Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from December, 2018
10 Key Things I've Taken From this Class 1. Speaking up when it's uncomfortable is important to do, not only for others but for yourself. 2. Your ideas can only evolve if you put them out there. 3. From JR's talk - Giving people what they want/confronting them with what they think, can point out the absurdity of their own prejudices. 4.  From Noga and Josh's presentation - Sometimes you have to be willing to throw away your successes to better find your vision. 5. Rebounding is a useful tool for clarifying what peers in a discussion truly believe. 6. Asking questions is better than poking holes in others' arguments when it comes to changing people's minds/the way that they think. Pausing and listening are good tactics. 7.   From Malquilapolis - Sometimes the best way to help others is only to give them the tools to help themselves. 8.   Giving people incentives to change is more effective than shaming them for their current habits and behavior. 9. It...

David Kirk - 10 Key Things

10 things I've taken from this class 1. Speak up even if you are unsure of the reaction you will get is-- you will probably learn something. 2. Leave room for others to speak. Let three others go before you if you are a compulsive hand raiser (as I am) 3. Consume art that is activism. Maquilapolis opened my eyes to something that had always been in front of me-- but never acknowledged or understood. It was not only eyeopening, but also inspiring and proof that our activism is not always needed. Communities can fight and have victories without any help from us. (Though I still think it is important to find opportunities to help) 4. Develop and empower others to be activists. When you are blessed with a vibrant art making career one can and should seek to empower and inspire others to use your infrastructure to evoke change in their own neck of the woods.  5. Be silent and listen. 6. Be vocal and passionate. Noga was so inspiring to have come in and see an ar...

David Kirk Week Five post

This post and the next were posted by David Kirk. This is a late reply of Week 5's assignment. Branding is one of the more misunderstood communication concepts, especially among anti-corporate activists, who can and should use branding to their advantage. Branding is an extremely interesting phenomenon. On the one hand the the actual efficacy of a brands persistent nature in difficult to calculate; it is undeniably efficacious. It goes to say that activists should fight fire with fire in this case. Banksy is an incredible case of branded activism. There is an aesthetic consistency in his work that is incredibly compelling. This therefore makes his protests heard and seen.  There is nothing natural or inevitable about money, debt, property rights, or markets; they are symbolic systems that derive their efficacy from collective belief. Activists should inspire radical hope by exposing the mutability of these social relationships. This is an interesting theory, and one I believe. I wa...

David Kirk Maquilapolis

David Kirk - Maquilapolis Maquilapolis was an extremely eye-opening film. I have known about cheap labor being utilized in factories in Mexico for some time, but this documentary did I very good job of systematically presenting the struggles of living in such an environment.  I resonated with the living conditions of these families. To start, that there seems to be very little presence and support coming from males. That these women work so hard on their own, and are also raising a family is unfathomable to me.  The disarray of basic infrastructure is also astounding to me. More particularly that the threat of electrocution from power lines being run through mud and water is a daily concern.  I disliked some of the way that the women were presented. As if to add flair and watch ability to the piece the filmmakers added some shots of the women placed on lazy susans; rotating as if they were products. It was effective at evoking the feeling of what these women's pli...

Lily Christie -10 Takeaways

Ten Takeaways 1..2..3.. Then me! (100% !! I’ always trying to listen but I accidently talk over people a lot and I’m very loud!) Identity is something fluid and changing and we have to stay open and malleable There is no solid definition of artivism What is the meaning of a project’s success or failure? How can it evolve from each? Things in this world make you angry- instead of spewing it like venom, now there are tools for you to use it in a way that doesn't hurt, it teaches. Keep an eye out for the power dynamic at play in a space- you may or may not be contributing to something you don’t want to Step outside yourself more often, lift the veil and look with outside eyes. You think you do this all the time, but you don’t. Question literally everything Use the parts of yourself that are AVAILABLE- but don’t push past an edge. Your trauma is not your art//your art isn’t your trauma Question your own thoughts and ideas more- mine deep not wide!   ...

Lily Christie -Beautiful Trouble- Week 4

Beautiful Trouble Principles Anyone Can Act -Yes Men I really liked this principle as it reminded me of something a former acting teacher told me once. Talent means nothing, acting is a learned skill. As long as the person has a technique, is committed to its practice and is open to the training. Not only is this eye opening for acting, but as an entryway into activism. A lot of people can be made nervous by the spotlight, or having attention drawn to them. Having a technique, having something behind them (rehearsing), can free up a person as they feel prepared, they’re not winging it. Learning technique is like having a toolbox- whether it’s used for artivism or it’s used for acting (or whatever), it makes the job less daunting and more doable. B) Tactics “Détournement can be used to disrupt the flow of the media spectacle and, ultimately, to rob it of its power. Advertisements start to feel less like battering rams of consumerism and more like the raw materials for ...

Jacob Young - Beautiful Trouble - Week 4

Principle: Students should do their homework to actively participate in class. The nature of learning requires an engagement with materials on a critical thinking level, to extrapolate meaning and go beyond the “surface” of a piece. Tactic: To get students to do homework you pose a moral dilemma. Do the work and be favored by receiving points which, as they accumulate, will dictate the prowess of each student on a balanced scale. If, however, it was imposed that each student had to complete every assignment to receive a grade, a binary would be enacted. The dynamic would then be, complete all assignments to achieve the morally favorable outcome of succeeding, devoid of nuance and choice. Theory: While in either situation, not submitting an assignment results in a negative response, the necessity of submissions comes with a less dynamic teaching style, but fosters continuous work. Work bred out of the moral belief that one must succeed, and in this scenario succeeding is passing...

J Diaz

Wonderings -In what ways does having an idea of including more people in your community effect our environment as we understand it? -How does one live in constant negotiation with their environment and make art that can survive your views? - How does the our politics and entertainments effect on the world offset the destabilization our nation causes? Observations -The nations of the world dominated by totalitarianism maintain control by making their populations feel more fatalistic -Capitalism can also cause this feeling of fatalism. -Is there recourse for nihilism? I think radical hope is relevant for the global zeitgeist. It takes different forms but there is nothing in the path of our current political phenomena of right wing governments that encourages the kind of will power. This is the result of a laziness when it comes to empathy and understanding. It takes an effort to find this hope.

Stacia Marcum - Beautiful Trouble - Week 4

Principle: Anger works best when you have the moral high ground “Anger is potent. Use it wisely. If you have the moral higher ground, it is compelling and people will join you. If you don’t, you’ll look like a cranky wingnut.” I’ve been noticing more and more, the anger that I will hold inside when confronted with issues that I care about. It is easy for those emotions to get the better of me - they want to lash out as a means of   protection. Anger is one of our most primal defense mechanisms, but if we’re not able to use that energy and mold it into a moral and ethical argument, in most cases, it becomes a waste of energy. Tactic: Invisible Theatre “To pose a moral dilemma in the midst of everyday life — this can be particularly useful on a topic that people might normally be “too polite” to bring up, such as poverty, racism or homophobia.” To me, invisible theater is incredibly important, however, there’s always the issue of safety - how far are a...

Samuel Garnett Week 5 Blog Post

Samuel Garnett - Week 5 Blog Response I was particularly captivated by the use of the subjects of the documentary’s own footage, and the sense of personal experience I was able to gain from this. To be able to see the ways in which a person chooses to focus their camera is extremely telling; from the start where a woman points the lens to herself, perhaps taking her moment in brief spotlight, to when another of the factory workers focuses her camera on her son and lets him be the star of her vignette to the camera being turned on the United States through a crack in the rusted fence along the border we as the viewer get an organic sense of gaze. This is something I find all too underused in documentary filmmaking as it eliminates the director’s own intentions and puts the film in the hands of the very people it studies. At no point while watching the piece did I feel a curatorial presence from the director and always felt I was being given a full, honest picture of these events fro...
10 takeaways (questions) 1. when is talking about talking talking in circles? 2. can anything be defined with absolute certainty? 3. opened ended questions with open ended answers are frustrating due to growing up in a result based society 4. What aspects of my identity do I push away? 5. the multiplicity of identities. 6. the conscious choice of engaging in activism 7.is radical vulnerability the only answer? what is the legitimacy of anonymity? what is one without the other? 8. what defines artistic vulnerability? is there more than one definition? 9. the accessibility of information nowadays, and staying uninformed is more conscious than it used to be. 10. art and activism can't be pinned down and defined simply.