The Occupy with Art blog provides updates on projects in progress, opinion articles about art-related issues and OWS, useful tools built by artists for the movement, new features on the website, and requests for assistance. To submit a post, contact us at occupationalartschool(at)gmail(dot)com .
Ridiculous cheap but delicious food at Tina’s (ten min walk),
Great brunch, great drinks, great dance parties at Tandem Bar (five min walk),
New cafe down the block, The Cobra Club (one block away).
Bat Haus is a coworking space (what is that?), co-founded by Cody Sullivan and Natalie Chan. You can find our little story here and an article with Natalie’s crazy jumping pics here.
Eric Leiser [OAS Node 1 @Bat Haus, August 17, 2012 (Photo by Paul McLean)]
"Holography: Merging the Real and Virtual for the 21st Century"
Eric Leiser, Occupational Art School, Aug. 17
By Christopher Moylan
So much of the art that draws large crowds to museums and galleries is of the sort that demonstrates a breakthrough in the understanding of human perception. Egyptian art in its various stages, Early Renaissance painting, Impressionism, Pointillism, and Cubism, as well as early photography and film combine the intrinsic appeal of the image with a more abstract, historical interest in how the image was made and what this process says about the ways in which people experience the world.
Of course, the works that are so widely appreciated are not simply technical demonstrations or curiosities. There is something transcendent and simply perfect in Piero della Francesca’s “The Flagellation of Christ,” as there is in Seurat’s “The Bathers at Arsnieres”, Monet’s Haystacks, and so on. Every period in art history has its corresponding high points, and it could be argued that any serious work of art, in any medium, reveals something about the workings of human perception. Nonetheless, certain changes in art practice are striking and remain so through time. The development of linear perspective in the early Renaissance represents a fundamental change in the understanding of the picture plane, and of how the eye constructs meaning out of environmental information. Anyone can see this, and anyone looking at one of Piero’s paintings can take part, intuitively and vicariously, in the pleasure of this breakthrough.
When a person who has little or no academic background in art history volunteers that Impressionism is his favorite kind of art, this is not a cliché, at least not for him or her. It’s a statement of affiliation to something powerful and continuously new; this is beautiful and interesting, and I don’t care what you say, I like it. High Modernism may be the last period in art history to be widely associated with this kind of perceptual advance. (There may be others; Clement Greenberg and Walter Gombrich can sort out what and when.) No doubt not many in the huge crowds that line up for a large scale exhibition of Picasso’s work might have some difficulty discussing the importance of duration, multiple perspective and geometric configuration in his Cubist phase, but they know something of all that and they find it fascinating.
So after Impressionism, Pointillism, Cubism, what next?
Holography, perhaps.
This may seem unlikely; holography is most often seen in science fiction movies, and even that context it’s a novelty or gimmick. Eric Leiser, speaking at Occupational Art School, had little patience with that view of the technology. A filmmaker and pioneer in holographic technology, he is developing holography as an art form and in the process investigating the metaphysical properties of light as material information. A talk which was originally planned as a demonstration and lesson in basic holographic process, along with a sample of Leiser’s holographic images, quickly turned into something spiritual and yet utterly practical.
A holographic image, he explained, is not merely a technical process, splitting a laser beam against mirrors so that the light drapes the surface of the object while another beam strikes the emulsion. It is a thing, a material form of light as information. This thingness is in some processes directly apparent. With haptic holography, for instance, the projected energy is so dense that one can touch it. For that matter, one can construct a building with haptic holography, or a bridge, a structure that can be just as useful as something made of brick or wood but with the advantage that it will vanish when the object is no longer needed, leaving no trace on the site where it stood. Haptic or cymatic holography uses ultrasonic waves to give density, tactile resistance, and thingness to a holographic image.
All of these processes dissolve the constructs that delineate experience, impose boundaries and markers—me-you, this-that, signifier-signified—that are purely expedients of our cognitive makeup. We anthropomorphize the signified, make sense of it with the thinking, experiencing equipment we have—eyes, nerves, brain and so on. The usual separation of inert and living objects begins to dissolve in holography. The holographic image reveals that every object is constituted with energy in different configurations and this energy is interactive—dynamic. The rock doesn’t just sit there, no more than the person does. It acts, and in a sense, speaks. The hologram captures this speech within the spooky quantum physics of light waves.
In quantum physics information is reality or, as Rob Braynton puts it, “our reality is just an expression of the information encoded within the underlying fabric of quantum fields” (“Imagining the Tenth Dimension” blogspot). A great deal of research, distilled to an evocative phrase, has it that this universe is a hologram of a fifth dimension. The holographic images Eric Leiser makes in his studio offer glimpses of this quantum reality. The holograph is not an image of the subject, it is the real of the subject.
The real, in this way of thinking, is a far cry from the horrific fissure in the signifying system that it is made out to be by Lacan, Zizek and their followers. For Zizek, the thinged word is Das Ding, a monstrous something that appears in a crack in the signifying system, an impossible glimpse at noumenal reality. In this view, the signified and signifier cannot meet; we shouldn’t be able to bite into the word apple. For Leiser, the real is not threatening at all. It is fascinating, approachable and often quite beautiful. With lasers costing only a few dollars, it is also affordable; almost anybody can make one.
But, if I have it right, this is almost like saying a prayer is free, anybody can say one. There is more to it than that.
The art of holography, as Eric presented it, seemed the art of spiritual reflexivity. A way of thinking of the soul in his view, for example, is to think of a hologram making a hologram of itself. Similarly, we can think of the brain not as an organic system encased in a hard shell, but as a star system with its own pulsars and black holes, its vast array of energy transfers and informational novae where holographic interference patterns establish themselves in dimensions that it hurts the ordinary brain to consider. Everything, everywhere we look is multivalent, dynamic and endlessly possible. Our idea of energy as such need not be restricted to oil and gas and nuclear; a room is filled with endless energy, should we choose to access it—and, according to Mr. Leiser, the time when we will do so isn’t that far off.
To return to art in its usual sense; there were pictures, lovely pictures projected on the wall of Bat Haus. One could tilt the ipod from which an image was projected and the image would morph. The possibilities for abstraction—a kind of abstraction in physics—are just beginning to be explored, as is the relation of holography to traditional media. Eric has experimented with projecting holographic images on painted canvases; the possibilities along those line are intriguing. The development of three dimensional printing opens new possibilities for the book, for sculpture and so on. The necessary condition for such possibilities to be realized, however, is that holography be situated within art practice and discourse.
Eric is remarkably well placed to do just that. A graduate of CalArts with an extensive technical background, he is the founding member of Albino Fawn Productions along with his brother, composer Jeffrey Leiser. He has exhibited widely in the U.S. and around the world. His work has appeared in major museums and art festivals. The films he and his brother have produced are widely distributed. He was about to depart for a film festival in Hiroshima at the time of his talk, and his work was on exhibit at "Hologalactic" at All Things Project at The People's Church of Greenwich Village (curated by Sam Kho and Susan Joyce of Fringe Exhibitions) He is extremely productive.
It is unlikely, however, that Eric thinks much about career, or money or even little things like dinner or sleep. He strikes me, anyway, as someone completely liberated by work. It is appropriate for him to appear in an Occupy or Occupational space because he is so liberated and so generous; I imagine that if the fellow selling him a hot dog or cup of coffee asked about holograms that Eric would sketch it out for him, teach the basics of holographic technique on the spot and set him up with the url addresses of sites where he could pursue this further. One can quarrel with all of the metaphysical ideas Eric generates, if one choses, but the good news remains. He, and lots of the people, are at work outside the capitalist system of mega-profit and celebrity self-aggrandizement, busy transforming not only our understanding of perceptual systems in art, but our understanding of the human. The technology for unlimited energy supply may be a ways off, but the vision of separating energy from exploitation and violence is pertinent and necessary right now. Eric’s holistic view of the production and hermeneutics of art are as far removed from current discourse in the art world as can be.
I am beginning to think that the art world of the oligarchic collectors and fashionistas is tilting on a precipice of crazy economic conditions and general cultural indifference. Be that as it may, the kinds of technical, spiritual and artistic explorations Eric Leiser is pioneering matter now and no doubt will matter increasingly as time goes by; the crowds will line up sooner or later.
Jeff Sugg at OASN1@Bat Haus on Wednesday, August 22, from 7-9pm. FREE. Click on the image to visit Jeff's website.
OAS seminars commence on Wednesday, August 22nd, from 7-9pm. Through the end of October, we will present a series of fun and compelling expositions that explore perception in time, of space, for being. Classes will be held on Wednesdays and Fridays, from 7-9pm. Additionally, OAS Node 1 will host two or three events per month, featuring performance and exhibition, the types of programming that bring the weekly courses to a visceral point of experience.
AWS Fabrication at OASN1@Bat Haus on Friday, August 24, from 7-9pm. Click on image to visit AWS Fabrication Tumblr.[OASN1@Bat Haus Gift Program]:
FIRST CLASS IS FREE!
Each student will be offered pay plans and options.
Bat Haus members will receive 20% discounts for classes.
Each class will be retailed at a $10 value.
Package plans will be offered at a 20% discount.
The undiscounted retail value of attending all classes (through the end of October) is $168.
So, a free pass/full OAS package to attend all classes will be $135 and will allow the student to attend all OAS events for free, as an added bonus!
Plus, any OAS student with a free pass & all Bat Haus members will receive a 20% discount on any item sold in any of our exhibits and performances! Wowsa!
And, to make it an even sweeter deal, we will post a list of barter items (using a variation of the OurGoods system of Have/Needs, and the system we tested for Ingrid Burrington's solo expo at SO@Hyperallergic) that student can exchange in lieu of cash!*
*Events will give us a chance to test other exchange models, including the shareware approach. Events pricing will vary, ranging from $5-10 or $20 retail value.
DisciplineAriel at OASN1@Bat Haus, Saturday, August 25, 7-9PM. Click image to visit the DisciplineAriel Tumblr.
[OASN1@Bat Haus Course Description][BETA/Draft 2.0]:
We have given ourselves permissions to establish a neo-pedagogy. The protocols are emergent, inspired by Novads, rooted in the pre-figuration praxis of the Anarchives, in the spirit of Revolutionary Games. Our modus operandi is dimensional. The Occupational Art School Node 1 is an iteration of Vo-Tech. We are committed to discovering our calling(s), our vocation(s), and willing to delve into technology, as such, to implement vision now. OASN1 is residential and commercial, just like Starr Street, where our host is located in Bushwick. We are zoned as hybrid. The discovery of the formula for our educational and artistic discipline is a direct action as alchemy, an accident, like the invention of Holography. Our goal is to move from occupation to Stage 1 Civilization. OAS assumes sufficient power in the present, assumes we can simply access all we need in the existence in which we are currently situated. Our art is multidisciplinary. It is convergent and multivalent. The space we inhabit is in flux, and we are adapting to conditions as they are and as they evolve or progress. The world is our studio. The OAS student body is not pre-defined. It is self-selected, a phenomenon of free radicalism. The approach we encourage among you is scientific, of curiosity, of wonder. Illumination is a function of collective movement, in our case, a systematic swarming that generates a glow, a flow. Through this creation-dance in the commons, we find ourselves, each one of us, in possession of a gift and, for want of a better word, a "SOUL." In this immaterial nature, we work with materials, tangible, Real. Thus, Occupational Art School is practical. It is Boolean. It is AND/OR and/or not or NOT. We are, in short, dimensional.
Is this enough? OAS suggests that we will find out, in Time. The Occupational Art School's luminous faculty and staff, all artists and practitioners, themselves, will engage in transmissions with the student body and with the world beyond our classroom walls, utilizing virtual media and actual (p2p, f2f), documented vocalic, aural interpretive exchange, the feedback loop,[+] as our universal transportation-vehicles. It is a question of temporary bands and bandwidth. OAS views this all-directional sensory scenario as a philosophic opportunity, during residency, to test the dynamics of the Media Equation and the Hermeneutic Circle (or spiral). FYI: Teachers are invited to switch and become students, from one class to the next, for instance, either online or in real life (IRL). Our methodology is DIY, together. Our suspicion, based on observation, is that our best students have already settled the argument once and for all, through [r]evolutionary means.
I’ve been thinking about Harold Jarboe, about a line Harold tossed around all the time. Harold is a Nashville-based filmmaker. I “crawled” him just now, and his website linked a video he’d recently made for former Miss West Virginia Julia Burton, titled, “What a Woman Wants.” By the way, if you look up Burton’s video on the Google, dear wired Rail reader, you shouldn’t miss Burton’s post-video comments on the Y’all Wire version, the one Harold linked. Classic Nashville. Heart.
Harold and I worked together on one art project, but mostly our friendship was a series of exchanges. When I lived in Nashville, our circles overlapped at the gym, coffee shop, art openings, and post-production shops. When our trajectories crossed – and this went on for years – Harold would get a kind of wild-eyed fierce look on his face and intone (I think this is right): “To be an artist & awake & aware is to be in a constant state of rage.” I seem to recall Harold telling me the source of the quote a few times. I don’t remember what it was now, though.
I used to laugh off Harold’s pantomime. I don’t anymore.
∞
To get rightly situated for the composition of this essay, I listened to Allen Ginsberg read Howl on YouTube. So New Media, man. If I’m not mistaken the reading was taped at the Jack Kerouac School for Disembodied Poetics at Naropa. The audio recording wasn’t properly cited, but it played with a nice photo of Ginsberg in a snazzy suit. Imagine that!
Google has an archive of news clippings, now. That’s how I double-checked the quote. Who knew? We’ve come a long way, since the days of microfilm at the public library, baby!
Since Allen’s gone to the great poetry reading in the sky, we can only speculate as to what the poet might say about the American police/surveillance/prison state, as it is now, about the corporate media monopolies, about the United States’ endless war program, about the evil that is the SCOTUS ruling on Citizens United.
∞
Finally, to get in the proper state of mind to write this essay, I watched and listened to Joseph Nechvatal’s “pour finir avec le jugement de dieu (complete)” on YouTube, and then I scanned Donnie Brasco on Netflix. I’ve seen Donnie Brasco before, but it seems more real, now that I live in Brooklyn. Art and God’s judgment. Cops and criminals.
The whole loan and interest game is rigged the world over, we discover. Then, the corporate media does its best to blackout the story, you know, the one about THE BIGGEST FRAUD CASE IN HISTORY.
JP Morgan Chase. MF Global. Standard Chartered. HSBC. Goldman Sachs. Terrorist-funding, drug cartel money-laundering, investor-swindling banksters-gone-wild. Who’s in jail? Bradley Manning. Who’s on the run from authorities? Julian Assange.
Disneyland. Anaheim. Cops gunning down and unleashing dogs on unarmed citizens, then responding to protests with cops geared-up like soldiers in Iraq. WTF.
THE BIGGEST PROTESTS IN HISTORY, all over the world, all summer long. Others, it seems like a new one every day, springing up like wack-a-moles, everywhere. Mexico. Spain. Canada. Italy. Syria. Greece. Russia. South Africa. Nepal… If you relied on the New York Times for your one-stop news, how would you know?
How about the Republican Presidential ticket? Romney apparently is a tax evader, and accidentally remained CEO of Bain Capital for years after he wasn’t CEO anymore. Ryan is accused of using his office for insider trading during the Crash. Those stories? Meh.
Painting by Alex Schaefer News Corp executives on trial for bribing cops, for wiretaps – and no Department of Justice prosecution. Wal*Mart, paying bribes in Mexico. The Facebook/Wall Street fiasco. Revelations of surveillance networks in Manhattan, the new Jim Crow laws, Stop and Frisk. Chalking artists, like heroic burning banks painter Alex Schaefer, tossed in the slammer. Same deal. WTF.
And on and on.
Who even wants to get into the complete failure and irresponsibility of Congress? It’s a disgrace. The cruelty of politicians preaching proven-failed Austerity, while they protect corporate profits and 1% tax boondoggles, is astonishing. To make matters worse, we have drought, the likes of which has not occurred since the Dust Bowl. The statistics on American “quality of life” standards, labor conditions, student prospects, medical care and such, are depressing. The Olympics, sponsored by McDonalds, BP and other destructive enterprises, barely put a dent in the malaise. WTF.
∞ I was talking to my friend Don - a Vietnam combat veteran, a retired doorman, a grandfather, a widower – what he thinks about America, right now. His answer was surprising. Don thoughtfully asserted that America is going to be alright. He went on to say that he didn’t think we need a President anymore. He voted for Obama, believed him to be a good man. Don had reached the conclusion, having studied the lives of many US Presidents, that the job might be too big now for one guy, and anyway, that we as a people could get along without a President and Vice-President. He wasn’t impressed, to say the least, with Romney and Ryan.
Myself, I’m going to cast a ballot for Bernie Sanders and Alan Grayson.
∞
Occupy with Art is morphing into the Occupational Art School. We concluded the spring’s programs like “Wall Street to Main Street” and “Low Lives: Occupy!” and are moving on to “CO-OP/Occufest” and the Occupational Art School. For a variety of reasons, tactical and ideological, our efforts have been marginalized. With a few exceptions, the art world, as such, is busy folding Occupy Art into its 1%-oriented status quo. No surprise there.
OWS focused its waning organizational juice and its budget on May Day, 2012. The protest was a humdinger, and the posters were great, as was Guitarmy. Since that largely peaceful party, Tax Dodgers got into the Baseball Hall of Fame with their hilarious and poignant antics. Some terrific videos have emerged, and a healthy, robust theoretical discourse, which percolates into mainstream threads and vehicles periodically, especially in the Guardian. The Soul of Occupy has been examined and great thinkers, including Zizec, Graeber and Chomsky, have proffered prognoses. I’ve thrown in my two cents.
People approach me to ask, “What’s going on with OWS?” It happens a lot. I’m supposed to have an inside story, and sometimes I do. What I tell them, though, is “You are Occupy. This is not a spectator sport. Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Scanning galleries of photos and archives of videos from the occupation regularly, I come across reminders of the directness of the Occupy message, which was plentiful and dimensional. One of the Grannies who protested in the park early on wore a sandwich-board sign with the “spectator sport” message. WTF, America, you still don’t get it.
Occupy wasn’t Jesus come to rescue you from the sins and sinners of Capitalism. It doesn’t work that way. OWS was never something you could get by following on Facebook. The occupation wasn’t and isn’t a struggle, mission and task your fractional proxy could accomplish by volunteering in your stead. Most importantly, the problems OWS erupted to confront have not improved. They’ve gotten worse, and for almost anyone who might be reading this text, much worse.
WTF, America? What are you going to do? What are we going to do?
∞
This is your historical moment. The problem is, it doesn’t look, taste, smell or feel anything like what you might have expected. It never does. It doesn’t read like a book. It doesn’t look like a program on the History Channel. It’s not the 60s or the Big War, or the Great Depression. It’s different.
The enemy is not going to appear in a uniform that says “ENEMY” on it. Your enemy is a successful CEO, a banker, and a wealthy industrialist or heir. The cops are not what hundreds and thousands of TV shows convinced you he is. You aren’t safer, now that your civil liberties have been dissolved with pen strokes and normalized lawlessness. The goals of the enemy are, however, the same. Evil psychopaths want to rule the world. They want you to acquiesce. They will insist you accept lives enslaved to their will, to their mad visions. They possess the means and desire to destroy your world, your society, your family, in order to create a New Order that situates them at its pinnacle. In that New Order the best you can be is a manager, a collaborator, a guard, a lackey, a technocrat, a shill or an entertainer. In their universal scheme, they are the stars, and you are nothing more than dark matter, expendable, a human resource.
∞
The “diversity of tactics” discussion in Occupy is a good start. Eventually, it will have to evolve into “by any means necessary.” This is because the enemy, who is dimensional in nature and practice, has settled on that course. Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, World War 3 has begun. The enemy is a now-global, syndicated plutocracy, which in one form and scale or another, has been a bane on humanity for thousands of years. Compared to these guys, the Taliban are the Three Stooges. They have the long view. They are willing to do, say, pay for anything to attain, maintain and sustain power, prestige, and a dominant position. They don’t care about you, your dreams, art, truth, beauty, your soul, your kids, your water, your church, your love, your humanity. Their greatest achievement, creatively, is the modern multinational corporation, an artificial infinite personhood, focused solely on the bottom line, equipped with armies (literally, now), the best lawyers, accountants, politicians money can buy, and millions of indentured servants, even straight-up slaves! You don’t even want to know what they do for pleasure (or maybe you do).
The iteration of the corporation they fashioned is Caesar. Its name is on the Coliseum. Everything in Heaven & Earth has been monetized under its rule. Birth, death, food, weather, sex, youth, sickness, conflict, breath… It foments its own art and political movements. It educates the people. It secures them in their (ha!) property and possessions (ROTFL). It explains why, how and who is necessary for good life, all life, to function effectively. What it doesn’t know, it will, eventually. It owns the demos, the democracy. It has the power of life and death, of silence. It is bigger than Nature. Bigger than God. It has destroyed demons and supplanted them with itself. It is its own cosmology. It will send itself into space. It will solve the mysteries of everything, and it will do so because it is the great owner of TIME.
And it is a LIE.
∞
WTF, America. How long are you going to be willing to put up with this? You’ve been robbed blind, swindled, hoodwinked. The goon who took you didn’t look like a cinema wise guy. Who cares! Your kids are being wasted in the deserts, of the Mideast, of the Midwest, of their own addictions, in a land increasingly devoid of meaningful opportunity, in the prisons of America, corporatized prisons, for profit. Your people, the real ones – their loss is the enemy’s gain!
What’s keeping you in your cave? Is it that there has been no resounding call to arms? Forget about it. It’s not coming. The enemy figured out you might be waiting for that and has made sure it won’t be happening. Are you waiting for your neighborhood to mobilize? Have you walked in your neighborhood recently? Are you expecting it to form teams and get on the job? I had that thought for a minute a few months ago, before I woke up.
Are you waiting to get ahead on your debts? Hah! Are holding out for a good job, with benefits, a pension? Just look at Wisconsin, and think of the men, women and children gunned down by cops with machine guns in Marikana. Remember that battle has been raging for 500 years (see Cerro Rico) in every “New World” the extractors and exploiters discover and see an opportunity to “order.”
∞
WTF. America, if you could beat the Nazis, the Japs, the Fascists of Italy in four years, don’t you think you can defeat these scumbags? Are you smart enough? Strong enough? Tough enough? Do you have the endurance? Do you have the will? Is God - whatever your conception of God is, because THAT’S America - on your side, or theirs? By the way, they don’t care about God. The enemy believes they are gods, more or less.
America, if you could turn the tide of Russian and Chinese Communism and/or Socialism, and set it upon itself, don’t you think you can do the same for the Pimps of Davos? Like Jesus cleaning the money lenders out of the Temple, right? Boom goes the Dynamite! Get the bums out of Washington! Don’t quit until the job is done! Rally under the flag of your fathers!
∞
Or sit on your couch and get high. Go to your therapist. Buy a new CD. Rent a movie. Go to church on Sunday. Get in your 60 hours at the office to keep your job. Take the meds for your anxiety and heart condition. Stop at the bar, go on vacation, get some fishing in, head to the mall, take a drive. Jerk off to porn. Hook up with a co-worker. Play with the kids. Sue somebody. Whatever.
This is your moment in history. You idolize the Greatest Generation. Fair enough. You pine for the hippie free love of yore. Fine. You celebrate emancipations, one after another, in our country’s troubled but great history. Compared to the great struggle we’ve faced – I’m sorry to be the bearer of the news – ours today is of the greatest consequence. The fact is, though, I think that’s always the case.
∞
The objective is to reclaim Time. I know, that notion seems awfully abstract, even conceptual. It’s real.
Time, your time, has been stolen from you, or you’ve willingly surrendered it, with or without much of a fight, if any. Maybe you grumble about it. Until you and we realize how precious time is, no one will have an idea of what we’re actually fighting for.
∞
The Bomb in the 50s was the most fearsome weapon on Earth. Today, it is and it isn’t. The greatest threat to civilization, to freedom, today is the derivatives market. If you’re not willing to figure out why that is, you won’t understand the 2007-8 Crash, LIBOR, the London Whale, or much of the international news that is, whether you accept it or not, gravely affecting your past, present and future.
The prime players in the world game called “You Bet Your Ass (or his, or theirs-)” have faces, names, houses, countries of origin, personal histories and dramas. Some of these players you may be familiar with (like Bloomberg) and others you may not. It’s more possible than ever to uncover the invisible hand of greed. Occupy has and continues to do a lot of that work for you, which is why the movement has incurred such brutal repression.
∞
One thing I’ve learned over the past year of occupation is that Revolution isn’t what you expect. It doesn’t always evolve in directions you personally might advocate. Revolution may not ask or want your opinion. It may not respect your gifts, and you can’t own it. Sometimes, it will whip around and bite your ass. Ask the French. They had a lot of good ideas and intentions. They perfected execution by guillotine. Robespierre is a case study in Revolutionary dynamics.
A lot of sane people are very cautious about pushing revolution for that very reason. Many more people will justify apathy or fearful self-removal from conflict for the very same reason. Hitler and Germany – and all their enablers - demonstrated forever why accepting the unacceptable is finally unacceptable. At some point down the line, people usually will have to explain what they were doing, while Evil was growing and then consuming their society.
∞
WTF, America – what have you been up to, while the treasure of your nation, both material and immaterial, was taken from you, by wicked people through subterfuge or direct action? More to the point, what are you going to do about it, now that the cards are on the table, the jig is up, and you’ve been called?
There’s still time to pull yourself together and put down the Hun, but not much. Time will go on, regardless. The same cannot be said for American democracy. America will sustain, as a bottom-up proposition of freedom – not to be conflated with a free market, which has been shown unequivocally to be a lie – only if we individually and collectively commit to protect and preserve it. Obviously, there are millions, even billions of people around the world, who are ready, willing and able to join us in that task, who want essentially the same for themselves. Democracy, like the Granny said, is not a spectator sport. It has to be chosen. Many Americans have bled and died to defend this democracy – not for the Rockefellers, Gates, Broads and Fricks – for themselves, their families, their buddies, their towns, their futures.
∞
If we succeed, we’ll enter a new dimension. If we fail, the future appears Apocalyptic, right? WTF, America. Do it: do it one more time. It won’t be easy, but you’re worth it. Don’t choose slavery.
After that, you can recede into the dusk of history happy, sleeping comfortably in your own bed, cancer-free. The 1% are a cancer. Cut them out, burn them, poison them, like modern medicine prescribes for most cancers. Then, if you survive, try the 99% new agers, with their preventative measures, their homeopathics, whole natural foods, massages and meditation. Choose to be indigenous, a native. Choose to be happy, joyous and 100% free. Sure, that sounds fantastical. But if you finally manage to remove the vampire squid from your face, you might just look upon the world with new eyes, and realize all along you were living on a spaceship called Paradise, and each one of us is a captain, or whatever we want to play today.
Think Rip van Winkle. It may take thousands of years, but people will come around. In the meantime, we can take lots of road trips, make great art and babies.
Fragments of a thought as it passed thru my brain:
...each Novad is an irreducible radicand under consideration and considered at its root a monad-like or atomic metaphysical entity. If we drive for something deeper, we find more of the same: the identity-being.
...the Novad root is not true of all avenues, or at least does not seem to be, for in the course of life one can ride ferries to new ideas, pass thru secret passageways between thought, and feel hopelessly lost in endless mazes. The Novad has within itself an unidentifiable root, like an imaginary number, attached or embedded to make it a less-than-perfected ideal.
Occupy with Art, Art for Humans and Bat Haus are pleased to present an evening with multimedia artist Eric Leiser. Eric's latest show "Hologalactic" at All Things Project at The People's Church of Greenwich Village was curated by Sam Kho and Susan Joyce (Fringe Exhibitions) and featured new holograms, sculptures, moving images and paintings. Next week the artist will be traveling to Japan to attend a screening of his work at the Hiroshima International Animation Film Festival.
Film still by Eric Leiser Evening program:
6PM: Introduction to OAS Node #1 at Bat Haus, by co-organizer Paul McLean
7PM: Presentation by Eric Leiser: "Holography: Merging the Real and Virtual for the 21st Century"
The pre-launch festivities at Occupational Art School Node #1 at Bat Haus in Bushwick on Thursday, August 9 felt "historic," according to OwA co-organizer Chris Moylan, one of the attendees. The performative presentation by Bold Jez had the air of an incantation. Jez made a point of acknowledging in subtle ways all those who have already sling-shot into other worlds (we all thought of Alex Carvalho)[+], and their presence was present in the beautiful array of artifacts from the anarchives in various states of display and array in the excellent Bat Haus co-work space. For example, when pointing to the big Magic Mountain canvas installed just inside the front door, and the MoMA banner draped in the center of the main room, Jez invited everyone who had worked on these "living documents," to use the 60 Wall term, to identify themselves and recount the experience of participating in the actions of emergent creativity that produced the banners. The sense of intimate community was palpable, almost tribal, amongst the original Arts & Culture crew/revGamers/Magic Mountaineers/Novads. [+] One of the evening's highlights - there were many - involved #theShamanGeneral otherwise known as #theColonizedIndigenous reading his now-monumental ana-poem (link to the original performance at Liberty Square will be added here) from the Etherpad he had just built, as an anarchivist vehicle for documenting his life in time. Noting that the tool enabled novadic participation as communercise. The magnificent Direct Action Flaneurs anchored the program to the street, & built a fine, sturdy bridge between the World, USA, NYC BK/Bushwick - L stop Jefferson & our interior architecture (dimensional & the Bat Haus'). The neighborhood folded into our event, ran over it, typed it, and cheered it. It was a joyful dance!
Friday, Jez & I met for debriefing. We covered a lot of territory. One of the most fruitful turns is the clarification of our program practicum at OASN1@BH, which will develop directly from the example provided by #theShamanGeneral otherwise known as #theColonizedIndigenous. From here throughout the residency Phase 1 (end of October), we will cite an event that's happened, then in some manner translate it for OASN1, then add (N+1) a teaching/learning component to the transmission.
Tonight [Saturday], we follow #TITMOTA 1 with the second iteration of #TITMOTA.
Now, some news about the next two OASN1@BH events.
∞
Eric Leiser, "Aleph 2"
Friday, August 17 (9/17/2011 + 11 months), we will officially launch OASN1@BH with an evening "On Hologalactic." Eric Leiser will host a discussion about his recent show at All Things Project at Neighborhood Church of Greenwich Village, and his upcoming trip to Hiroshima, Japan, for the Hiroshima International Animation Film Festival. We'll be sharing more details between now & Friday. Here's Eric's impressive bio:
Eric Leiser is an award-winning artist, filmmaker,animator, puppeteer, writer, holographer and curator working in the LA, New York and London area. He has created 3 animated/live action feature films and 25 shorts as well as works that integrate painting, animation, puppetry, holography, sound and live performance/installation. Leiser is interested in how animation transforms perception when it is combined with live action space creating a fantastical/spiritually surrealistic quality.
Eric's solo work has exhibited at MASS MoCA, Istanbul Modern Museum of Art, Thessaloniki Center for Contemporary Art, Ruben H. Fleet Space Center[2] in San Diego, California , (V & A) Victoria and Albert Museum, The MIT Museum,(BFI) British Film Institute, Anthology Film Archives, LA Film Forum, San Francisco Film Society, Fringe Exhibitions[4] in Los Angeles, California; Goldsmiths, University of London;[5] School of the Arts Institute of Chicago;[5] Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China, Live With Animals in New York City[6], Bourne Hall in Hastings, East Sussex, England along with international group shows. His holograms have been featured in in such publications such as a National Geographic Magazine.
His films have screened at film festivals worldwide such as the Annecy International Film Festival, Hiroshima International Animation Film Festival, The Istanbul International Animated Film Festival, The San Francisco International Animated Film Festival, EXIS Experimental Film Festival, Seoul, Korea among others.
He has made 25 short films, eight of which appear in the DVD release Eclectic Shorts by Eric Leiser, and three features: Faustbook, released April 25, 2006 by Vanguard Cinema, and Imagination, released theatrically in the US and Internationally in summer 2007 and February 2008 on DVD by Vanguard Cinema. Imagination was featured in the May 2008 issue of Animation Magazine.[8]"Glitch in the Grid" was released theatrically in the US and Internationally on October 2011 and February 2012 on DVD through Vangaurd Cinema.
He is the founding member of Albino Fawn Productions along with his brother and collaborator musician Jeffrey Leiser.
Eric is an alumni of CalArt's Experimental Animation program.
On Wednesday August 22 OAS has confirmed Jeff Sugg as our first guest. We will discuss the ways Digital has altered theater, and theatrical production, its hierarchies, rehearsal patterns, selection processes [+]; as well as the possible new forms that may emerge from the phenomena in play. Here is Jeff's bio:
Jeff Sugg is a New York based artist, designer, and technical advisor. He is a co-founding member of the performance group, Accinosco, with Cynthia Hopkins and Jim Findlay and has co-designed their two critically acclaimed pieces, Accidental Nostalgia and Must Don't Whip 'Um.33 Variations (projections: Arena Stage, La Jolla Playhouse), The Slugbearers of Kayrol Island (co-set & projections: The Vineyard Theater), ¡El Conquistador!The Thomashefsky Project & Let Them Eat Cake/Of Thee I Sing (projections: San Francisco Symphony), Trece Días (sets & projections: San Francisco Mime Troupe) He has also worked as designer for multiple works with theater companies including: The Colllapsable Giraffe, Pig Iron Theater Company, DASS Dance, Transmission Projects. Music design: Natalie Cole (lights), and Natalie Merchant (lights).Other theater designs include: (lights: New York Theater Workshop) [+]
In addition to his work as a designer, Mr. Sugg is regarded as a premiere technical consultant and system designer. Some credits include: The Wooster Group (technical artist), Laurie Anderson (video system design), Richard Foreman (video system design), Mikel Rouse (video system design), GAle GAtes et al. (effects designer/engineer), and The Baseball Music Project (video system design). Mr. Sugg has also taught Media and Technology at Swarthmore College. He has led several workshop/intensive courses in media technology at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), Rude Mechanicals Theater Company, and others.
For his work on Must Don’t Whip ‘Um, Mr. Sugg received a 2007 Bessie Award and was nominated for a 2007 Hewes Design Award. He was also nominated for a 2007 Hewes Design Award for his work on ¡El Conquistador!.
For his work on The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island, he received a 2008 Henry Hewes Award, 2008 Obie, and a 2008 Lucille Lortel Award. [+]
Must Don't Whip 'Um [Jeff Sugg: co-Set, Video, & Production Design]Next week the Occupational Art School Node #1 will launch its new website, post our sign-up forms and terms, and build out our social media array a bit. A lot to do! Let us know if you have any questions.
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.
American Artist by Paul McLean [48" x 36" mixed media on canvas 2007]The Occupied Artist*
By Christopher Moylan
1. Cultural Citizenship
The Occupied Artist is engaged in carving out a space of creative detachment from conventional social structures without necessarily ceding the material advantages of middle class life, so far as it is possible for an artist to acquire a middle class life. In effect, the Occupied Artist is a citizen of two domains: the ordinary world of late capitalism, globalization, the two-party system, etc., and a cultural milieu of Occupied and other non-capitalist arrangements of actual and virtual resources designed to provide some relief from the limitations of corporate discourse. The artist pioneers affiliations and community structures that encourage non-commercial, non-judgmental, supportive and welcoming approaches to creative exploration. Magic Mountain, Occupy with Art, Hyperallergenic, Poet Activist Community Extension, The Agit-Truth Collective: collaborative communities have proliferated in recent years, often bringing in artists of different media. The groups come and go; they are not intended to be permanent. The determination to grow another cultural milieu is permanent, however, and growing.
Such structures develop parallel to the usual forms of social engagement and not, so far as is practical, in conflict with them. Everyone has to make a living, and so long as corporate America continues to control our political and financial systems there is no contradiction in maintaining some balance of conventional and alternative ways of life. Nonetheless, the eventual goal is clear: to leave the world of rigged competition, financial decadence and political and not look back. 2. Development of an Alternative Art Economy
The Occupied Artist is part of an economic vanguard engaged in developing and applying an art economy from the structures of the so-called art world: white cube galleries; international art fairs; rich collectors; art media and fashion. In this world, money circulates among collectors, journals, advertising agencies, and artists, not to mention the low paid writers and support staff that keep the system in operation. It would be simplistic to claim that the art world is about money, but money is certainly very important. The role of the public in all this is negligible: mainly, supporting economies at several removes from the art world in the form of off the rack fashion and secondary businesses (restaurants and bars in gallery districts, art publications) and providing numbers at receptions and the like to generate buzz. Their opinions and their market force are dismissed; they, we, really don’t matter. The Occupied Artist explores ways to do the reverse: include the %99, marginalize the billionaire collectors, develop monetized and non-monetized forms of art support, create new configurations and dimensions for art exhibition, and nurture forms of discourse and cultural exchange that work within and for the community, however that community is defined—it could an online community, a neighborhood, a group affiliated with Occupy. Sometimes acquisition of given work will involve barter, labor exchange, work in kind, or co-op transactions. Sometimes there will be no need for a transaction, as in work placed on public walls or billboards, or inscribed on cans or boxes in a grocery store and left just to surprise people… Money is necessary of course: money for rent, utilities, phones, supplies… If you have some money, please donate (really, please donate). If you don’t want to donate, come to a rent party and drop a few dollars in the jar at the door. There are all kinds of ways to raise money…Art work in this alternative economy can be rigorous and challenging or fun or silly, but it will not be extremely, scarily expensive, unless the community really wants it to be. 3. Spatial and Dimensional De-Limitation
The Occupied Artist resists the market considerations that restrict exhibition to certain spaces and the financial and logistical obligations that come with them. Art fairs, traditional galleries, auctions and private sales contain art and artist in a spatial and economic matrix, the matrix of global capitalism. Virtual spaces, squats, occupations, fugitive exhibitions, and communal organizations break out of that market and spatial limitation. They appear in places the traditional art world shuns: poor neighborhoods, uncool neighborhoods, bodegas, farmhouses, barns…By doing so, they encourage people, all kinds of people, to take part, often as participants in the making of a piece. None of this is easy, although it can seem like a fugitive show in an old gas station or someone’s apartment just happens spontaneously. Quite the opposite; without the usual supports of financing and media drawing power, it takes a lot of planning, networking and organizing to move within this de-limited art world.
4. Humbly Occupied
Who wove the Bayeux Tapestry? Who turned and painted the urn that inspired Keats to write his ode? Who made most of the Native American art in museum collections around the country? In another world, the world envisioned by Occupy artists, it would be a simple matter to give up any prospect of celebrity for the chance to help weave something as wonderful as the Bayeux Tapestry. The Occupied art world would have no place for an Andy Warhol, as Andy Warhol, much as any Occupied artist admires him and values his critique of the postmodern image world. The Occupied artist is a revolutionary, not a celebrity. Attention, if it comes, is just a peripheral distraction. People have lost their homes, their jobs, and their pride. The climate is shifting alarmingly, unions are being outlawed, women assaulted in the media, anti-Gay bigotry celebrated in fast food chains and pulpits, young people impaled by college loans, banks and giant corporations are raping our constitution and demeaning our elected officials by paying for their votes. There is work to do. Cultural workers, Occupied artists, will do their part.
*NOTE: The impetus for this essay was a discussion with members of b.j. spoke gallery, during which the questions emerged (& this is somewhat simplifying): "What is an Occupy artist; what is Occupy art?" I would suggest that Chris has made a great beginning here, and that it would be great and important, should others continue this discussion, and add their ideas on the subject. - PJM
Last night the Occupational Art School celebrated the Anarchives and their inventor Bold Jez, as the ghost of Peter Cooper floated monumental over our shoulders, invisible at times in the light. Special guests DAF encouraged rubbings and created a typological street intervention. We shared cookies, Etherpad, avocados, reflections on pre-9/17 Arts & Culture stunts, chronicles of Magic Mountain, QR Codes, artifacts of occupation [+]. An electrified hula dancer performed, and a poet. Bushwick passed by, asked questions, and we tried to provide true answers. The event was free.
The Occupational Art School commences its program auspiciously with "Time in the Mind of the Anarchive," a conversation-starter in two [2X∞] parts, #TITMOTA 1+2. The opening festivities slated for Thursday, August 9 at 7PM at Bat Haus in Bushwick include a presentation by Bold Jez, a/k/a Jez Bold, a/k/a Jeremy, a/k/a Jez3PREZ, etc., entitled "Recording Future History: Activist archivism in Occupy Wall Street." The actuality of our expo is N+1-oriented, so come prepared. It's a hot summer in Brooklyn, and 11 months after the first interventions in and around Wall Street popped up, the promise of occupation is a multi-faceted proposition, if not an outright seduction, to be fulfilled. #TITMOTA is therefore a beginning that looks behind us, over our shoulders. The movement, if that what it is and was, or will be, has never been subject to the embedded command of prediction. Although OWS has exclaimed its advocacy for the 99%, no 99% has embraced it. In America, at least, popular change is a spectator sport. For the vast silent masses of Americans, quasi-citizens, Occupy could have as well been the Olympics. OWS has been much more real for the 1%, who are so close to complete victory, their sphincters clang shut at the first sign of popular dissent.
From the notes of Jez Bold[NOTE]: The Occupational Art School Node #1 will launch its 3-month residency at Bat Haus in Bushwick (Brooklyn, NYC) with multi-faceted dimensional ana-event conducted by the incomparable Jez Bold, titled "Time in the Mind of the Anarchives." Below is the ana-press release #Jez3Prez has composed for #TITMOTA.]
Axioms:
#TITMOTA is a show otherwise known as "Time in the Mind of the Anarchives"
#TITMOTA has at least 2 parts, Part 1: Presentation/Performance and Part 2: Potluck & Potlache
You don't need to come to both (or either) to understand the #Anarchives, but you may get a better idea of what we're talking about.
Have you ever seen a work of art change over time? Or watched a complex idea emerge from many unintentional steps? For the Anarchives, process is product is process: each recorded moment brings a new iteration in an evolving work of art. History itself is changing over time and each documented moment is an opportunity for a new interpretation.
Would you like to understand more?
Join Bold Jez, anarchivist, at the opening of the newly founded Occupational Art School for his 1st solo show called "TIME IN THE MIND OF THE ANARCHIVES." Examine a collection of strange and familiar objects. Discover what the universe looks like when refracted through the infinite panels of the K(rystalleido)scope. Join him for a performance-presentation "Recording Future History: Activist archivism in Occupy Wall Street" to learn more about how the Anarchives altered recent history and informed the origins of OWS.
As stated by #Jez3Prez, anarchist candidate for Prezident, "In order to radically change our history, we must revolutionize our concept of time." The site of historical struggle can begin anywhere, and here it begins by infiltrating the archive.
Magic Mountain
*Time in the Mind of the Anarchives, Pt 1 [#TITMOTA][August 9, 2012 at OAS Node #1][BAT HAUS, Bushwick]
7 pm
Wander/wonder/wait/explore (discover drawings inside of journals, find movies inside books, look for scenes on the ceiling)
*Time in the Mind of the Anarchives Pt 2 [#TITMOTA2]: Potluck/Potlache
Revolutionary Games, in collaboration with the Occupational Art School, invites you to the latest in its series of salons: the #TITMOTA2 Potluck & Potlache will be a free space to participate in an art exchange and give away of recipes, books, media, art...whatever items of substance that you want to send out into the world. This event is a community BBQ and potluck, a review & replay of the first #TITMOTA, and a playground for games, music, and memees; bring things to share with everyone. #OASNode0 invites you to a potlache of orphan works that we commit the annals of the Anarchives by documenting their current presence and sending them into the world with new stewards (who collect, care for, & document the item's changes over time). YOU could already be the new host of an item from the Anarchives! We invite you to bring something to send out as well, something of your own to share with the world through the collection of this revolutionary community archive. As with any valuable experience, expect to come away with more than you came...
Please find attached this novadic song for voice, guitar, subway train, whistle, siren, drunk girls, wind, silence, etc. Free to download here; encouraged to play in any order:
This was recorded from 2:30-3:40am on a pocket-sized hotness while finding my way from a shabbat dinner in Queens to a hot couch in Harlem, using a borrowed guitar, stealing melodies from singers I love (e.g. Calamity & the Owl) and words from the subway walls (do not pull the emergency cord, Emergency Workers...).
Excerpted Lyrics: Wacky guitar...wacky guitar...oh no...oh no ooOOooOOooooo...and I wonder why the song is outside...We've got nothing left to do but play music on an empty subway platform...and o wonder why, the rails are electrified, why the floors all have their lights on (2x)...inside our minds, inside the heart, inside the hope of being One...and don't you wonder why the stars all healed inside, its not like were the last ones to consider the rain upon the sun...A Pyramid of muskets; a Teepee of guns...And don't you wonder why the lights are left on all night long...[whistles like clock chimes finding their own time]...and I wonder why, and I wonder why, and I wonder why, this song is outside. Ohhhhhhh ohhhh ooOOOooooooOOoo...
[Animation by Paul McLean, generated by Zen circles and compressed, digitized and/or dimensional simulations thereof... for OAS Node #1]
[PLEASE NOTE]:
Occupy with Art, Bat Haus and the Occupational Art School are pleased to announce that Jeremy Bold will be kicking off our Bushwick program at OAS Node #1 in August (details TBA soon).
Wednesday, August 22, 2012 at 05:28AM 
Here is the current look of Bat Haus, a co-working space and community nexus in Bushwick.[FROM THE BAT HAUS BLOG]:
