Radical media, politics and culture.

Announcements

February 18, 2012 - 5:52am -- Anonymous Comrade (not verified)
Announcements
Events

Deleuze and Guattari and Occupy
Sat 25th Feb 2-5pm Occupy LSX / School of Ideas
Featherstone Rd Islington EC1Y 8RX

An afternoon of talks, about the relevance of Deleuze and Guattari’s ideas to Occupy.

Deleuze and Guattari’s writings are considered, by political activists, philosophers, artists and writers to provide the most insightful analysis of the crisis we face today. It is claimed that the rhizomic, nomadic and creative nature of Occupy is inherently DeleuzeoGuattarian. This afternoon of talks tests these claims and asks; does Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptual apparatus scythe right through to the heart of capitalist production: do they provide vitalist, non-paranoid, (entirely pragmatic) systems of thought around which both a world can be torn down and a new one built?

February 16, 2012 - 6:31am -- stevphen
Announcements
Events

Making Worlds: An OWS Forum on the Commons NYC February 16-18

The Occupy movement is entering a new phase, one in which many of us feel the need to combine renewed engagement through direct actions and mobilizations with a deep reflection on the strategic objectives of our movement. In order to fulfill this need, the organizing committee of Making Worlds* is inviting Occupy supporters, sympathizers, and other organizations to participate in this Forum on the politics of the commons. In particular, we are interested in understanding how groups and communities working on housing, health care, education, food, water, energy, information, communication and knowledge resources can develop a vision of these resources as commons: a third form of social organization to the state and corporate capitalism. Making Worlds has the ambitious goal of articulating a strategic vision from and for the movement as well as specific political initiatives aiming at its realization.

The Making Worlds forum starts today in Brooklyn and runs until Saturday (with additional events Sunday). The following is the schedule of events which will take place at: The Church of the Ascension 122 Java St. (Greenpoint) Brooklyn, NY

February 12, 2012 - 2:35pm -- stevphen
Announcements
In the Streets

Shut Down Corporations February 29th

Occupy Portland calls for a national day of non-violent direct action to reclaim our voices and challenge our society’s obsession with profit and greed by shutting down the corporations. We are rejecting a society that does not allow us control of our future. We will reclaim our ability to shape our world in a democratic, cooperative, just and sustainable direction.

We call on people to target corporations that are part of the American Legislative Exchange Council which is a prime example of the way corporations buy off legislators and craft legislation that serves the interests of corporations and not people. They used it to create the anti-labor legislation in Wisconsin and the racist bill SB 1070 in Arizona among so many others. They use ALEC to spread these corporate laws around the country. Read the full call to action here.

February 8, 2012 - 6:52am -- jim
Announcements
Culture

Squatting Europe Collective
New York City, February 23-27, 2012

Squatting Europe Kollective Convenes in New York City

For the first time ever, a group of activist researchers from the European squatting movement are gathering in New York City. They will make public appearances to speak about the decades-old movement of squatting and building occupations in their respective countries.
The tradition of political squatting is moving from the shadows into the light. With the world-wide rise of the Occupy movement, the deep reservoir of experience within the movements of political squatting have become suddenly significant.

Generations of activists have participated in occupations of vacant buildings in Europe, beginning in the 1970s. The best known early success was the famous “free city” of Christiania in Copenhagen. But every major city in Europe has experienced some version of politicized squatting, most recently in the form of social centers.

The members of SQEK – Squatting Europe Collective – have gathered for special sessions at the Association of Amerian Geographers' annual convention February 24. A public discussion, meetings, film and graphic arts exhibition are among the other activities planned for the meeting.

January 28, 2012 - 6:44am -- stevphen
Announcements
Independent Media

GurgaonWorkersNews - Newsletter 47 (February 2012)

Gurgaon in the industrial belt of Delhi is presented as the shining India, a symbol of capitalist success promising a better life for everyone behind the gateway of development. At a first glance the office towers and shopping malls reflect this chimera and even the facades of the garment factories look like three star hotels. Behind the facade, behind the factory walls and in the side streets of the industrial areas thousands of workers keep the rat-race going, producing cars and scooters for the middle-waged classes which end up in the traffic jam on the new highway between Delhi and Gurgaon. Thousands of young proletarianised post-graduates lose time, energy and academic aspirations on night-shifts in call centres, selling loan schemes to working-class people in the US or pre-paid electricity schemes to the poor in the UK. Next door, thousands of rural-migrant workers up-rooted by the rural crisis stitch and sew for export, competing with their angry brothers and sisters in Bangladesh, China or Vietnam. And the rat-race will not stop; on the outskirts of Gurgaon, new industrial zones turn soil into over-capacities. The following newsletter documents some of the developments in and around this miserable boom region.

January 27, 2012 - 6:08pm -- stevphen
Announcements
Events

Activist Technology Demo Day NYC January 28th
Saturday, January 28 3-6pm
Urban Research Group Eyebeam Art + Technology Center
540 W 21st, New York, NY

From Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street, technology has played an important role in shaping contemporary resistance and the representation of these events in the media. What new tools of protest and occupation have emerged over the past year? How does their use help to shape tomorrow’s democracies? The Urban Research Group @ Eyebeam and The Public School New York have invited activists, technologists, artists, designers, and community organizers who have a working prototype of an activist technology to occupy a worktable at Eyebeam and share their work with the public. Drawn from proposals submitted through an open call, we have selected a group of projects and communities that extend the creative use of technology and its social implications. Our interest is in creating a platform for encounter, conversation and collaboration. Visit http://demo-day.org/projects for participating project information.

This public event will culminate with a panel discussion at 5pm with special guest Stephen Duncombe, Associate Professor at the Gallatin School and the Department of Media, Culture and Communications of New York University and co-creator of the School for Creative Activism; Mary Mattingly, Eyebeam Fellow and the creator of Waterpod; and moderated by Taeyoon Choi, Eyebeam Fellow and member of The Public School New York committee.

January 23, 2012 - 9:10am -- jim
Announcements
Culture

A Memorial Event for Ira Cohen (1935-2011)
Poet, Filmmaker, Photographer

Sunday, Feb 5th, 2012, 6pm - 10pm at The Living Theatre, 21 Clinton St, NYC

Space is limited - please RSVP for further attendance details:
RSVP

"If Sabu came crashing
through the coconut palms
on his elephant to tell me
this was all a dream
I would not believe him."
-- Ira Cohen, ON WAKING

Readings In Memoriam by
Judith Malina, Allan Graubard, Tom Walker, Steve Dalachinsky, Jordan Zinovich, Valery Oisteanu, Bonny Finberg, Bill Wollak, Clayton Patterson, Louise Landes-Levi, Penny Arcade, Jeremiah Newton, Indra Tamang, Timothy Baum & others T.B.A.

Music & Performances In Memoriam by
Butch Morris Chorus of Poets, Alice Farley Dance Theatre, Wayne Lopes & Sylvie Degiez, Perry Robinson, Will Swofford Cameron & others T.B.A.

The event will include a video presentation of Ira Cohen reading poetry along with excerpts of his work in film and photography.

Donations to The Living Theatre will be accepted in lieu of admission.

Press inquires contact: press [at] iracohen [dot] org

Ira Harvey Cohen, of New York, NY, died peacefully on April 25th, 2011 at the age of 76. He will always be loved and always be missed. His legacy lives on.

Ira Cohen was born in New York, NY on February 3rd, 1935. He is the son of the late Lester Cohen and the late Faye Cohen. Mr. Cohen was an innovative and original poet, photographer, filmmaker, publisher, and editor. A self-described "Electronic Multimedia Shaman", he was an active humanist from the 1960s to the present. Mr. Cohen was educated at Horace Mann, Cornell and Columbia. He spent the early 1960s in Tangier, Morocco, where he lived and worked with William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and Paul Bowles. While there, he prepared his first major work; editing and publishing the anthology Gnaoua (1964). This volume contained work by William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Jack Smith, and others.

January 20, 2012 - 8:40am -- jim
Announcements
Culture

Collateral Torture
Clark Stoeckley

an EIDIA HOUSE project
Plato's Cave
January 20 to February 18, 2012

Live 24-hour continuous performance with reception beginning at 7pm, Friday, January 20
EIDIA House Studio / 14 Dunham Place / Basement Left (street level doors) / Williamsburg Brooklyn / NY 11211 / 646 945 3830 / eidiahouse@earthlink.net / http://www.eidia.com/
Hours: 1-6pm Wednesday – Saturday
EIDIA House announces its continuing exhibition initiative, PLATO’S CAVE. The twelfth artist in the series, Clark Stoeckley presents performance and in situ installation: Collateral Torture.

Collateral Torture
Clark Stoeckley’s 24-hour live performance will portray a day of Private First Class Bradley Manning's tortured imprisonment—commencing at 5pm on Friday the 20th and concluding at 5pm on Saturday the 21st. This performance will be recorded, and the documentation will be projected in Plato's Cave for the remaining duration of the exhibition.

January 20, 2012 - 8:35am -- jim
Announcements
Economy

The Failure of Capitalist Production
Andrew Kleiman

Monday February 6th, 2012 @ 7:00 PM:
Bluestockings Books
172 Allen St.
New York, NY 10002
212.777.6028

Andrew Kliman will discuss his just-published book, The Failure of Capitalist Production (Pluto Press 2011), and how he was frequently surprised by what he uncovered when doing the research behind it. Much conventional wisdom on the left attributes the Great Recession to free-market policies, “financialization” of the economy, and stagnant wages. Kliman himself is a leftist economist, yet the more he delved into the data, the more he came to reject such explanations. In the end, he concluded, Karl Marx’s theory of economic crisis fits the facts. The Great Recession and its persistent after-effects are the results of a half-century-long decline in profitability and the consequences of that decline––decades of weak investment, sluggish economic growth, and mounting debt problems. Kliman will also explore possible pathways out of this crisis of profitability.

January 19, 2012 - 12:32pm -- jim
Announcements
Theory

Occupations Conference
Toronto, Canada, April 27-29, 2012

CFP for Occupations
York & Ryerson Universities
Toronto, April 27-29, 2012—proposals due on February 1.

Some updates for Intersections / Cross Sections 2012: Occupations. See below for CFP.

1) We are extremely happy to announce Brian Holmes (Continental Drift) and Sarah Sharma (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) as our keynotes. Stay posted for additional speakers.

2) Edu-Factory’s “Our University! A Conference on Struggles Within and Beyond the Neoliberal University ” will be held in Toronto the same weekend. For more information on the Edu-Factory conference, see http://www.edu-factory.org/wp/the-university-is-ours/

3) There’s an Occupy Toronto Activist Assembly, January 20, 2012–January 22, 2012, at OISE (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education) @ St. George and Bloor Street, Toronto, ON. For more information, see https://www.facebook.com/events/270078499716966/

INTERSECTIONS / CROSS SECTIONS 2012: OCCUPATIONS
11th Annual Graduate Conference in Communication and Culture
York University and Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada
April 27-29, 2012
http://thecomcult.wordpress.com
Keynotes: Brian Holmes, Continental Drift and Sarah Sharma, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

"Occupy but better yet, self manage…. The former option is basically passive—the latter is active and yields tasks and opportunities to contribute.… To occupy buildings, especially institutions like universities or media, isn’t just a matter of call it, or tweet it, and they will come. It is a matter of go get them, inform them, inspire them, enlist them, empower them, and they will come." — Michael Albert, “Occupy to Self Manage”

The unfolding events at Occupy Wall Street and elsewhere present possibilities for new politics, and new forms of learning from, living with and engaging each other. Occupations are attempts to build the social compositions that are the precondition for action. They are the working through of a problem that politics-as-usual works to suppress—the massive exploitation that is capitalism and the emergence of politics adequate to address it. At this stage, occupations are the connection of people, ideas and machines—the cumulation of assemblages that might build something. What happens next depends on what is being built now. We invite graduate students from all related disciplines to submit proposals for academic, artistic and activist presentations and workshops that explore and otherwise critically engage occupations.

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