sketch for a history of the age in which we are currently immersed, as well as a diagnosis of where this activism is heading. via The Age of Activism – Foreign Policy in Focus I stumbled across …
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Protesters Against Wall Street – NYTimes.com
It is not the job of the protesters to draft legislation. That’s the job of the nation’s leaders, and if they had been doing it all along there might not be a need for these marches and rallies. Because they have not, the public airing of grievances is a legitimate and important end in itself. …
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Destructables Launch Party – San Francisco Oct 15
From CAA friend Packard Jennings: Destructables.org: A user generated, Do-It-Yourself website for projects of protest and creative dissent. Details: Saturday October 15th from 4pm-7pm (demos start about 5pm) In the Studio for Urban Projects. 3579 17th street (at Dolores) San Francisco The launch will feature several demos, including ‘how to make and use wheat paste …
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The Beats
The catch-all nature of the Occupy Wall Street protests has been a major focus of the coverage of the events. Depending on the perspective of the commentators, the diversity of demands is alternately perceived as a detrimental lack of coherence, evidence of far-reaching public discontent, or a model for radical egalitarianism. Many have distilled the …
My Political Faith
The following is a short piece I wrote for an on-line journal called freq.uenci.es who asked me to write about spirituality. At first I said no; I don’t think of myself as a spiritual person. But then I started thinking about some of the training work that Lambert and I do in the School for …
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