Not everyone has much faith in art-activism, but you can’t please ’em all. Do symbolic protests accomplish anything more than raising morale for the protesters? If not is it enough to simply raise morale? Or do actions like this War prank create temporary autonomous zones and manifest, albeit briefly, the type of reality the activists …
Tag Archives: activist example
Bill Ayers on Fresh Air
Bill Ayers on Fresh Air with Terry Gross This is an except from the end of the interview that I thought was relevant to the questions we’re asking in How to Win. Gross: Do you think some of the tactics that you took on were in some part this youthful expression of anger, something that …
Marketing Lessons from Obama's Campaign – BusinessWeek
In recent weeks, I’ve ended up more than once amid marketing executives discussing, with apparent seriousness, what the purveyors of ordinary products can learn from the campaign that sold America on Barack Obama. To which my response is, well, they can learn lots. As long as they, too, sell something that makes people cry when …
Continue reading “Marketing Lessons from Obama's Campaign – BusinessWeek”
Oh Yes They Did! – artnet Magazine
My take is a little different. If anything, I think activists are already excessively focused on the media. People often judge the success of a demonstration primarily on how much media coverage it receives, rather than seeing demonstrations as a place to gain confidence, meet people and groups, and build the core of a long-term …
A Kinder Gentler Empire
Sinfest is both incredibly dark and refreshingly soft-hearted. The author, you can tell, is earnest. He doesn’t hate the US, he loves its ideals, but he also has no illusions about its past crimes and current hypocrisies. Check out Sinfest daily. via: Sinfest
LIVERMORE / Anti-nuke activists lose out on bid to run weapons lab
A bid by Bay Area anti-nuclear weapons activists and the New College of California to take over Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been rejected by the U.S. nuclear weapons agency. Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) out of Livermore, New College in San Francisco and two allied groups filed the bid for the Livermore …
Continue reading “LIVERMORE / Anti-nuke activists lose out on bid to run weapons lab”
Wassup 2008
Funny, engaged in pop culture, arguably hard-hitting message… this is good.
Laugh at a Campaign Pitch? Sure. Visit the Grandparents? Not So Much. – NYTimes.com
MIAMI — When Sarah Silverman told young Jews to get their lazy rotund rear ends to Florida to persuade their grandparents to vote for Senator Barack Obama, one question loomed: Would they go? This weekend was the first big test, a kickoff for the so-called Great Schlep, and so far, momentum has been building with …
GRL's James Powderly detained in Beijing for planning pro-Tibet
“James is a unique voice in the world, who lives and breathes art and technology for the purpose of promoting and enabling freedom of expression for all,” said Nathan Dorjee, Director of Technology for Students for a Free Tibet. “His trip to Beijing, in support of the Tibetan people and all people around the world …
Continue reading “GRL's James Powderly detained in Beijing for planning pro-Tibet”
I met the Walrus
In 1970, a fourteen year old boy named Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Montreal room during their “peace in.” The following animated short, I Met the Walrus, is based on a recording of their conversations. It was nominated for an Oscar for “best animated short” at the 2008 Academy Awards, and …
Get Your War On: Terrorist Watch List
This is a new video from 23/6.com a political-ish comedy site. The video is about a serious issue, but treats it in a comical-ish way. Which is a fine strategy if done well, but I there’s just not quite enough substance here. All you really get from the video is that there’s a terrorist watch …
“Proximity to Politics” 3 Book Review
via: Miscellaneous Projects Originally Written for Boot Print Volume #2 (St. Louis, USA) Proximity to Politics: A Review of Three Recent Published Dialogues on Contemporary Art and Activism By Daniel Tucker In an attempt to broadly survey the current terrain of contemporary art in relationship to politics, I am turning to three invaluable new resources …
We Ask Your Attention (1938)
British Surrealist Group (1938) We Ask Your Attention From a pamphlet issued by the British Surrealist Group, designed by Henry Moore, London,1938 (reprinted in Art and Social Change, Will Bradley and Charles Esche, eds., London: Tate, 2007, pp. 110-114) “If only in self-defense we must END ALL FORMS OF NON-INTERVENTION, INTERVENE IN THE FIELD OF …
Art and Propaganda (1924)
William Pickens (1924) Art and Propaganda Extract from The Messenger, New York, April 1924 (reprinted in Art and Social Change, Will Bradley and Charles Esche, eds., London: Tate, 2007, pp. 74-75) It begins: “What we are going to say now will make us a Philistine to some ‘artists’, and to all of the near-artists. But …
Programme Declaration (1919)
Komfut (1919) Programme Declaration Iskusstvo Kommuny (Art of the Commune) No. 8, Petrograd, 26 January 1919 (reprinted in Art and Social Change, Will Bradley and Charles Esche, eds., London: Tate, 2007, pp. 68) “ A communist regime demands a communist consciousness. All forms of life. Morality, philosophy and art must be re-created according to communist …
San Francisco to vote on naming sewer after George Bush
Is this art? Is it activistm? Certainly, the power elite are not shaking in their boots over such stunts, but this just viscerally seems right. via: the Independet By Guy Adams in Los Angeles Friday, 27 June 2008 San Francisco Public Utilities Commission The plant that could be renamed the George W Bush Sewage Plant …
Continue reading “San Francisco to vote on naming sewer after George Bush”
Game Culture
Play is one of the earliest and most important activities of mammals; helping adolescents learn the skills they need to survive. Games take the free play of the animal kingdom and apply rules and constraints, which have the ability to teach and develop the values and beliefs of a culture. The chess queen developed as …
Gran Fury talks to Douglas Crimp
Gran Fury talks to Douglas Crimp – Interview ArtForum, April, 2003 DOUGLAS CRIMP: One of your members, Mark Simpson, is no longer with us. Perhaps we can officially dedicate our remarks here to his memory. When did Mark die? TOM KALIN: Mark died of AIDS on November 10, 1996. DC: Okay, let’s begin with a …
Home Invasion as Art
For the past four years, Critical Art Ensemble’s Steve Kurtz has been a martyr in the world of activist art, the victim of overzealous FBI investigatory impropriety. The case against him was utterly absurd, Kafka-esque even. Thankfully,though, the judge saw reason this month and his case was finally dismissed. Now, he has an exhibit entitled …
How George Carlin Changed Comedy
via: Time When the culture began to change in the late 1960s — when the old one-liner comics on the Ed Sullivan Show were looking pretty tired and irrelevant to a younger generation experimenting with drugs and protesting the War in Vietnam — George Carlin was the most important stand-up comedian in America. By the …
You must be logged in to post a comment.