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๏ปฟ .
"he comprehended that the effort to mold the incoherent and vertiginous matter dreams are made of was the most arduous task a man
could undertake, though he might penetrate all the enigmas of the upper and lower orders: much more arduous than weaving a rope of sand or coining the faceless wind. he comprehended that an initial failure was inevitable. he swore he would forget the enormous hallucination which had misled him at first, and he sought another method."
Crowd on hand for the screening of Liza Bear's "Corporations Can't Cry" at Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, LI
It was a special evening, thanks to the contributions of many people, and the hospitality of Cinema Arts Centre staff and admin. Chris Moylan, Occupy with Art co-organizer, did much of the heavy lifting in coordinating the events, which included the screening of "Corporations Can't Cry" in the big theater (which was nearly packed), a brief Q&A with filmmaker and longtime artist-activist-filmmaker-writer Liza Bear, followed by a mixer with food, free art, music and poetry, and a roster of activist organizers presenting information on their activities. Special thanks to Dylan, Charlotte, Brian, the Occupy Screenprinters, and all the other good people who made our first CO-OP/Occuburbs festival a memorable one.
Occufest at the CAC Skyroom, post-screening.Another view of the Occufest audience, as the band plays on at CAC.
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.
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.
Dumitru Gorzo: "Untitled," 2009; 14 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches; Mixed media on paper [Courtesy SLAG Gallery]
Studio Visit
[Session 9]
Dumitru Gorzo is preparing for his multi-panel painting project "Heads" to be installed at NJ MoCA. I visited his Bushwick studio in the early evening. We met at SLAG, where Gorzo presented "Reality's Nostalgia." [Installation views are available on the SLAG website linked to the image above.]
A studio visit can be a serious, formal, intimate, memorable occasion for meaningful exchange between artists. I consider it a privilege to be invited to another artist's studio. I won't be sharing much about this one here.
[STUB/Communique] The point of inducting the scenario here as part of our OAS program is simple. The transmission of ideas, thoughts, impressions, responses, whatever else you might call it, that happens in such a congress between artists is elemental in any healthy art ecology. It is one thing for a young and old artist to concourse, to engage in apprenticeship. As a traditional mode, the old-young transmission might mainly be centered on craft preservation, or the asking and answering of questions, or the conveyance of wisdom. But when two artists as peers engage, it is possible for something dangerous to happen, or diplomatic, if they happen to have unlike origins... [Stopping here.]
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)
Today we visited the St. James Theater and a tech rehearsal for the "Bring It On - The Musical," at the invitation of designer Jeff Sugg.
[CONSIDERATIONS, OBSERVATIONS + CONJECTURES]
OWS has been characterized as an art medium, and analyzed relative to performance, performance art, relational art and other modalities of staged expression or exchange. Precursors to the Occupation like Zefrey Throwell's naked staged intervention on Wall Street ("Ocularpation: Wall Street") expand the set of considerations, as do the actions of the original Arts & Culture group/gamers and the Aaron Burr Society, suggesting that there is something to it. Many kinds and instances of performance, often involving professional performers, were and continue to be integrated into Occupational activities, such as "The Tax Dodgers," the Brecht performers and so on. One of the most compelling collective circle-discussions hosted by Hrag Vartanian during the Spatial Occupation @Hyperallergic centered on these phenomena. Where does performance (as situated in entertainment or artifice) stop and Occupation-as-performance begin and/or end? Does the conflation of performance and occupation diminish the latter and trivialize it, by compressing the redress of grievances into a modality of coded narrative for desire-satisfaction? Etc. Certainly this is fertile territory for analysis with tactical or strategic implications. [David Graeber has written on this subject relative to protest, police, puppets and media propaganda, which we also attempted to address in SO@H residency reading group. Graeber's text(s) indicated the anarchist's jaundiced and limited vision for art in conjunction with direct action, minimizing art into a protest utility functionary, and redefining it to the extent that art is a fungible creativity applicable to all activities human, an absurdist conjecture ultimately. Is falling down art (if an art does it)? And, if everyone is an artist, is all falling down artistic?
The observation of the "Bring It On" tech rehearsal was profound for this viewer, who has been away from professional theater for the most part for the past decade, with some notable exceptions (Circle X at Ford Theater in LA, and other theatrical entertainments covered elsewhere). The opportunity to assess the evolving role of electronics in the medium led to the formation of some important seams of conjecture, mainly pertaining to the reformation of hierarchies in production, and the staged spaces in which artifacts from old, even ancient, models of dramatic transmission are being fundamentally redesigned, reoriented or constituted as ana-spaces for performance, due to the intervention of computer-sited processes in play-making and/or 4d presentation. Jeff and I briefly discussed these "advances" and related effects, and committed enthusiastically to further explore their significance. The power of theater in revolutionary change cannot be underestimated. These developments potentially point toward new theatrical practice that obviates the insipid corporatized "creative" economic content that passes often for top-shelf theater, now. Like similar spectacle-ism in sports, music, art, political races, war coverage, etc., the need for dimensional veracity for collective sharing of imaginary-real experience as vision is vital in reclaiming a democratic commons for us all. This is a key in expelling propaganda in all its insidious iterations from the field of dimensional perception.
[Session 6]
Art Gatherings, Community, Exchange
SLAG Gallery, Bushwick
Opening for Claudia Chaseling, "Infiltration"
This communique is a stub. The subject is the continuing progressive evolution of Bushwick, Brooklyn as a locus for an international art community and market, and much, much more. [Full disclosure: The author is represented by SLAG] OAS Node #1 will host Bushwick-focused study and celebration of the dimensional "art scene" materializing in the neighborhood, which is our neighborhood. Bushwick's emergence is THE art story of the moment, now. Chronicling its "happening" is vital, and must not be left to the 1% or corporate media. Each OAS Node will be encouraged to analyze and document the art topology(-ies) it inhabits. The accumulation of data drawn from this analysis and documentation we hope will eventually yield a database that in its totality will paint a very different picture than the one(s) that exists now about art, artists and especially art-/artists-in-community.
I visited Bat Haus and spoke to Cody Sullivan about locating OAS sessions at their brand-spanking new multi-use member-model facility (see website). Updates to follow. The Bat Haus Tumblr has lots of process photos that trace the space build-out and furnishing.
[Session 4]
Alex's "party" at Liberty Square: a complex rupture of backwards & onwards situated as a celebration of birth, an intervention, a bon voyage convergence of gamers, novads, salonists, and Occupiers, disguising a re-occupation.
As is typical of AC's Way, the phenomenon of his appearance was multi-faceted. For OAS purposes, the sub-action involved the continuing expansion of our subtle and dimensional trans-course. Alex introduced me to DAF co-organizers Andrea Haenngi and Robert Neuwirth. We triangulated to discuss the DAF presenting or workshopping an OAS session. Both Andrea and Robert could lead sessions rooted in their respective "solo" or trade practices. I spoke with Robert at some length both about his squatter studies and his work on alternate economies, which of course is of great interest to OAS.
OWS painter and "99% Tax Dodger" James Rose was on hand, and we quickly formed an idea for an OAS session for him, too. He has a painter-friend in Bushwick, whom he thought would be fine studio-hosting a figure drawing class led by James in the near future. When the logistics are sorted updates/calendar will be passed along to you, dear OASer.
Jez was also in attendance, and we briefly followed up on yesterday's session/debriefing. Finally, Alex passed along a flyer/handbill for the New World Fair, which is happening 7/21 in Flushing, Queens.
[NOTES]:
The OAS structure is refining itself, now in all directions. It occurred to me that one important influence for the program would be Mr. Rogers.
Evidently, OWS activist artist and photographer Paul Talbot was arrested at the end of the Guitarmy march from Philadelphia (I found this video on REDDIT). Paul is a much loved person in Occupy, who has devoted himself to the movement culture and community, its documentation and preservation. It is absolutely outrageous that he has been so brutally manhandled by the NYPD, who are systematically operating as 1% enforcers against peaceful protest, while violent crime in the city skyrockets. If anyone has any information, please contact us here. Paul, we hope you're okay.
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.
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...
A mixed media work from my “Rebellion” series that will be shown at the Museo di Briggaddagio in Itri, Italy as a part of an exhibition curated by the Ali Ribelli art collective.
For the past several weeks, post-WS2MS, most of the work for Occupy with Art has been taking place off-grid as we prepare to launch Occupational Art School and our other upcoming projects, such as CO-OP/Occuburbs. Temporarily, the OwA Facebook page has been the nexus for the OwA constant data stream. We have been documenting the unfolding LIBOR scandal and conspiracy, the drumbeat of Occupy-Is-Dead stories, the censorship of coverage of global protests, corruption of democracy at national to local levels, the consistent efforts by multinational corporations and their proxies to co-opt and monetize every aspect of human society, accelerating campaigns to convert de-colonized/liberated sovereignties into permanent militarized surveillance + police + prison states serving 1% interests, the perpetuation of de-humanizing conditions such as endless wars (on "terror" or "drugs"), closed-door negotiations by plutocrats who deign and collude to brutally and insidiously determine humanity's future from the top-down... and the stunning, courageous actions of individuals operating, usually with no visible means of support, against these forces of oppression, greed and hate.
Please be patient while we format the 2.0 iteration of our enterprise. Or rather, don't be patient. Get off your fucking ass and do something.
Sunday, July 29, 2012 at 01:20AM 
