OAS Node #1 @BAT HAUS: DisciplineAriel [Internal Documentation]

[DisciplineAriel performs at OASN1@BH Saturday, August 25, 2012]

Michael Barron on overhead projector. Click image to see Bat Haus photoset.[Performance Elements]:

• Wilson Novitzki improvises on synth and guitar
• Photos shot on camera phones by Paul McLean, performers, Bat Haus owners Natalie Chan & Cody Sullivan, and guests (+ digital enhancements as after effects in some instances) are uploaded to the DisciplineAriel blog in real time, or later, and interlinked in the network of OASN1 sites and portals
• PJM animations for DisciplineAriel are projected and presented on one of the Bat Haus computer monitors, looping
• The overhead projector is utilized for real time old school psychedelic image mixing; Paul initiates the sequence, creating a wall projection, with olive oil, water, Guerra Paint and other water-borne pigments (acrylics) in powder, solid and liquid form, including interference and metallic paints, plus coffee; Michael Barron takes over, and also photo-documents the results
• Wilson invites Adam Caine to sit in on the set; Adam plays guitar

Wilson Novitzki, Adam Caine

[LINKS]:

• DisciplineAriel Blog
• Bat Haus
• Wilson Novitzki [Soundcloud]
• Paul McLean [Art for Humans]
• Occupational Art School Node 1 [Main][Tumblr]
  

Overhead projection, iteration 1 [PJM][Narrative]

DisciplineAriel began in early summer 2012 as a "Borderless Art" proposition + mobile media collaboration for Bushwick-based musician and composer Wilson Novitzki and visual artist Paul McLean. The process involved several informal exchanges at Wyckoff-Starr, plus emails, phone calls and a pre-production meeting and 4d demonstration. Web archive links were exchanged and reviewed.

During a two-month European tour with renowned DIY artist R. Stevie Moore, Novitzki composed short electronic and guitar pieces on synthesizer and iPAD. These pieces were uploaded to a Tumblr created for DisciplineAriel by McLean, who added entries featuring "outside" content - from three sources:

• Famed Kauai-based surf guru Ambrose Curry
• The Voyage of the Hippo blog (long-time AFH collaborator Shane Kennedy contributing)
• Anarchivist/revGamer/Novadic transmissions from Bold Jez.

These satellite or context threads also in real time sequences featured neo-epic or -journeyman components and intersecting trajectories. McLean contributed digital still and moving images, as well as photo documentation of "HOME," i.e., Bushwick, the project's point of origin.

The DisciplineAriel performance for Occupational Art School Node 1 at Bat Haus constitutes a "Welcome Home" party for Wilson; a version of "Talking Story;" a prototyping proof for the particular kind of collaboration Novitzi and McLean practice(d); an invitation to further expand the collaboration to include both random and "staged" participation by OASN1 artists [+]

Overhead projection [operator transition phase]

[PHOTO & VIDEO DOCUMENTATION]: Natalie Chan, Cody Sullivan, JenJoy Roybal, Michael Barron, Paul McLean [+]

[CO-OP]: @b.j. spoke Gallery [BETA][Draft]

Image by Paul McLeanCO-OP at b.j. spoke gallery
by Paul McLean
Co-organizer, Occupy with Art

1

A half-block from the intersection of Wall Street and Main Street in Huntington, Long Island, you'll find b.j. spoke gallery. Here's its history, from the gallery website:

>>
b. j. spoke gallery, incorporated and not-for-profit, is an artist-run gallery of professional artists with a broad diversification of styles and media.

April 1990 marked the inaugural show of two newly merged Long Island cooperative galleries, Northport Galleries and B. J. Spoke Gallery.

Spoke Gallery began in 1976 at a Port Washington site and later moved to neighboring Sea Cliff, New York. In 1980 Northport Galleries was established in Northport and seven years later moved to Huntington, NY.

Because of the ongoing friendship of the two galleries, the idea of a merger was enthusiastically accepted in 1990 by both memberships.
<<

2

b.j. spoke is divided into three areas. Occupy with Art in September of 2012 will present CO-OP in b.j. spokes' central gallery. Our location within the brackets of the other two galleries, which will show member artists, reflects OwA's desire to support the mission of this important Long Island art organization, which has long advocated partnership between the artist and public as an "essential relationship."

Since the first exhibit OwA facilitated, "Occupy Printed Matter," in 2011, Occupy with Art has sought to establish bridges between Occupy Wall Street's artist activism and the artist activism that has emerged since the 70s in New York, and around the world. In "Wall Street to Main Street," for example, we partnered with renowned curator Geno Rodriquez, founder and former director of the Alternative Museum. OwA worked with Yoko Ono to manifest her project in support of OWS, "Wish Tree for Zuccotti Park." Now, with CO-OP, we are calling attention to the important contributions of artist-operated non-profits like b.j. spoke in providing important venues for underserved artist communities in areas outside major retail art markets. b.j. spoke and galleries like it have done great service to the 99% art world and the people for whom art is more than a luxury item or vehicle for speculation.

3

CO-OP is a dimensional art project. CO-OP is first and foremost a small collective show, an exhibit, as such. It is a template or model for occupational art practice, demonstrating one way that Occupy artists can partner with pre-existing arts organizations as an expression of solidarity. among 99% artists and our communities. CO-OP is a conceptual project, in which we will link co-operative food networks and artists within the medium of gift exchange for mutual aid and benefits.

4

Conceptual art typically requires an explanation for the viewer to engage the artwork or process fully. Concept, or idea art, is often meant to start conversations. OWS, which has started or re-started many important conversations, has itself been described in terms of art. CO-OP is meant to start conversations about sustainable art and artist economies for the 99%. OwA co-organizers are drawing on the successful history of co-operative food networks, as inspiration for propositions about new methods of exchange for art.

To summarize what has been a discussion spanning many months, OwA will partner with the Huntington food co-op (OwA co-organizer and Huntington resident Chris Moylan is one of the owners) to intertwine the exchange of art for co-op members, with the exchange of food for artists (or money, as a default or swap). Our art for food exchange, in this initial attempt, is rudimentary: the values are based on 1 to 1 ratios. An artwork valued at $20 can be exchanged for $20 worth of food. Huntington co-op members will be invited to select art and the artists will select food items for straight barter.

We will consider variations on the exchange (enthusiastically). The paper bags installed in the space with the art work are included primarily as symbols and signs of our micro-economy. CO-OP permits contemporary art to enter the consumer portable sector of the cultural economy, for which the brown paper bag has long been a staple. However, you'll see that our shopping bags are not exactly like those branded types a shopper fills with goods in SOHO, for example.

Gallery visitors are welcome to purchase art exhibited by CO-OP artists at full retail prices. b.j. spoke artists' work will not be included in this iteration of CO-OP, which is being conducted as a test of the process, essentially. CO-OP is also meant to raise awareness of local alternatives to the global art markets of Chelsea, for example, or the international art fair circuits.

We hope you enjoy CO-OP. Please don't hesitate to contact us with questions or feedback.

artforhumans [at] gmail [dot] com


OwA UPDATE [July/August 2012]

Graphic by Paul McLean[NOTE]: We are pleased to announce a reformation of OwA, as we approach the first-year anniversary of the occupation of Liberty Square. Between now and the launch of OAS Node #1 in August, the Occupy with Art website will undergo an extensive overhaul. Some links may be broken in the process and features changed. We will be posting open calls for artists, proposals and project support. Several new social media campaigns and OAS/OwA iterations will be amended to the nexus site. We look forward to your participation on whatever basis you wish to contribute. Please direct all questions to artforhumans [at] gmail [dot] com.

OAS Node #1 [July 14]

Alternate Economies (Barter)

[Session 7]

• Workshop: Barter: Theory and Practice with Caroline Woolard of OurGoods.org
• Hosted by EYEBEAM

[NOTES]: I took a page-and-a-half of notes during the two-hour seminar, which I would be happy to share. Caroline said she would follow-up by sharing her booklist on barter and alt.economies (gift/barter/market) and the slideshow she created for the presentation. The workshop provided participants an opportunity to examine our existing notions about barter, gifting and these non-monetary systems' place in society and markets. We examined anthropological work on the subject, including Graeber's from Debt. Caroline cited the work of Caroline Humphrey on the nomadic Lohmi traders of Tibet as a prime influence, and also works by Allan Fiske and Marshall Sahlins. I think Louise Ma of Trade School was one of the attendees of our workshop; OurGoods and Trade School are I gather operating on a mutual aid basis, with some core members (like Caroline Woolard) in both orgs. Caroline also gave examples of barter models, from ancient Greece to the local present, to expand our understanding of how barter has worked or can work in different kinds of situations and societies, and what limitations or hazards apply to barter in practice, rather than theory or analytics. Participants shared food and drink, engaged in a barter game/team session and at the end of the workshop shared "haves" and "needs" in the format of OurGoods.

∞

Authorship & Appropriation in Contemporary Art

[Session 8]

• Printed Matter, Inc. (Chelsea)
• The opening of HELP/LESS
• Organized by artist Chris Habib

[NOTES]: (This entry is a stub/communique) Leaving EYEBEAM and the OurGoods workshop, I noticed a cool-looking artist happening on 21st... Turned the corner and noticed Max Schumann outside Printed Matter on 10th. He told me about the ambitious Printed Matter summer project HELP/LESS. Max invited me into the bustling artist bookstore, to check out the opening night's happ'nin's, which were awesome. Click on the image above for more details and the calendar of events. I think Max explained that the interactive art event I'd passed was connected to the opening, which made sense. Every time I visit PM, my respect for Max and this venerable Chelsea art-org grows. HELP/LESS is a compelling, must-see/-play exhibit cum program, diving into the murky swampwaters of art- and intellectual property-ism, post-web, post-modernism, post-reproduction/mechanical age, post-Dispersion, post-4chan, pre-image Apocalypse. The crush of content in the PM shop is introduced by a storefront (the same one we Occupied last fall) that appears to present art star worx that actually are derivatives or outright replicants. PM has fearlessly confronted in Habib's HELP/LESS the copyright (or -wrong) regime of idea ownership and originality/original-ism that besets the culture at every turn, from Tumblr to tee shirts to texts to the YouTube-infected art haus. Speaking of tee shirts, Max said I could score a Yoko Ono tee in exchange for a great idea at PM (quantities while they last, I presume)... Max is going to be busy for the next few months (he always is) - working on a CoLab book, co-ordinating the string of in-store and online events for HELP/LESS, and, we hope, finally getting to give us an Occupational Art lesson on artist books - the one we tried to do at the Spatial Occupation @Hyperallergic, but which didn't pan out for that residency. 

∞

[Follow-up]: Met Cody and Natalie at Bat Haus; we are making progress on our discussion about OAS siting there... STAY TUNED!

A photo from Bat Haus member & stylist Falosha Martin's shoot on location @BH. (click BH's blog link for more 411)

Married To Corporate America

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRESS CONTACT: Leon Pease| leon.pease@gmail.com| 917-855-0285

B.S. Productions and Leon Pease Presents

Married To Corporate America:

A New Political Experiment To Test the Limits of Corporate Personhood in America

Married To Corporate America is a new political/social experiment meant to shine a light on the bizarre idea of corporate personhood and to question its very validity. The primary question posed by this project is that if corporations are people then should they be allowed to legally marry. In the following video I invite any American corporation to propose for my hand in marriage by sending me an email at

marriedtocorporate@gmail.com 

It is my goal to become legal married to an American corporation sometime with in the coming year. Any corporation, large and small may apply. Here is the link to the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d7yyP0C03Y

And this is a link to the projects blog

http://marriedtocorporateamerica.wordpress.com/

Leon Pease (Project Creator/Playwright/Actor) Leon Pease is a NYC based actor/writer. His many projects include working with the OWS group the Tax Dodgers as well as being the founder and artistic director of Theatre in a VAN! His writing credits with Theatre in a VAN! include, The Big Spill: A 10-Minute Musical about the BP Oil Spill, Gilgord, King of the Moontopians, The Subatomic Solution: A 10-Minute Musical Solution to the Conflict in the Middle East, and a new adaption of Bertolt Brecht’s The Elephant Calf. Last September he premiered his first full-length play Luminescent Blues at Theatre for the New City’s Dream Up festival. He also recently directed and produced a short play of his titled It’s A Wonder Anyone Gets Anything Done Anymore… for the Manhattan Repertory Theatre’s Spring One Act Competition. Leon has also co-written for projects with the Glass Bandits Theatre Company, which include In Memoriam: A Recession Play in 13 Acts, Hecuba the Bitch of Cynossema and The Best Laid Plans of Seamen.

OwA Open Proposal: ENOUGH!

[NOTE]: What follows is a first draft version of a proposal submitted to several entities who have invited Occupy with Art to participate in art events slated between now and fall 2012, spanning the first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, and the occupation of Liberty Square. This draft is open to revision, refinement and is introduced for the purposes of community review.

ENOUGH! [BASTA!]
1
Derivatives
Illusion
Corruption
2
Origins
Truth
Innocence

Occupy with Art invites artists of all descriptions to participate in a multi-dimensional art eruption for our times. In anticipation and celebration of the one-year anniversary of OWS, Occupy with Art proposes a series of art actions that collectively proclaim "ENOUGH!" We will explore six related subjects through art: derivatives/origins; illusion/truth; and corruption/innocence. Think of these concepts as three coins with two sides.

ENOUGH!

Click to read more ...

WS2MS: Co-organizer's "End" Notes

Catskill Chocolate Shop

WS2MS Closing Weekend
A Note from OwA Co-organizer Paul McLean

...Can one ask questions about the strange fact that, after several revolutions and century or two of political apprenticeship, in spite of the newspapers, the trade unions, the parties, the intellectuals and all the energy put into educating and mobilising the people, there are still (and it will be exactly the same in ten or twenty years) a thousand persons who stand up and twenty million who remain "passive" - and not only passive, but who, in all good faith and with glee and without even asking themselves why, frankly prefer a football match to a human and political drama? It is curious that this proven fact has never succeeded in making political analysis shift ground, but on the contrary reinforces it in its vision of an omnipotent, manipulatory power, and a mass prostrate in an unintelligible coma. Now none of this is true, and both the above are a deception: power manipulates nothing, the masses are neither mislead nor mystified. Power is only too happy to make football bear a facile responsibility for stupefying the masses. This comforts it in its illusion of being power, and leads away from the much more dangerous fact that this indifference of the masses is their true, their only practice, that there is no other ideal of them to imagine, nothing in this to deplore, but everything to analyse as the brute fact of a collective retaliation and of a refusal to participate in the recommended ideals, however enlightened.

- Jean Baudrillard, In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities

Berlin, Germany ["We the People" at Brik Gallery]

Dear friends,

On March 17, 2012, Wall Street to Main Street launched in Catskill, NY. Since then, Occupy with Art's partnership with Greene Arts/Masters on Main Street has offered the community a diverse program of exhibits, installations, performances, readings, demonstrations, workshops, seminars, and more. We even had our own single edition newspaper! Participants have ranged from celebrated (or controversial) artists with art-world-recognizable names like Andres Serrano, to locally- (and internationally-) recognizable artists like Matt Bua, to collectives like Bread & Puppet Theater and abcdefgCORPS, to poet/writers, like Sparrow, who spans the spheres of Occupy and the Hudson River region, to those folks who brought pieces for the absolutely inclusive "People's Collection," whose participation required no artistic self-definition at all. From the beginning our objectives included generating a rich sample of Occupy arts, commingled with works originating from the region's impressive artist base. In some fair measure, that goal was attained, although to what extent the potential interchange was tapped is an open question. Estimating the populations of possible collaborators versus actual ones won't permit us to congratulate ourselves too much.

Click to read more ...

WS2MS: Press Release [#f24]

[NOTE: We've launched a section in our WS2MS Active Projects & Proposals area for 411 on the Catskill production, where you'll be able to find the latest updates and info on WS2MS art, artists, initiatives, events, activities, context, press and documentation. You can find out more about the WS2MS programming HERE.]

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WALL STREET TO MAIN STREET

Six months after Occupy Wall Street (OWS) sparked a global 99% movement, Occupy with Art and Masters on Main Street launch "Wall Street to Main Street" (WS2MS) in historic Catskill, NY. Through a dynamic series of art exhibits, performances, screenings, happenings, public discussions, community- and family-focused activities, WS2MS will not only illuminate the amazing phenomenon of OWS, it will explore possible futures of the movement and build a creative bridge to connect the protests with the real needs and values of Main Street, USA. WS2MS opens March 17, 2012 in Catskill, NY. For additional details, see attached information. 

Click to read more ...

ROUND 2: Wall Street Stunts! [#F21]

SPATIAL OCCUPATION @ hyperallergic
Round 2/Session 3 [Screenings+]
7PM Tuesday

181 N. 11th Street [Williamsburg/BK/NYC]
 
RSVP: ows-arts-and-culture-spaces@googlegroups.com



Posted to East Village Arts Blog, January 13, 2012

[Link to EVA blog HERE.]

Happy New Year! Occupy with Art, ringing in 2012, has several projects we'd like to share with East Village Arts.

First, OwA is launching our collaboration with Yoko Ono this Saturday at 1PM in Liberty Square. If you are familiar with Ms. Ono's Imagine Peace Tower and Wish Tree Projects, then you will have a general idea of this project. We will hold a brief press conference announcing the distribution of 10,000 cards with a Wish message from Ms. Ono in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, after which OwA will be facilitating the free dissemination of these unique conceptual text-artworks here in New York City and beyond. We would like to send a few cards to every Occupation in the world, if that's possible. http://www.occupywithart.com/press-release-1_14_2012/

Second, we are working on "Wall Street to Main Street," a 3-month arts and culture project located in Catskill, NY. We are partnering with a team of coordinators in the Hudson River Valley, headed by Fawn Potash, artist and faculty member at New York City's School of the Visual Arts, and Geno Rodriquez, formerly the director of the Alternative Museum in New York City. Our project is supported by the Greene County Council on the Arts, in conjunction with their program Masters on Main Street (administered and curated by Potash). Wall Street to Main Street will consist of exhibits, installations, performances, panel discussions, projections, screenings, radio broadcasts, music and more, taking place in storefront spaces on Catskill's Main Street, and in satellite venues nearby. OwA just released an international Call for Entries and Proposals (see links below), and 99%/Occupy artists are especially encouraged to submit. The deadline for submissions is February 1. Wall Street to Main Street will open March 17 and run through May.

http://www.greenearts.org/call-for-entries
http://www.occupywithart.com/ws2ms-call-for-entries/
[DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: FEBRUARY 1]

Third, Occupy with Art is partnering with the Hemispheric Institute of NYU to present Low Lives: Occupy!, a special event featuring livestreaming video and performance, slated for March 3rd. Low Lives (you can check out their website at LowLives.net) is an innovative new media platform that for the past 3 years has worked with dozens of artists and venues around the world to produce compelling 99% art. The Low Lives selection team (Jorge Rojas, Christina deRoos and Juan Obando) is committed to diverse voices and an international cultural community, making the partnership with the Hemispheric Institute a natural fit. Just last week we learned that Mark Read of N17 "99% Bat Signal" fame has signed on to participate in LL:O as both a performer and presenter. The OwA site will serve as a clearinghouse for info and documentation on the project as it evolves. We are soliciting Calls for Entries and Proposals from performance artists and presenters right now, which, is available on the OwA websites, and also on the Low Lives and Hemispheric Institute sites.

hemisphericinstitute.org
lowlives.net
http://www.occupywithart.com/owslow-lives/2012/1/5/official-call-for-entriespresenters-for-low-lives-occupy.html
[DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: FEBRUARY 6]

Finally, a brief mention of a 4th project: CO-OP/Occuburbs, which will be situated in Huntington, NY (Long Island), and is being coordinated by Christopher Moylan there. We are establishing programming for screenings and exhibits with the Cinema Arts Center and BJ Spoke Gallery, and others. At this point, the impetus of this project is to develop an alternate 99% art economy modeled on and inspired by the co-op food and small farm networks, and integrated directly with them. Chris has penned two great essays, soon to be published in the Brooklyn Rail, now posted on the OwA site, which we're using as a platform or point of origin for an exciting exploration of what it means to Occupy in the suburbs and how the linking of beautiful 99% food and art might offer a brighter future for our communities.

It's our hope that East Village artists and art organizations will join with us to create great 99% art in 2012! Please contact us at occupywithartNY@gmail.com, if you'd like to learn more about how we can work together.

- Paul McLean, co-organizer of Occupy with Art (formerly Occupennial)

Occupy with Art is an affinity group of the Arts & Culture Working Group of the NYCGA for Occupy Wall Street.