Thursday, April 30, 2009

Guy Goma for YorkU president!


The cab driver applying for a job at the BBC was confused for a media expert and then interviewed. He did a fine job showing us all that a cab driver knows about as much as a media expert; and that here in the York context, business education and interdisciplinary education is going to render experts who are experts at nothing other than self promotion and the highest platitudes of entitlement and consumerism.

Space poetry; Desire Paths


Desire Paths:
-subvert intended design
-democratic
-mark by erosion
-save time
-can be muddy
-can be trespassing
-libraterating

CBC censored on conservative campus shell groups

source: wikileaks

http://file.sunshinepress.org:54445/cbc-opcca-story-2009.mp3

"CBC Radio One's Evan Dyer reports on the OPCCA tapes released to Wikileaks[1] and the tangible example of the Campus Conservatives' "dirty tricks" in setting up front groups on campus, including the Star Trek Club, Star Wars Appreciation, Games and Leisure, and the Friedrich Nietzsche club at Carleton University in Ottawa.

After running a few times on CBC Radio One's early morning news cycle on March 20, 2009, the story was abruptly pulled. Thus, this tape has been released to Wikileaks, given the concern that this story was pulled or censored from within the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

This story, originally posted to Wikileaks, has been written about in the Ryerson Free Press[2], the Cord Weekly[3], the Queen's Journal[4], has been the subject of countless blogs, and the Canadian Federation of Students issued an official press release about it[5].

This CBC Radio One story, however, uncovers a new angle of this issue, which is an actual case of Conservative front groups being set up on a university campus."


my question: how can we start to map the neoliberal take over of our university in effective ways?


James Victore




I just want to share this link:

http://www.jamesvictore.com/

It is the website for New York based designer, James Victore. A lot of his posters have gotten many attention and even in Museums such as MoMA. Also, his works is what inspired me to do my presentation on. Graphic Design is more than Aesthetics and to sell a product, when used correctly, it is a powerful tool for public awarness over different social problems.



Friday, April 24, 2009

Monday, April 20, 2009

Sketch # 2

Abbreviating Language- http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/textmessageabbreviations.asp

Living in a world of text culture/ generation

  • Easier to make a phone call
  • People using the abbreviations when they talk “L.O.L” or “W.T.F”
  • Twitter
  • Written English language is suffering
  • difficulty of expressing emotions with words
  • Losing touch with reality (ironic)
  • social retraction

Confusion - Cantonese Tonal (nonsense) Poem

This piece was created for another class last term. The question I raise is when does language become merely sound and lose its meaning? In Chinese language, a lot of characters share the same pronunciation. So we can combine different characters in a way that they sound identical but they have totally different meanings. Also, since Chinese is a tonal language, by simply changing the tone can change the meaning drastically, or just turn the whole thing into nonsense.

Among the 40 lines, only the last line has real meaning. All the rest are the permutations of tonal changes.

Discussion (originally posted by Marc)
  • Were the tonal choices based on semantics or sound?
  • Meaning keeps changing through the tonal variations - some have a specific meaning, others are nonsense, but the variations are so subtle that one can mistake sense for nonsense (on a sonic basis) very easily.
  • The contradiction between the written sign (grapheme) which has a meaning, and the pronunciation / tonal articulation which turns the written sign into sound nonsense. The written and the oral keep bouncing off of each other, creating different kinds of confusions/contradictions...
  • At first, one has the impression of hearing the same sounds repeated over and over again. As one progresses and becomes more sensitive to the material (because we have heard it repeatedly), one starts to notice the subtle shifts in tone. (Think of Steve Reich's Come Out, which is actual repetition in contrast...)
Recording of performance

Explanation

Monica's Sketch #2

In the following piece, I picked out all the sentences starting with "we" from the CAW president statement addressed to their members.

I'm interested in how they use their language when communicating to their members ... how does their use of language affect the public vs. the internal members' perception?

Statement from CAW President Ken Lewenza Regarding Canadian and U.S. Auto Restructuring Announcements (March 30, 2009)
  • we'd lose up to 600,000 jobs.
  • We'd go from recession to depression overnight.
  • We all have a stake in keeping this industry going in Canada.
  • We're all counting on the jobs, the exports, the taxes that are generated by this industry.
  • we could produce for Fiat in both our plants in Canada.
  • we can negotiate adequate protections for Canada and preserve the Canadian footprint.
  • We want Canada to do the same thing, in concert with the U.S.
  • we move forward - to preserve our share of this vital industry.
  • we could go further.
  • we were inches away from a deal, the goalposts kept shifting.
  • We were pawns in a bigger drama.
  • we opened bargaining early with the three North American automakers, and reached an early settlement.
  • We've never done that before in our history.
  • CAW would be part of the solution, and to preserve our Canadian investment advantage that results from attractive hourly labour costs and superior productivity.
  • we agreed to re-open our May 2008 contract, so that the CAW would be part of the solution, and to preserve our Canadian investment advantage that results from attractive hourly labour costs and superior productivity.
  • We did what the government asked of us.
  • We reached an agreement with GM, ratified by our members, in time for the March 31 deadline.
  • We did that, and GM confirmed its value.
  • We reached that deal and ratified it, on time.
  • we were able to accomplish this in Canada.
  • We would have ratified the same deal this past weekend (we had ratification meetings booked for Saturday and Sunday in all Chrysler locations).
  • CAW active costs to the same as the U.S. transplants, and reducing our legacy costs.
  • we have clearly done our job.
  • We are not going to re-open our collective agreement with General Motors, which determines those active costs, one more time.
  • We did it once ten months ago.
  • we did it again one month ago.
  • we committed to continue bargaining with Chrysler.
  • We know why that is.
  • We have a real advantage, thanks to our medicare system.
  • we've done lots of innovative things at CAW to reduce legacy health costs further.
  • we have more retirees to support,
  • we have fewer plants and active workers to generate the funds needed to pay for legacy costs.
  • We've allowed our industry to wither away.
  • We've allowed imports to take the lion's share of our market.
  • We can't take those entitlements away from them.
  • We have no legal right to take those entitlements away from them.
  • we want to.
  • We will continue to engage in discussions with the companies and governments over how to control and manage legacy costs.
  • we have proposed.
  • CAW is willing to engage in wide-open tripartite discussions with the companies and with governments over how to address those legacy cost issues.
  • We will continue bargaining with Chrysler.
  • we will continue talking with the companies and the governments over legacy issues and how to manage them going forward.

500 out of 1500 words

Monday, April 13, 2009

"Watch the Watchmen!"

The Sexman, a.k.a. Pruane2Forever

Hey, kid. We love to hate you

This is a biweekly column about microcelebrities – the often accidental stars of the viral videos and jpegs crowding our inboxes.

Globe and Mail Update

He's 14, he's got blue-green braces, a face that looks wind-tunnelled at the best of times and a grating, whiny voice straight out of Saturday Night Live.

All of these qualities could stand a chance of transmuting into something lovable. But no.

I revile “Sexman,” a.k.a. “Pruane2Forever,” and, judging by the comments posted under his videos, so does everyone else on the Internet – and yet he is Canada's No. 1 most-subscribed-to partner on YouTube.

This is a confounding fact. Do people really just want to watch someone to get their hate on?

Apparently. Sexman and his fans – if we can even call them that – are locked into a relationship whose dynamic I can only describe as sado-masochistic. Sexman must know he is reviled to the point of receiving death threats (albeit the toothless kind that proliferate on YouTube). Yet he continues to post videos faithfully. The viewers detest him, and yet they can't stop watching.

His rants are topical: Whatever happened at school that day, the latest Hollywood gossip, video-game reviews.




He's opinionated – he gets why Christian Bale tore a strip off the “stupid” crew member who walked through his shot. “It's stressful making movies,” he informs his audience. “Most people don't understand that.”

He's occasionally inarticulate, as on the topic of Rihanna: “It's an endless cycle,” he says of the R & B singer's alleged abuse at the hands of her boyfriend. “A horrible circle that just keeps going round and round until someone decides to just – to make a hole between the circle so it can't go round any more. Not between the circle, but, you know, cut one side or something.”

Usually, I feel protective and fond of the misfits, who are so often more creative and interesting than the popular kids at school. But Sexman seemed a dyed-in-the-wool pariah. I just couldn't find it in myself to sympathize. Or so I thought, until I saw him filming a man he calls “Father John.”

Red-faced Father John tells rambling, slurred, curse-larded anecdotes while Sexman, off-camera, alternately taunts him and eggs him on. This family portrait – presumably Father John is Sexman's dad – is the stuff of hard-hitting documentaries, and it evokes a fresh raft of feelings.

Sexman, you realize, is a surprisingly functional unit. He becomes a sympathetic character, if not likable.

My former irritation is transmuted into a more academic interest: Is he able to withstand hateful comments because he has grown up needing to have a thick skin? Does he film his father at his worst as a form of retribution? Do the tiny percentage of people who have found him through the Internet and genuinely, for whatever reason, like him, make all the vitriol worthwhile in his eyes?

Of course, this is a much more layered perception of him than most viewers might admit to. But it's tempting to think that Sexman emerges the victor, somehow, in this apparently pointless death match between exhibitionist and voyeur, hated and haters.

Amazing Diva of Canal Street, pan remix

SKETCH #2


Discussion of the act of resistatnce

1. Taking action to oppose to certain norm, institution, propaganda etc.

2. I believe an act of resistance can be at any size or scale. It really depends on the idea that the act tries to resist against. Some action may require longer term investment to obtain result, and some may need larger scale to be effective.

3. yes, an act of resistance can be invisible to others, especially when the act is deliberately avoid participating in certain activity rather than actively engaged in a particular activity. For example, it is hard to notice if people deliberately stop buying things from certain retailer because of some social concerns.

4. eg. graffiti, boycott use of plastic bag or any non-recyclable material, telling stories in public sphere (eg. blog, you tube) that may go against the major belief or what is being told in the mainstream media ... Some of these acts would take longer time to be effective or be aware by majority of the crowd. But the popularity of internet may allow certain stories spread like virus that it may take only short time to promote the resistance.

6. Détourned existing video or sound material to create new or opposing meaning of the original in order to reveal issues people concern. You tube / goolge video type of public broadcasting sites are common platform to do that. Blogging is also common way for people to express and promote opposing view against the social norm.

7. It can be time sensitive. For example if the act of resistance is dealing with social political issue, it is important to act in right timing. It is true to most of the successful revolutions. However the duration could be long or short. Some resistance act takes long time to see the result.

8. eg. terrorist, democracy, freedom ... they are commonly used in the main stream media to justify certain government action, without putting them into the proper context.

10. Don't rely on single information source to get informed about what's going on in our society. Also communicate openly with people that have different points of view or experience. A lot of our belief comes from personal interaction with the people we trust.

Uses and misuses of language a la graffiti

Others: http://www.lifelounge.com/forums/default.aspx?g=posts&t=46

Sunday, April 12, 2009

E of A - sketch 3

E of A - sketch 2

E of A - sketch 1

Economy of Activism

So this is a bit late- but here it is for your viewing pleasure. To CLARIFY these three images are all for the first sketch, despite being numbered 1, 2, 3,
The images do leave room for personal interpretation, and beyond the legend I've included I believe the images kind of speaks for themselves. The basic concept I'm trying to establish is the flexibility and ever-changing power dynamic between these concepts, and how they can dominate each other, simultaneously or concurrently.

[moderate?] neo-Luddite Manifesto



Okay so I'm really leaning towards developing a (moderate?) neo-Luddite mythology & manifesto. I will discuss the history of Luddism and perhaps touch upon a few other workers movements to provide some context for the new movement which I propose. The mythology will most likely appear as a sort of time-line while my manifesto will follow historical models (I'll get a hold of and read some manifestos before I get down to my own). For my presentation I may organize a rally or a talk where I (or another neo-Luddite member) will disseminate pamphlets and copies of the manifesto. I'm not sure that I want to engage in an organized debate with Mike (nothing personal Mike) as part of my presentation, although He or anyone else is free to challenge me or the views of the movement at anytime. Let's keep this informal and natural. Like any movement it may never get off the ground or it may show signs of support.

For my project I will develop and employ some practical real-world strategies and tactics, some reductive (resisting by NOT doing something or using an object (technology)) and some additive (resisting by PHYSICALLY pushing against something or an object (technology)). For the 'Sunday Luddite' this may mean not using his/her computer/mobile/television one day out of the week. For others it may be a 'Luddist Lent' (thanks Madison), cutting out technological objects/practices for a week/month out of each year. While in the additive camps simply reducing technology use may not be enough. Mapping out city-wide signal strengths of mobiles and wi-fi connections may be one strategy, and either providing those maps to interested participants or taping-off or physically altering locations where signals/friction are low. Developing an iconography and postering or stenciling those icons around the city in 'soft spots' or alternately in high signal/high friction environments - official looking window stickers like the wi-fi 'hot-spot' ones in the Starbucks. Anyone interested in participating in reductive or additive practices is more than welcome to sign up.

Kreeg/Craig.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Narratives of place and space; the ethics of Tactical Media






My fellow Fuck-ups,

Many of your SKETCHES, although not entirely ineffectual, have demonstrated an awareness of a pluralist overlay of forms. Marc’s examples on the blog, Heath Bunting’s BorderXings, e-Xplo’s Found Wanting, and Krystof Wodiczko’s mouth pieces, have embodied these pluralist spaces. Before anyone starts talking about the liminal, don’t, liminality as a concept has the same sentiments of a feminine hygiene commercial. How can we reoccupy ideas like ART/LIFE which sit vacant of meaning? By the crossing borders which define space.



Red rover…. Red rover….

The effort by which Heath Bunting moved his body over borders without interruptions from customs, immigration, and police challenge how borders restrict movement but are also there to be crossed. Its like when you are walking on the other side of the street and see a hot person holding hands with a boyfriend/girlfriend and your pants are calling ‘red-rover, red-rover, come on over’.




Breaking down the division between art and everyday life versus “Breaking down the division between art and everyday life”

Bunting has intentionally crossed borders, physically and ideologically… he has what is called, agency;

Definitions of agency on the Web: http://www.google.ca/search?q=define%3Aagency&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

BorderXing asks you to map your own agency, become aware of the borders, and outsmart or cross them.

Ways of operating, strata, and the interweave

How are you in-between? What are you going to do about it? Listen to some MP3s or mine your belly-button for some lint?

e-Xplo’s Found Wanting turned a trip on a coach into a cinematic experience, recorded and layered fragments of audio, and interrogated the narraitives which constitute the transitions of space in the city….

Lemme axe you a question… how did e-Xplo’s idea find its way onto a website, to Marc’s eyes, and onto the Tactical Media blog? What were the distances it traveled and how are you going to give your Tactical Media ideas some momentum?

Voice and Speech; Mouthpieces

Krsyzstof Wodiczko’s Mouthpieces give speech to the voices which go unheard. Immigrants are given mouthpieces made out of the same technology used to silence them; representation. The project seeks the voices of those we cannot hear, voice is the bare possibility of speech. Wodiczko’s intervention is a model of breaking borders, democraticizing the process of frame setting.



From Barthes’ ‘Quand je jouais aux barres… ~ When I used to play prisoner’s base…’

“ When I used to play prisoner’s base in Luxembourg, what I liked best was not provoking the other team and boldly exposing myself to their right to take me prisoner; what I liked best was to free the prisoners – the effect of which was to put both teams back into circulation: the game started over again at zero.

In the great game of the powers of speech, we also play prisoner’s base; one language has only temporary rights oer another; all it takes is for a third language to appear from the ranks for the assailant to be forced to retreat: in the conflict of rhetoric’s, the victory never goes to any but the third language. The task of this language is to release the prisoners: to scatter the signifieds, the catechisms. As in prisoner’s base, language upone language, to infinity, such is the law which goerns logosphere. Whence other images: that of choosing up hand over hand (the third hand returns, it is no longer the first one), the of scissors, paper, stone, that of the onion in its layers of skin without a core. The difference should not be paid for by any subjection: no last word.”

(Marina Abramovic - the onion)

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Daffodils Border

Inspired by the "BorderXing" posting.

This is an art installation happened some years ago .. "provoke a rethinking of the idea of lines, borders and imposed definitions."

Imagine / Align

the superimposition of new usages

After De Certeau:

"Just as in literature one differentiates “styles” or ways of writing, one can distinguish “ways of operating”—ways of walking, reading, producing, speaking, etc. These styles of action intervene in a field which regulates them at a first level (for example, at the level of the factory system), but they introduce into it a way of turning it to their advantage that obeys other rules and constitutes something like a second level interwoven into the first. These “ways of operating” are similar to “instructions for use”, and they create a certain play in the machine through a stratification of different and interfering kinds of functioning. Thus a North African living in Paris or Roubaix insinuates into the system imposed on him by the construction of a low-income housing development or of the French language the ways of “dwelling” (in a house or a language) peculiar to his native Kabylia. He superimposes them and, by that combination, creates for himself a space in which he can find ways of using the constraining order of the place or of the language. Without leaving the place where he has no choice but to live and which lays down its law for him, he establishes within it a degree of plurality and creativity. By an art of being in between, he draws unexpected results from his situation."

Two examples:

e-Xplo's "Found Wanting" project

Krsyzstof Wodiczko's Mouthpiece

BorderXing

About borders, imagined and physical, mapping and dériving, linking the conceptual, the political and the physical...

Details here

A map and more details here

M



(found)

Monday, April 6, 2009

AVgender & the Assumption of Pronouns




Post Le Gai Savoir Questions A La Resistance

1. Some of the words that indicated the kind of reaction we had to the word resistance : Halting, Divergencies, Reduction, Re-Combination, Reclamation, Re-Arrangement, Reconstruction, Recitation, Synthesis, Appropriation, Refutation, Malappropriation, Distortion...Ultimately, we defined it and isolated it as either a positive active force or reaction against another active/acting force (presence, institution, tradition, expectation, initiation, designation, alienation, etc) or a force of negation which is more passive, a resistance to an established entity through inaction, refusal, non-participation, deviation, willed-alienation, etc (boycott for example).

Also, if it is to be an act of resistance it must maintain its literalness as an act, as in, not just a potentiality but a manifestation or employment of some idea in the outward world (materialist dialectics vs abstract dialectics). Although, we did agree that thoughts can be resistant insomuch as they are considered acts themselves.

2. If thought can be a form of resistance then scale seems difficult to determine. We cannot even locate thought specifically so if we consider thought to be a means of resistance it would almost remove scope as a factor of consideration for resistance. We all know what we mean when we say 'big thoughts' or 'small thoughts', as in the scope of their importance (from mundane self-reflections to global idealisms), so even in the intangible material of thinking we can see an unlimited range of scale within this kind of resistance. Perhaps we could discuss this subject in class : if thought is active, what would art look like if the material it worked with was thought? Some intermediary is necessary, of course, as we cannot see into each other's minds, but what would be the best intermediary form for engaging with the 'real-time' or 'immediacy' of the process of thought? Would it be another invisible substance, like speech, or the unseen symbolism of gesture? If one wanted to explore resistance as form of thought, as an artist, how could one negotiate with thinking as a form, despite it's invisibility/indecipherability and its unpredictable directions/deviations, etc? It would almost seem like working with psycho-analysis as a medium, playing with inner motivation, expression, displacement. Interestingly, if thinking is a resistant form, and it could be THE resistant form since it supposedly precedes calculated/tactical action, how would the agencies of power/establishment counter-resist this, ie. since they cannot technologize a resistance through surveillance or containment of thought, does this not make thought an ideal means of resistance? So in this sense, education and ideology are the crucial battlegrounds (as everybody knows) but to what extent is it a workable form? Is it necessarily relegated to the unseen categories which latch onto to other representations/media? Can thought, in the purest sense, be worked with as a medium, as a form?
TANGENT! Sorry group!!!


3. Thinking, again.........we thought that silent omission was key here. Non-participation, non-ownership, non-consumption, non-listening, non-engagement are ways but these are all negative versions, not active invisible resistances. We discussed anonymity as a way of acting out without a specific visibility. The act would still be visible to other though, but the agent would possess a certain invisibility. Dreams were also mentioned as a silent form of inner resistance which are not available for others to see; dreams seem to be negotiations with the everyday, without intervention, without restriction, so in this sense they are formal engagements with reality outside of the constraints of norms or pressures that consciousness tends to follow. The silence of the imagination is one of the most subversive and invisible forms of resistance. A lot of our digressions on these questions seemed to go to the subjective realms, apparently. So spectacular approaches, which generally call to a large audience in an extremely sensational way (hypertrophic, exaggerated, hyper-emphatic), are like the opposite of the invisible approaches. Spectacle overwhelms from the outside. It approaches the subject and makes a meaning out of it often through sheer magnitude. It overwhelms by heightened notification. It depends and insists on visibility. While these more inner or unseen varieties have the subject approaching, either self-reflexively or towards the outside world, instead.

There are several invisible presences of resistance that go unnoticed, simply because they are absences. When you see people, places, and things, it is merely a surface value appreciation. You can't tell if the clothes someone wears are conscious resistances to some other potential choices (generic vs label) or if someone taking a bus is enacting a silent resistance (to car culture) or are forced into public transit by poverty. The same goes for all aspects of life which are not overtly politcal actions. Everything that is chosen implicitly speaks of convention or resistance, complacence or autonomy, or whatever. This is why the unseen existence of thought could be considered to be the most crucial form of resistance because it governs the more ambiguous presences in the day-to-day (including our presumptions about those outward forms).

4. Resistance to familiarity was pretty important here. Getting lost intentionally is a great way to resist the common or expected experiences in a given space. Investigation against established routes can shatter the directions expected and already carved into spaces, and our memory of how to navigate those spaces. Take a bus you've never taken before. Shut your eyes and get off at random. Or stay on a bus that you know and see where it ends and maybe go beyond the system's destinations. Resist routine, in social/public spaces/practices, and even in yourself. If you are making or performing art, say dance for example, you could resist the formalism of established codes by wearing unorthodox clothes within a traditional mode of dance (wear business casual while you are doing ballet).

Also, an important one was the resistance of organic processes, like sleep. If you ignore the common practiced behaviours of biological norms, like when society says bedtime is and how much sleep is required, you are resisting, in accordance with yourself. Also, there are unconscious resistances here - like when you have insomnia and sleep medication does not work as it is intended. In this case, the body is resisting on its own, contra-your-mind, if this distinction holds. Or physiological habits, like smoking. Addiction is another form of conformity located within the self. If you simply conform to your own traditions, like continuing to smoke as a persistant behaviourism, then you are being passive, in a sense, while you are being active.

Perhaps too much digression.

5. Bathroom graffitti conversations..................

6. One daily context of resistance mentioned was putting specific constraints on processes which are normally taken for granted (like Dogme filmmaking, where you are still making a movie, but severe limitations are imposed in order to adhere to a methodology which resists common approaches, expectations, executions, results). One person mentioned someone who refused to step on concrete for a whole day, despite having to be in public! The fact that this actually sounds impossible points to how entrenched certain aspects of spaces really are - like how assumed is it that you will come into contact with concrete when outdoors? It is almost compulsory!

I know some nudists..........they are bare resisters.

Another great example of initiated deviation in a common circumstance is throwing a party with a theme of acting - acting as the complete opposite of one's self, or as the complete opposite of what one perceives as the expected behaviour/personality that others have of you. This kind of self-analysis and playing with identity at something as commonplace as a party is a pretty neat example of this kind of resistance - taking a social gathering and making it a controlled event-resistance, both inner and public.

7. Time tends to be relative to the preparation, duration, and necessary reception of reactionist activities. Le Gai Savoir toys with time sensitivities excessively. Many of the images are dislocated and only appear subliminally or very shortly, which challenges the normative time-constraints of perception or reading of messages. The film forces us to question how meanings can be derived or destroyed in symbols when their presentation is ambiguous, re-contextualized, and especially limited in their on-screen-duration presence. If you examined a picture of Mao for 15 minutes it is conceivable that you could excavate all kinds of multiplicities of meaning from it as Mao as an entity has so many historical and social dimensions which are capable of signicifaction.............

Time, as far as history is concerned, is also important. How long do pardigms last, how long does it take for them to shift? The lines between evolutions are never distinct and they always serve as grounds for further change in the future.

8. 'FREEDOM', as a word, can be exploited infinitely, we all agreed.

9. Basically, we found that the most common type of prejudice which we were all guilty of was that of judging by appearances. Everyone does this as social navigation is difficult without SOME initial intuitive reaction to surface indicators. Our jobs, classes, interactions as consumers, and pretty much any association with things not deeply understood, depend of unsatisfying and insufficient presumptions which we use to quickly calculate 'appropriate response' or 'acceptable behaviour'. It is, ultimately, a catch-22 between social functionality and unfair supposition.

10. Everything in Le Gai Savoir.................

Monica's Sketch #1

This sketch is a little representation of what I think about activism and community art practice. I believe activism is about mobilizing change in the social and political world. Art practice can be a good means to draw public attention, raise awareness or even invite people to participate in the activist movement. However art and activism together isn't necessary actively engage people in action taking, especially information or awareness alone may not lead to action (though it doesn’t speak for all either).

Although community art doesn't always have an activist agenda, it can be an effective way to draw people to serve an activist goal. What I like about community art practice is its emphasis on the process that involves the community in the art making. It is more than just inform the public and passively waiting for people to respond. Community art also helps building communities, potentially brings people with differences into a common ground.


York to the POWER

york to the 50
Glitter Graphics

Imaginus in your memory




Rejoice Tactical Media Comrades;



FrATERNAL GREETINGS TO THE COMMUNIST AND WORKERS PARTIES unflinching fighters against imperialism and for peace, democracy, national independence and socialism! Strengthen the unity and close ties of Communists the world over on the unshakable basis of Marxism-Leninism and Proletarian Internationalism!

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Grace's Sketch #1!

a picture

>...the secretion of snot into a drier version, a greenish/yellowish booger and the impulse which directs the brain to the eyes to check if the coast is clear to the lift the arm, erecting a chosen finger and picking the booger with it, to the fun that is made of the picker by the one who witnesses the picking and the cement truck that will hit them because they were looking at the nose piker and not where they were going because da truck was rushing to the future owner of the concrete, the shopping mall which is extending its parking to fit more cars who create more smog that contributes to the formation of...>

Melissa's Sketch #1

Angela's Sketch #1

Dipti's Sketch #1

Madison's Sketch #1

Friday, April 3, 2009

what is resistance?

...actually I believe resistance is an act of survival...otherwise it becomes reduced to an intellectual discussion in a tactical media arts class...