Entry 1: Anyone can act
After reading this entry from the Tactics page, I was a bit appalled and yet found it funny. Being an actor I know that acting is much more difficult than people make it out to be. Reading this post felt like a general explanation on acting given by a person who has never acting a day in their life. This article says, "The second key to keeping your shit together (AKA acting) is to realize that once you’re up there, pretty much anything you do is going to be fine. After all, you’re the most important person in the room!" For starters, acting is much much more than keeping your shit together. The reason rehearsal is a huge part of the process is so your lines become second nature allowing you to respond organically. Yes at times you feel so lost in notes that you question what you're doing, but this process is how you eventually arrive at discoveries, which inform your acting. Secondly, anything you do as an actor is not fine. You must honor the circumstances, character, history, etc. There are an infinite number of choices that can be made WHILE honoring these given circumstances. The final problem with this quote is that you are not the most important person in the room. Your scene partner is. If you think only about yourself, you will be unable to step into the character and make choices based on an objective. This article does illustrate how if you believe in what you're doing, others will as well. I just disagree with the fact that this is how the profession of acting is defined.
Entry 2: Enable don't command
I am a leader and tend to take charge when given the opportunity. More often than not, I command the peers in my group in order to get whatever task done correctly and efficiently. I really enjoyed this article because it reminds me that everyone has unique and innovative ideas that are not revealed or considered because that person has gotten bulldozed by the leaders idea. I need to improve in really listening to others and having fun debating all of the options. It's so amazing what a group can come up with rather than a single person.
Entry 3: Pace Yourself
This entry was very inspiring to me and one that I struggle with a bit. I am a very on-task person who likes to be busy. When I let myself have down time, I am usually thinking about all of the work I could be doing and end of stressing out. In terms of my art and activism through that art, I found this thought helpful, ...remember those who came before us and those who will come after. This can help us build on the work of previous generations and learn from their mistakes and triumphs, so that we are not always starting from scratch." It seems like a huge relief to recognize the people who came before me and know that I don't have to compete with them, but can learn from them. This quote gives me energy to keep doing my art because I can see how far we have come and can use that as a starting place, not a competitive list I need to meet.
After reading this entry from the Tactics page, I was a bit appalled and yet found it funny. Being an actor I know that acting is much more difficult than people make it out to be. Reading this post felt like a general explanation on acting given by a person who has never acting a day in their life. This article says, "The second key to keeping your shit together (AKA acting) is to realize that once you’re up there, pretty much anything you do is going to be fine. After all, you’re the most important person in the room!" For starters, acting is much much more than keeping your shit together. The reason rehearsal is a huge part of the process is so your lines become second nature allowing you to respond organically. Yes at times you feel so lost in notes that you question what you're doing, but this process is how you eventually arrive at discoveries, which inform your acting. Secondly, anything you do as an actor is not fine. You must honor the circumstances, character, history, etc. There are an infinite number of choices that can be made WHILE honoring these given circumstances. The final problem with this quote is that you are not the most important person in the room. Your scene partner is. If you think only about yourself, you will be unable to step into the character and make choices based on an objective. This article does illustrate how if you believe in what you're doing, others will as well. I just disagree with the fact that this is how the profession of acting is defined.
Entry 2: Enable don't command
I am a leader and tend to take charge when given the opportunity. More often than not, I command the peers in my group in order to get whatever task done correctly and efficiently. I really enjoyed this article because it reminds me that everyone has unique and innovative ideas that are not revealed or considered because that person has gotten bulldozed by the leaders idea. I need to improve in really listening to others and having fun debating all of the options. It's so amazing what a group can come up with rather than a single person.
Entry 3: Pace Yourself
This entry was very inspiring to me and one that I struggle with a bit. I am a very on-task person who likes to be busy. When I let myself have down time, I am usually thinking about all of the work I could be doing and end of stressing out. In terms of my art and activism through that art, I found this thought helpful, ...remember those who came before us and those who will come after. This can help us build on the work of previous generations and learn from their mistakes and triumphs, so that we are not always starting from scratch." It seems like a huge relief to recognize the people who came before me and know that I don't have to compete with them, but can learn from them. This quote gives me energy to keep doing my art because I can see how far we have come and can use that as a starting place, not a competitive list I need to meet.
Kill them with kindness
ReplyDeleteThe main merit of this technique is in my opinion, the fact that it will impact not only the ones who in different levels may sympathize with your cause, but also the ones that are on the opposition. Contrarily as fighting with a more aggressive or provocative offensive, the opponents will not feel they are loosing a fight, but instead it may lead them to changes sides. “The more we humanize politics, the more likely we are to win.”
Another very important achievement of this non-violent philosophy is that by doing these acts of kindness, you will be by all means the good one. You would be creating the biggest contrast with usual police and / or militarize contingence, creating a big visual image in the eye of both the public and the media. Kindness cannot be misinterpreted. As said by Andrew Boyde “This is not only good tactics, it’s an assertion of your basic humanity against unjust and inhuman structures.”
The challenge of this technique is for me that you still put yourself physically out there for your purpose to be achieved. It is a power of change, but despite it’s sweet appeal, it is not uncommon to see the abusive getting more enraged by this actions and respond with violence, harming the pacific executer. Yes, luckily if the media finds out it will create riot among the public, but innocent people can still be strongly hurt.
Détournement / Culture Jamming
I think détournement has a lot of very strong points as a tactic. First of all as it is using the pre-existing channel of mass-media and corporate art, the message is capable of reaching very large audiences and can potentially become viral very quickly. “Marginalized ideas can be spread contagiously.” When the targeted party realizes what is being said, no mater how much they’ll want to repress the action it will be too late. Today, once it is in the media there is no way it can be erased. And any attempt to do so would only reinforce the reason for the original rebellion.
I love the fact that it’s a proposal that uses the system, to fight the system itself from the inside.
Another important merit for this technique is that it “appropriates and alters an existing media artifact, one that the intended audience is already familiar with, in order to give it a new, subversive meaning.” By communicating through a well-known channel by the audience, the chances of being heard are way higher that by a regular protest, being categorized as marginal and being ignored in consequence.
The challenges for this proposal are that as sated by Malitz, these provocative messages have a higher rate of controversy when it is about the abuse made towards the already dominant social group. Offensives against more marginalized groups are less mediated.
Another challenge that I find in Culture Jamming is that the messages spread have to be well planned before they are sent out. If the idea is ambiguous and shadowy, it might be perceived the wrong way and create and effect opposite of the one desired, and again once it is out there, there is not much that can be done about it.
If protest is made illegal, make your daily life a protest
ReplyDeleteThe technique in this entry conveys two very important actions in the road to social change. By organizing passive non-harmful protests in an everyday environment, less people feel afraid to participate. Since there significant lower risk of violent repression than in a public protest, people will feel safer and so a feeling of empowerment will grow as the group does. Even though these actions may seem harmless, they seem to be very effective in provoking the opposition. “When standard dissent is made impossible by overwhelming state repression, find ways to make ordinary acts subversive.”
The resultant response also plays an important role in the effectiveness of the action. As exemplified by the protest in Belaus, police cracked up and starting arresting people for the absurdly common actions such as clapping. When people started to get arrested for this, it evidenced to the rest of the world the “government’s deep irrationality”.
Not everyone can relate to going out to a “cacerolazo” or to a public protest, but everyone would feel their freedom as a human beings is being compromised if you could get arrested for mundane actions such as clapping.
The challenges observed in this technique, is that “From the beginning, it is important to have a strategic trajectory in mind for your campaign: focus on activities that build toward bigger and bolder actions.”
A mislead strategy can result in confusion and / or a violent outcome, discouraging people who would or was brave and willing to cooperate with the cause.