Revolutionary creativity

Isa Tousignant

From Hour

May is the month of anarchy, did you know that? To me, it's a supremely ludicrous idea: that anarchy, by very nature disobedient, could fit itself neatly into a 31-day period of celebration. Shouldn't it be breaking the barriers of May to spread into June, July, August?

Nevertheless, the Festival of Anarchy is on, and celebrations are taking place. For one, the end of the month sees the eighth instalment of the yearly Anarchist Book Fair (May 18-20, mark it on your calendar), and for two, today marks the start of Canada's largest political art show ever: the Art + Anarchy Montreal 2007 exhibition, featuring the work of over 230 politically engaged visual artists from around the world.

Until May 13 at the freshly transformed, hitherto abandoned space that is the Esplanade Loft Project - a 5,000-square-foot temporary gallery in Mile End - the exciting exhibition will display dozens of photos, installations, paintings, sculptures, sketches, etchings, art videos and comic art by established and emerging artists from Montreal, across Canada, the USA and abroad. Among the artists included are Norman Nawrocki, Linda Dawn Hammond, Danielle Sara Frank, Freda Guttman, Stefan Christoff, Alden Penner, Rebecca Bain, Catherine Herrmann, ZIBZ Black Current and Jason Milan Ghikadis. The exhibition integrates and complements an existing, celebrated travelling show, Paper Politics, curated by New York anarchist artist Josh MacPhee, which features 195 international politically and socially engaged prints.

TACTICAL MEDIA CONFERENCE

Saturday, April 28, 12-5pm


Change You Want to See

84 Haveymayer Street, Brooklyn

Presentations on the theory & practice of tactical media and contemporary protest art, by graduate students in the ITP program at NYU's Tisch School of the arts.

The presenters' talks will be grouped into three panels, to be moderated by their Professor, Marisa Olson (Editor & Curator, Rhizome), on the topics of Play & Consumption; Fear, Spectacle, and the Media; and the Interfaces and Architecture of Control. These panels will consist of both artist talks and analytical essays and audience members will be invited to give feedback on a few works in progress.

"THE 13TH SCREEN" VIDEO EXPERIMENT AND WORKSHOP
Sunday, April 29, 2-4pm

The Subliminal History of New York State is an ongoing multi-tiered project presented through performances, books, songs, and video. Carrie Dashow, working with collaborators (composers, writers, locals, historians), generates participatory multimedia performances in specific localities throughout New York. A tour funded through NYSCA and the New York State Music Fund will incorporate parts of the story, songs, and video as a traveling caravan visits community centers and local historical societies during the Summer of 2007.

This Sunday, Carrie will test new software (written by collaborator Matt Raibert) that allows for the live-editing of 12 video feeds, to create a two channel video projection, shot locally on summer tour stops in upstate NY. She is looking for twelve people or pairs (1-2 people per camera) to shoot video, test drive the live-edit software, and offer constructive feedback.

The workshop will begin with a brief introduction at The Change You Want To See, then videographers will shoot in the neighborhood for a 1/2 hour. Upon returning, participants will watch everyone's shots simultaneously cut live by the new software, and offer input, thoughts, feedback.

Anarchist Networking Assembly

Sunday April 15

New School 65 Fifth Avenue, NYC - 4-8 PM

Announcing the Anarchist Assembly, to be held to coincide with the first NYC Anarchist Bookfair, to build on the work of the Praxis initiative, the experience of DIssent! in the UK
and now Europe as a whole, and to follow up on proposals
brought by anarchists in Oaxaca

Why a Network?

In North America, there have been, effectively, no such
large-scale actions since Miami, and the limited actions
in New York against the RNC. In part this is due to
repression and the flight of our earlier allies. Yet the
national mood has changed. In the rest of the world, the
post-911 slump has long since begun to reverse itself. The
Dissent! Network formed in the UK for the G8 meetings in
Scotland in 2005 and now functioning in Germany for the G8
2007 has proved that anarchistic networks can take the
lead in organizing effective direct actions in this day
and age. At the same time, in the US, interest in such a
network keeps sputtering along without anything actually
coming together.

This is a crisis we feel for two reasons. First of all,
because existing informal networks have proved clearly
inadequate for large-scale direct action mobilization.
There are hundreds of young people enthusiastic about
organizing new actions and initiatives but with little
experience in how to do so, and hundreds, if not
thousands, of direct action veterans scattered around the
country with years of skills and experience, and almost no
way to bring them together effectively. New generations of
activists literally don’t know who to call. It seems to us
high time we recognize our responsibility to one another,
as a community.

Second of all, a new round of struggle has begun in deadly
earnest in Mexico, most dramatically with the Zapatista’s
Otra Campaña and the uprising in Oaxaca. You don’t have to
be an anarchist to realize that the borders between the US
and Mexico are becoming increasingly artificial and
meaningless (except as a means of oppression).
Increasingly, Mexican anarchists need to able to easily
communicate with American counterparts who may not have
personally done work in Mexico. Like the younger activists
in the US, it is difficult outside the US to know who to
call in some events. There was much talk of this,
particularly from anarchists from Mexico, at the last
Zapatista encuentro in January. European and Asian
activists often voice similar complaints. It seems time,
then, we think about our responsibilities to the global
community of which we are a part as well.