OAS Node #1 [11/24]: Side Effecting/PlayLab @chashama

Documentation by Jenjoy Roybal

OASN1: PLAYLAB [TNE] @chashama

Side Effecting

“It is a safe guess that not more than one human in 10 million is conceptually familiar with and sensorially comprehending of the principle of ‘precession’ [orthogonal side effects].”

—Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path

Kinesthetics of Precession

Set 1 | Play Lab

A play/work/lab on how to feel, recognize, pick up, and send spinning, the ripple effects of artistic endeavor through movement, theory, and drawing. Gain a working, sensory facility with the potency of side effects, and join us in envisioning the collective effects of coming together as part of the Occupational Art School.

What are the ways in which an experience of precession can generate an immediate effect? Say through a movement exploration that then translates into a sketching process of precessional effects themselves. Feel precession in movement, and then, while it is happening, touch charcoal to paper. This would be one level of resolution, coupled with a documentary effect. Or drawing as a trace of precessional awareness.

Relational Drawing

November 24^th, 1-4pm. Movement, charcoal, words.

∞

Variations on Spin.

Set 2 | Temporary Formation

And then you keep it going… Infinitely resolvable, it is something to be continually set in motion. One can set it back out into the world, as a ripple effect, seeing how this appreciation would effect art works and movement to come. The collective traces can be gathered into an exhibit, a temporary formation, a rippling rather than traveling show. At another level of resolvability, we can begin to play with the collective formation itself. How can we image different organizational axes for precessional effects? What is the precessional effect of art-production, of occupation, of schooling, of architecture?

November 30^th, [TBD]: A showing of traces, and talk on the occupation of art.

@Art House | chashama [Hosted by Christopher Trujillo]

Chris Moffett and Blake Seidenshaw collectively assemble, on occasion, as The New Ergonomics (thenewergonomics.com) only to collaborate in turn with other assemblages, reworking the nature of work.

Blake Seidenshaw

Blake is a contributing editor at ecogradients.com, an online journal of interdisciplinary culture and education. A ceramicist and a musician, he is a cofounder of the Ashtanga Yoga Outreach network. Also: interdisciplinary edutecture; the history and practice of philosophy and the natural sciences; and contemporary (cosmo)political (ethno)ecology.

Chris Moffett

Chris engages the imagery, philosophy and architecture of education, the way we image forming and being formed by our environments. Sitting in a chair, or refusing to sit still, becomes a form of art making. A nomad scholar and movement educator, Chris is also a founding member of the artist collective ARE (aestheticrelationalexercises.com).

[Facebook Event]



OAS Node #1 [9/19]: Milo Santini - time[d]raw-ings

OAS Node #1 @BAT HAUS: Coffee painting tonight! [Info]

Click image to download doc.Info on this evening's Occupational Art School "COFFEE PAINTING" class @ Bat Haus Coworking Space, "COFFEE PAINTING." Should be a ton'o'fun. All you have to do is bring yourself + a great attitude. FYI: First OASN1 class is always free!

OAS Node #1 [August 29]

Sponsored by the Wyckoff Starr coffee shop.

OAS Node #1 @BAT HAUS: Whatever It Maybe ∞ [Internal Review]

Page 10 of Jeff Sugg's portfolio. Click image to download the PDF of Jeff's portfolio.

Whatever It Maybe ∞
Jeff Sugg at OASN1@BH (August 22, 2012)
By Paul McLean

Jeff Sugg parked his street-painted punk van directly in front of Bat Haus about an hour before his Occupational Art School Node 1 presentation was slated to begin. After a quick smoke, Jeff - master theatrical projectionist, designer, artist, visionary and enabler of visionaries [+] -  commenced to unload the gear he would be using during "Digitizing Theater" into the Bat Haus space. For tonight's program, OASN1 co-organizer Chris Moylan had supplied a digital projector, which Jeff would use to share his slideshow, movies and to create a real-time vignette, an immaterial hand-operated & projected reference table for Sugg's favorite inspirational picture texts. Sugg's influences? Sviboda, Bucky Fuller, Da Vinci...

I provided an overhead projector. The overhead throws a representation of Peter Cooper by Shane Kennedy in the rear of the screening area. The Cooper is our OASN1@BH mascot. Alice Cooper's "School's Out" is the OAS theme song, though I haven't shared that bit of intel with anyone yet, except for you, dear reader.

Tonight (that night), we're in for a treat.

∞

Click to read more ...

OAS Node #1 [Prospectus][BETA]

Updated on Tuesday, July 24, 2012 at 01:34PM by admin

[SUMMARY]:

The Occupational Art School proposes to conduct a three-month long residency at Bat Haus in Bushwick. The programming will consist of workshops, screening series, a reading group, exhibits and other arts, cultural and educational exchanges. What follows is a suggested outline of the residency, created with the idea that we can adapt it to better suit the space, to meet client needs and interests, and to accommodate artists and instructors who approach us with interest in participating in OAS@Bat Haus. 

Click to read more ...

Occupational Art School Node #1

JULY 11, 2012

[INTRODUCTION]:

Today we will begin both a conversion and/or "point of origin" phase of OwA/OAS. This post will be added to for the next several days (once installed in this illustrated text, click "READ MORE" link to stay up-to-date on changes, as a bug in Squarespace causes edits to not appear in truncated main page blog posts), to reflect, summarize or represent the organizational trends and features our node has been developing over the past several months, leading to our OAS Node #1 launch. Many exchanges of many types have been undertaken in or through both actual and virtual environments to shape our platform, including conversations, exhibits, performances, data transmissions, shared archives or links. Our process has been informed by research, experience and theoretical positions. Input has come from many sources. The methodology has been "open disciplinary." Several texts have been offered as precursors [See "Soul of Occupy" and "Enough" series, as well as essays for OwA projects "Wall Street to Main Street," "Low Lives: Occupy!" and "CO-OP/Occuburbs"]. The Spatial Occupation @Hyperallergic residency was extremely helpful at a critical time in facilitating key emergent connections among some players in or of our OAS Node #1. Some explanation of how our node has formed will inevitably occur as we move forward, since the mode of the node will consist in part of a (transparent, apparent) practicum. OAS is emerging from OWS and OwA, and our relationship to the movement is fairly complex. As we begin, OAS is situated as an iteration and rejection of OWS arts & culture trajectories, simultaneously. We hope to offer some dimensional solutions to perceived or perceptual problems that OWS A&C exposed, derived of mainly ideological frames [IMHO-pjm] that may or may not, or should or should not apply to Occupational Art as we commence to conceive and manifest it. There are many, and multi-directional, oppositions to our undertaking. Fortunately and/or unfortunately, art and artists, we can see, prove that difficult creative environments are not always effective in crushing free expression. 

 TODAY'S SESSIONS

Session 1

• Gallery Visit: All Things Project [at the Neighborhood Church of Greenwich Village]
• Exhibit: Hologalactic
• Artist: Eric Leiser
• Curator: Samuel W. Kho
• Facilitated by: Susan Joyce [Fringe Exhibitions]

Short description: Artist-directed guided tour of "Hologalactic," followed by discussion and pizza at John's of Bleecker Street with Eric and Samuel. The talk covered a range of topics, including Eric's doing an OAS workshop on holography, and Samuel doing an essay and presentation on the subject of the art and the spiritual, as reflected in the programming at All Things Project, plus an exploration of the history of the Neighborhood Church. 

Session Two 

An OAS planning session with Jeremy Bold [original OWS Arts & Culture, Revolutionary Games, Novads, etc.]

Topics included:

• Jez's forming OAS Node 0
• A networked performance of his moving images later this month
• 4D digital imaging and painting
• Potential affiliations with other "schools" emerging from OWS, such as Freedom University
• Visionary praxis
• Usage of online tools for creating a content network 
• The Holodeck Prototype
• Exhibit opportunities in conjunction with "Time Is the Only Object" at SLAG
• Exploration of new street art in Bushwick
• Economic models, alternatives

[Image by Jez Bold]

[NOTES]:

Two weeks ago, at the end of June, I sent this out to a short list of friends/collaborators/occupiers to invite their participation in an informal email/phone-enabled "vision/mission" session. Here is the text: 

Hey all,
this is my starter transmission for the rebooting of Occupy with Art, after we celebrated our nine-month birthday...

it's a kind of vision statement

I would like to convert OwA and our website into a node for the Occupational Art School. It's my idea that I will start to form "classes" here in Bushwick in July. I see the conversion to be 

• a grassroots artist organizing tool 
• a means by which OwA can become sustainable
• a way for us to collectively and individually develop means to support our work/networks 
• the establishment of a production collective for generating shows, "games," actions/interventions, documents, archives, etc
• an inside>outside interface for revolutionary, democratic and dimensional art
• a means by which we can promote ideals and principles for art/artists/artistic purpose that we can believe in
• more.

At this point we have an extensive set of potential participants. we have learned that people (including ourselves) have varying degrees of ability for participating... this project will provide a way for us to mobilize people at their own levels; be a source of info on what those are; and produce clear results (art & art events, etc) that are attractive

I would suggest we platform OAS on 

• spirit-mechanics
• dimensional vision (4d)
• compassion and care for each other
• respect 
• kindness
• fierce determination
• endurance

It seems obvious that the nature [topography/culture/people] of this project to begin with will be international and local.

The operational start-concept is that each of us is a lead-artist of our own collectives. As a meta-collective, we will seek ways to provide support for each other in our various endeavors; in a slight adjustment of mission, OwA will serve as facilitator for our network'd & solo productions; document our progress; share our experiments and ideas; invite others to join; be a clearinghouse for technique and theory.

The e(n)ducation or e(n+1)ducational structure will encourage mentoring, mediums skill or craft, use of all available technologies, dedication to good assessment of progress and potential "success" on the basis of helping any "student"|"teacher" 

• to find her or his "best" artistic gift
• making space where that person can apply the gift successfully
• account for both history & creation (that one needs a bit of clarification; basically respect for one's particular background/vision/skills/craft/traditions > support for invention/genius 
• rational progressive development attaching to more responsibilities through the process (sound expectations)

I'm going to stop there - just to open it up to feedback... In a fairly short period of time I would like to open this up to a bigger set of perspectives and contributions. 

I personally have almost no interest in using any GA processes in this effort, based on my experience over the past 9 months with them. Over the past 30 years I've worked out very effective systems for generating highest quality art outcomes. I think all of you can say the same, relative to your own stuff. I say that based on watching you do what you do. 

Much respect  

The reach-out garnered a couple dozen replies, some of which were profound. Jez Bold's in particular - outlining his ideas for OAS Node #0, pointed the discussion in radical directions in terms of media and imagination, relative to time and experience. Chris Moylan and James Andrews provided a degree of pragmatism that afforded our brainstorming with a good foundation of realism, addressing not only organizational and economic concerns, but also useful references to other successful and sustainable models already operating in the domain. 

The importance of the archive to our undertaking was in short order reinforced by JB:

I believe that beginning with specially designated activities (for example, the philosophical/political/literary discussion sessions that Richard and I have experience designing and hosting) we could scale up the activities of these archival spaces into a network that I would be proud to call the Anarchives: an exploratory archive that any person of any ability is invited to participate in, consisting of a networked collection of people and artifacts that are free to interact with each other.  This node would be a community archive for anyone in the area who wants to contribute to documenting the life, activities, thoughts and art of people in the local area.  And it would be linked to the network of nodes through the Occupy With Art/Occupational Art School website, the Occupy Map, and other metadata resources that can help document and connect each node (person, space, activity).

As was the question of siting the program. The consensus seemed to point to a virtual/actual configuration or array. I pointed out that we already had online components in place. Both the OwA nexus site and the Occupational Art School Tumblr established for the Co-Lab (Austin) project were pegged to locate some of the essential activity getting started. 

Chris and others suggested disciplines and media (like the graphic novel medium) that had been under-supported by Occupy in reaching demographics vital to the expansion of the movement going forward. Big Ideas like JB/Richard's "Sensatorium" and "Holodeck Prototype" seemed ideally suited to collaborative or collective production. Naturally, a number of voices brought up the question of funding for these projects and initiatives. At this early stage, those concerns were set aside, although the alt.economy for art and artists being developed through the CO-OP project was mentioned. 

Several successful types of alt-schools are now emerging as viable and promising in the domain. James pointed to Trade School, but the spectrum of nodal or franchise or subscription education architectures is broadening at an amazing pace. Starting with say, Mark Allen's immensely successful Machine Project as a point of reference, we can also look to programs such as 3rd Ward, Intercourse, the OWS Summer Disobedience School, Freedom University and many others that are demonstrating that many approaches are possible for serving a wide range of "students" and "teachers" who are finding it more and more difficult or untenable to commit to the establishment academic tracks, for a variety of reasons, from the ideological to the economic. 

Alex and others who provided exemplar inputs, like Shane Kennedy and Ambrose Curry and the Revolutionary Gamers in general, showed that liberated actions and activities, barely recognizable as "teaching," might function as the "best practices" for our school design. The DisciplineAriel project and others, like Mark Skwarek's Augmented Reality combines, suggest that modular production enabled by network tech/electronics offers those tracking collaborations or participating as open-invite new-users in collective projects a means of learning that's low-impact, and fun/easy. 

Repeatedly, conversations touched on the principles of openness and mobility, but also on exciting dynamics with respect to immediate reach among potential collaborators, teachers, students and content developers of all creative flavors. Social media tools plus additive (n+1) tools like WIKI, CMS, fast dispersion -servs like REDDIT, elegant whiteboards like Pinterest, and other share-utilities offer a rich platform of options for us to sample, explore and apply. 

CM raised questions about our attenuation to OWS. Currently, given the nebulous but still potent if mysteriously individuated (if not in some aspects invisible) mass of Occupy, we have to suspend the definition of our relation with the movement, not because that is desirable, but because it is determined by the dynamics of the movement itself. Issues of identity and our interface with media (and potential participants/users) therefore for now remains in flux. For our BETA phase, this may serve to our advantage, by not limiting our developmental parameters. For those of us who were more or less integrated into OWS over the past 9 months, detachment from certain programmatic constraints feels refreshing, if bittersweetly so. 

To wrap up this section of the notes, let's look at JB's vision for Node 0:

I'm so glad this pluralogue is going on. Maybe we could plan a meeting when I can plan a Skype/in-person in where we can come together on some of these ideas.

I don't think I can help answer the question of how to locate OAS, except perhaps to say that I would it to operate on a decentralized basis, but one in which we maintain some conections digitally, and some network of names. (Does the network of networks itself need a name? I dunno. Maybe just call it The World...hahah). I assume we'll be operating kind of using our own expenses, tho it might be a nice model to practice tracking our use of funds publicly, which will be especially necessary if we want to get grants.

How do krystal-images relate to Occupy? The following is an excerpt from a longer piece that I hope should succeed in bridging the K-scope Xp-eriments to Occupy more generally:

...I want to live in the upper levels of human dimensions! Crystals awoke my eyes to unseen possibilities, new-found opportunities, beautiful visions of alternate realities. How can we understand Liberty Plaza without it?

This place was a giant crystal monad through which thousands of visions of society were compacted. And over 2 months, this process produced a group of people so dense and massive, that they turned the world upside down. What was impossible was suddenly very very real! And the people who looked thru that K(aleidoscope)-scope had their entire worlds un-adjusted.

It was tough, awkward at times, but we all learned a lot thru this experience. And the only way it will live on is if we tell this story. And even the stories are starting to revolve around the same points now. Why else would we still be interested in talking to each other about it? It's like we discovered that we all had a secret affinity for something that we didn't really know was possible before...

@CUE Art Foundation: Occupy Wall Street with Chris Cobb

Occupy Wall Street with Chris Cobb

April 28 - May 5

SHOULD THE ARTS LEAD, FOLLOW, OR GET OUT OF THE WAY?

A week of talks exploring leadership in the arts. Organized by Chris Cobb.

Click to read more ...

WS2MS: Stage 2 [Press Release]

PRESS RELEASE

For Release in All Media

April 18, 2012

WALL STREET TO MAIN STREET
STAGE 2

Catskill, New York – The second stage of the landmark exhibition cycle Wall Street to Main Street [WS2MS] commences in April and continues through the end of May 2012. WS2MS will offer a variety of creative, fun and educational opportunities for the communities of OWS and the Hudson River region to explore, evaluate and imagine 99% alternatives to the status quo.

Installations along Catskill’s Main Street have sparked sometimes-intense responses from the town’s citizens, since the festival opened here on March 17. The programming of WS2MS demonstrates the organizers’ and artists’ sustained commitment to establishing common ground for lively and spirited exchange. Our goal is to encourage democratic art and free speech. To that end we are trying to be responsive and responsible to our generous hosts, the people of Catskill.

The art in Wall Street to Main Street communicates the amazing breadth of emotion, vision, and drama that is Occupy, which Naomi Klein characterized as “the most important thing in the world now.” Art and artists have been central to OWS since the occupation of Liberty Plaza in the financial district of Manhattan on September 17, 2011. WS2MS offers viewers a window into the ideas, dreams and inspirations arising from the movement that has spread across the globe.

In Stage 2 of WS2MS, we will engage in skill-sharing workshops, demonstrations, performances, discussions, panels, tours and more.  Almost all the WS2MS Stage 2 events are being offered for free. As the program evolves through April and May, WS2MS, like OWS, will continually evolve and re-shape. That means more art exhibits, concerts and events will be launched over the remaining weeks in our schedule. See the WS2MS sampler listings below for details, or visit www.greenearts.org/ws2ms for the complete, up-to-date calendar.

• WS2MS is proud to present the Buckminster Fuller Institute’s presentations “Practice Where You Occupy” with the Mobile Design Lab team discussing their water, food and energy solutions for Zucotti Park from 11am-1pm and “Solution Sets for Main Street” from 2-4PM (April 21, 408 Main Street).
• The following Saturday, April 28, will feature “Change Is in the Air,” a seminar with Glenn Leisching based on our relationship with nature and familial ancestral heritage.
• If you’re interested in making art, sign up for Emily Bruenig’s free screen printing and bookmaking workshop (462 Main Street on April 29 from 1-3PM).
• If you’re just out for a walk and a great overview of WS2MS, join New York based artist and educator Ellen Levy and Occupy with Art organizer Paul McLean for a walking salon tour of the gallery and window spaces of WS2MS. The tour meets at the arts council, 398 Main Street, on Sunday May 6 at 11AM.
• Green workshops include Franc Palaia’s Eco-Bulb demo/class, a 100% solar option for sheds and other buildings (May 12 from 1-3PM, 408 Main Street).
• Canadian artist Joel Richardson will offer a two-day stencil painting workshop to help you create your own designs and a custom Suitman illustrating Catskill’s economic history (May 12 and 13, 10AM-2 PM, 473 Main Street - $50, with advance registration). 
• For the literary crowd, on May 12 the poet Sparrow will host “Speaking to the Gods,” a reading and conversation about our relationship to the great poets at Occupy Books, 450 Main Street from 4-6PM. He will also host “Silence Poetry”  from 2-4PM.
• “Awaken the Dreamer/Changing the Dream” on May 13 (10 AM-3 PM, 344 Main Street) will present a vision for an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on earth.
• Poet, author and educator Sam Truitt will lead a day of panel discussions and workshops at Occupy Books on Saturday May 19 from 11 AM-4PM and with a reception from 5-7pm (details TBA on the GCAC website and here, closer to the launch date). 
• Community artist extraordinaire Matt Bua will teach a sustainable living/drawing workshop, envisioning life off-the-grid (May 26 from 4-6pm).
  
  

For more info, contact:

• Fawn Potash: fawn@greenearts.org
• Paul McLean: artforhumans@gmail.com

View Larger Map

Upcoming @Yes Lab

Dear New Yorkers:

Two Yes Lab things of local interest:

1. The revolution will be debated - again! This Thursday, and all through the semester, come meet the revolutionaries who have changed or are currently changing the world. The series kicks off this Thursday (at 7pm to 20 Cooper Square, 5th floor) with Carne Ross, the former British diplomat who who resigned in 2004 after giving then-secret evidence to a British inquiry into the Iraq War. He is also the author of the just-published The Leaderless Revolution, and will speak about the future of politics and how ordinary people will shape it. See the Creative Activism Thursdays site for full list of speakers (so far) and locations. Speakers will be added throughout the semester, so stay tuned! (The series is co-sponsored by the NYU Dean for Social Science, the Hemispheric Institute, the Yes Lab, the Humanities Initiative at NYU Working Research Group on Artistic Activism, CAA, and Not an Alternative.)

2. Also, starting next Friday, Feb. 3rd, from 10am to 6pm, come change the world with us during Yes Lab Fridays, a series of weekly brainstorms and trainings to help activist groups and individuals carry out media-getting creative actions focused on their own campaign goals. Participation is easy - just show up Feb. 3 and see how you'd like to plug in. We ask that you email us in advance, at nyu@yeslab.org, so we can give your name to the security guard. (Also feel free to tell us about yourself, your interests, and your skills.)

See you this Thursday!

Your friends at the Yes Lab 

Wall Street to Main Street: Call for Proposals/Entries

WALL STREET TO MAIN STREET

Call for Proposals/Entries

Wall Street to Main Street is a collaborative art project linking Occupy Wall Street and the rest of America, via the small town of Catskill, NY.  The Occupy Wall Street Movement (OWS)  has focused its energy on the need for justice for the 99%. This project, Wall Street to Main Street, offers a platform for creative expression and dialogue focusing attention on an economically depressed community through inventive art exhibitions and cultural events.

Invitation to submit Proposals/Entries: Open to all artists nationally and internationally, including Hudson Valley artists.

The project goals of Wall Street to Main Street are:

1. To explore art as a way to understand the issues of the Occupy Movement with opportunities for education, communication, and a showcase of wildly creative artistic expressions;
2. To highlight the vanguard role of artists in this and past movements, as well as the role communities play in nurturing their vision;
3. To model a peaceful partnership between the cultural organizations, educational institutions, protesters, artists and the citizens who make up our communities;
4. To explore ideas in art works that call attention to real-world economic problems, fundamental democratic processes, and an urgent need for systemic reform.

People/Contacts- Presented by the Greene County Council on the Arts, this project is co-organized by Occupy With Art, an affinity group of the OWS Arts and Culture Committee, Fawn Potash (Project Director, Masters on Main Street) and Geno Rodriquez (co-founder/former Director of The Alternative Museum). Submit proposals to fawn@greenearts.org.  518-943-3400.

Exhibitions may include art work by/for/about the Occupy Movement in any media, utilizing interior space and/or windows.  A dozen vacant storefronts are anticipated with additional display area in active shop windows.  There  is no fee/rent, but interior exhibits require staffing and utility payments.  A signed agreement is required promising to return the space to its original condition.  Grant funding is pending to cover utility expenses, and a network is in process offering  local hosts with overnight accomodations and gallery sitters.   Events may include workshops, hands-on activities, forums, panel discussions, tours, performance, radio broadcasts, story telling, projections and readings, cross-pollinated subjects/genres combining political science/economics/art taking place in exhibition spaces or surrounding venues.

Photo-Documentary Exhibit Call for Entries: Curated by Geno Rodriguez, this exhibit serves as a descriptive introduction of the events of the global Occupy Movement as seen through the kaleidoscopic  lens of contemporary photographers, as well as the portal leading to the dynamic array of exhibits and events taking place down Main Street. 

Area resources: Catskill's Main Street is nestled between the Hudson River and the Catskill Creek with clear views of the Catskill Mountains at sunset.  It offers several architecturally intact 19th century facades, a vaudeville-era movie theater, two small pocket parks and a Community Center.  There is a Carnegie Library nearby, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site and a bridge leading to Hudson, NY.  Catskill is at the center of a circle of educational institutions- Columbia-Greene Community College (Hudson, NY), Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY), Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY), and the State Universities of New York at Albany and New Paltz .  Local radio station, WGXC 90.7-FM (WGXC.org) broadcasts from Catskill's Main Street on Wednesday afternoons and 24/7 from their Hudson and Acra studios.

Deadline for Proposals             February 1

Notification to Artists               February 7

Installations                            February 7-March 15

Opening Reception                   March 17

Project dates                           March 17 - May 31

Audiences for this project range from sophisticated, intentional viewers to curious pedestrians. In the last year, Masters on Main Street exhibitors have discovered that scale, night lighting and a descriptive statement in the window are very important features to engage this diverse crowd.

For Exhibit/Space/Event Proposals submit 1 page (max) project description and up to 10 low res jpegs with image list.  For Photo Documentary Exhibit entries, submit up to 10 low res jpegs with image list to:

Fawn Potash, Masters on Main Street, Project Director

Attn: WS2MS Space Proposal and/or WS2MS Photo-Doc Entries

Greene County Council on the Arts

398 Main Street, PO Box 463

Catskill, NY 12414

fawn@greenearts.org

 

Questions?  Call Fawn Potash, Greene County Council on the Arts 518-943-3400. 

OWS events at the Invisible Dog in Brooklyn - Jan 5 to Jan 11, 2012

I want to invite you to a very exciting action at the Invisible Dog
Art Space (51 Bergen St. in Brooklyn). It will be for 7 days, from
January 5th until January 11th. Here's the deal:

Steve Valk, a choreographer and activist from Occupy Frankfurt was
invited to organize a series of performances as part of the PS122 Coil
Festival. He thought it would be a great opportunity to "Occupy" a
performance space, and approached a few of us from Arts and Culture in
early December about a collaboration. Steve is excited about having a
dialogue with with OWS artists, writers, and activists of all kinds,
and a group of about six of us from OWS have collaborated with Steve
to prepare this event. So far, it's looking mighty good.

Click to read more ...

Join students from SVA for ”I Win. You Lose.” - Dec 13, 2011

“I Win. You Lose.” A Call to Action by students from the School of Visual Arts. Participants needed to occupy every corner on Wall Street and deliver a message…. !

WHAT, WHEN WHERE….
We are….
….shocked by the unabashed corruption and self-interest that runs rampant throughout corporate America.
….faced with a life-time of debt in the pursuit of an education.
…the 99%.

Energized by the ideals and actions of Occupy Wall Street, we want to make our message heard and let the 1% know we will not be ignored nor can our path be bypassed.

Occupy every corner of Wall Street and New York’s Financial District at lunch time participate in the action: “ I Win. You Lose. ”
Join us on Tuesday December 13, 2011.
Orientation meeting at 12:00 noon at Louise Nevelson Plaza Triangle (at the junction of Liberty St., Maiden Lane and William St.).
Action begins at 12:30.
For more information contact Kirby at:
http://www.twitter.com/kikibraga (twitter) | @kikibraga (ows) | http://www.IWin-YouLose.blogspot.com

Click to read more ...

16 Beaver Teach-Ins, Sunday 11/20/11

Sunday - 11.20.11 -- Two Events -- Two Teach-Ins -- One Horizon

Event I -- Demystifying the Economic Crisis

What: Teach-in / Discussion with Paul Mattick

When: 4pm
Where: moved to 90 5th Avenue
Who: Free and open to all
For details please visit: http://allcitystudentoccupation.com

Some friends will be convening a series of analyses around the economic crisis. This, first in the series, Demystifying the Economic Crisis, will be with Paul Mattick (Adelphi, Philosophy) - author of Business as Usual: The Economic Crisis and the Failure of Capitalism (2011)

To what do we owe the misery and economic hardship currently sweeping the globe, giving birth to a number of social movements including that of Occupy Wall Street? Reckless banks? Human greed? Amoral politicians? Financial speculation? Partial answers at best, bourgeois obscurities at worst. Come join in a discussion which seeks to expand the discourse circulating throughout the current US occupation movement.

Event II -- Art, Work, and Occupation

What: Teach-in / Discussion with Greg Sholette
When: Sunday, 11.20.11 at 7:00PM
Where: 16 Beaver Street, 4th Floor
Who: Free and open to all

The evening's event will be a teach-in and discussion with artist, critic, and educator Gregory Sholette concerning the history of artistic
engagements with the politics of work since the 1960s. While focused on past traditions and initiatives, the presentation will open onto a group discussion of more recent artistic, theoretical and political developments related to concepts such as precarity, post-Fordism, immaterial labor, the cognitariat, and what Greg himself has called "dark matter." This
discussion will consider how these histories and concepts might be (re)activated relative to the Occupy movement, including but not limited to that of New York City as it enters a "post-Zuccotti" phase following the eviction of November 15th. Report-backs and reflections from November 17th actions are more than welcome following Greg's presentation.

Here are some points and questions devised in collaboration between Greg and 16 Beaver for possible discussion following his presentation:

1. What does the phrase "art worker" mean today, and how does it relate to the broader field of cultural labor that is so crucial to driving the uneven geographical development of cities such as New York?

2. In what ways have art and cultural workers more broadly contributed to the discourse and practice of occupation over the past two months? How have they been involved with the framing, staging, and messaging of the overall movement, on the one hand, while also beginning to organize themselves qua workers under the umbrella of "the 99%"?

3. How has the advent of the Occupy movement challenged art workers to recalibrate their relationship to the networks, economies, organizations, and institutions involved with the production and consumption of art and culture in some form of another?

4. What would it mean to "occupy the art world"? Does this question make any sense without a moment of self-recognition in which we see ourselves as a kind of culturally-redundant surplus to the very system that stamps out the professional passport for "artist" in first place? Are these very designations not complicated by the structural dynamics of precarious labor itself, in which many artists simultaneously work as art handlers, assistants, interns, janitors, students, adjuncts, parents, and beyond? How might an interrogation of the identity-card "artist" open up new possibilities of alliance and coalition with workers and activists in extra-artistic fields?

5. What is the ultimate goal of organizing art workers? Is it just about making things more fair by redistributing the art world's "real estate"? or should it not also address a deeper set of questions concerning time, labor, and value relative to the disciplinary imperatives of
neoliberalism? How do we negotiate in ideological and organizational terms the fact that the entrepreneurial models of subjectivity mandated by neoliberalism often appeal to an image of artistic flexibility, autonomy, and ingenuity, as exemplified by Richard Florida's infamous paradigm of the "creative class"? What if any new forms of class consciousness might the Occupy movements entail for workers in the artistic field in
particular and the cultural field more generally?

6. If the work of artists today somehow embodies and models the flexible, precarious, socially cooperative yet competitive, professional, cognitive, immaterial, relational, affective dimensions of the post-fordist worker; then what might an inquiry into the specific conditions or qualities of such a work imply or reveal for contemporary political struggles?

More information about these events: http://www.16beavergroup.org/11.20.11.htm

"Positions" by Public Movement and teach-in on non violence disobedience - Friday 11/4 1PM

Positions - An Action by Public Movement

Positions (NYC, Washington Square, 11/4/11) Friday, November 4, 1 p.m., Washington Square Park

**Following this performance the #OWS Direct Action group will hold a rally and a teach-in on non- violence disobedience at 1:30PM**

Positions (NYC, Union Square, 11/6/11)
Sunday, November 6, 1 p.m., Union Square South

This week, the action and research group Public Movement presents Positions, a choreographed demonstration that invites people to take a stand on any number of urgent issues. Presented in Warsaw, Holon, Bat-Yam, Eindhoven, Heidelberg, Stockholm, and now New York, the Movement invites the public to embody their preferences, aspirations, and beliefs—manifesting political and philosophical ideas as physical positions in Washington Square Park and Union Square South. This will be Public Movement’s first presentation in the United States.

In February 2011, Public Movement leader Dana Yahalomi began her research toward a project for New York, meeting with artists, historians, urban planners, memorial designers, politicians, government officials, and NYPD officers. The residency continues from January–April 2012, during which time Yahalomi will present bi-weekly salons as part of the 2012 New Museum Triennial, “The Generational.” The salons will culminate in a newly commissioned action for New York City in April 2012.

Public Movement is a performative research body that investigates and stages political actions in public spaces. The Movement explores the political and aesthetic possibilities that reside in a group of people acting together. It studies and creates public choreographies, forms of social order, and overt and covert rituals. Public Movement was founded in November 2006 and was led by Omer Krieger and Dana Yahalomi until August 2011, when Yahalomi became the sole group leader. Visit their website for more information.

#OCCUPYWALLSTREET LIFE DRAWING CLASS THIS SUNDAY

David Horvitz will be hosting a Life Drawing class This Sunday inside the Wall Street Occupation.

We will do sketches of the police officers who are stand on the periphery of the occupation. Paper and boards will be supplied, bring your own if you can.

Sunday, October 30, 2PM-4PM

Meet under the Mark di Suvero sculpture (aka the Red Thing)

Note: this is not intended to antagonize the police! We are just returning an attentive gaze. Their's is one of surveillance, ours is more about shape, form, light, shadow, and line.

http://davidhorvitz.com/blog/2011/10/occupywallstreet-life-drawing.html

Design 111 and #OccupytheClassroom

http://occupytheclassroom.tumblr.com/

Julie Takacs teaches Design 111 at SUNY Cobleskill. The students of her class happened to be studying texture/collage as the #OccupyWallStreet movement began to go nationwide. After discussing the situation in class, she challenged them to create a collage that expressed their viewpoint on #OWS. Shedidn’t influence them on which side they would take, but allowed them to use their own personal situation as the basis for their work.

The students presented their collages to the class and in doing so they shared their ideas and opinions. Art is a strong form of communication and she wanted to show her class how to take their work to a wider audience beyond the classroom by posting and sharing on the internet. The tumblr platform seemed perfect for the art show, so the class elected the name for this blog and agreed to have their work published on the web.

After this work was done, she presented the projects to a group of senior graphic designers. They are supplying the tumblr blog with the graphics they did for the campus.

The names of the participants:

The Design Class: Serifat Adesina, Jim Buzon, Mike Constantino, Samantha Dequatro, Noelle Gushlaw, Kemar Hemmings, Sydney Hewitt, Kumasi Knight, Victoria Kodak, Kristie Laverdiere, Aaron Maas, Hailey Markel, Jason Marrano, Josh Meilak, Alexis Peters, Heather Price, Adolfina Rodriguez, Brittany Schell, Kayla Shea, Danielle Sweetser, Brian Walker, Beth Watson, Professor Julie Takacs

Graphic Design Club: Professor Margrethe Lauber, Bianca Ramos, Hannah Nye