Posted January 4th, 2009 by surplus
Turn Your Pee into Fertilizer for your Houseplants
A Workshop and Discussion with Bio-artists Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray
At The Change You Want To See Gallery
Thursday, January 8, 7pm (free!)
Meet neighbors, artists, and local specialists interested in:
* bioart
* personal ecosystems
* waste-to-food processes
* D-I-Y biology
* urban farming
* and crowdsourcing solutions to environmental problems
Just be ready to pee into a jar.
Bio-artists Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray create personal, super-local, at-home solutions to big environmental and health issues. Their urine to fertilizer kits let you recycle the excess nutrients your body creates when you eat and drink. You can pee in the kit and then perform a biochemical reaction that transforms the nutrients in your urine into an immediately usable fertilizer to feed your own plants. They invite you to join them for a special opportunity to turn your pee into fertilizer and take it home for your houseplants, and to join in a discussion with artists and friends interested in these same issues. Riley and Bray work as consultants to science museums and are graduates of ITP at NYU. Their work has recently been featured at Eyebeam, in the Venice Bienale, in ArtNews and on the Discovery Channel.
Participants are encouraged to bring clean glass jars.
http://www.submersibledesign.com/drinkpee/
Posted December 16th, 2008 by surplus
If you can’t attend, we will live stream this event at http://www.mogulus.com/notanalternative.
Date: 17 December 2008 @ 7.30 PM - 10.30 PM (Facebook Event Page)
Location: The Change You Want To See
Address: 84 Havemeyer Street, Storefront, Brooklyn, NY
Over the past two years, Web 2.0 technologies have matured and so have the methods activist use to employ them. In 2008, activists from around the world used Web 2.0 to take command of the digital airwaves pioneering new forms of political mobilization. From Student’s for a Free Tibet’s live streamed protests in Beijing, to RNC protesters coordinating actions and monitoring police movements on Twitter to mass digital mobilizations for humanitarian relief and election protection, Web 2.0 is no longer just for social networking and fundraising.
This Wednesday, practitioners involved in the above campaigns will present case studies and highlight how they leveraged these tools to have broader reach and greater effectiveness. We’ll also delve into issues governing internal organization and communication among political actors, including: transparency vs. security; command and control vs. autonomous affinity groups, and the power of organizing without organizations vs. the tyranny of structurelessness.
This report back and skills share is intended to leave you with concrete ideas for how these models and tools could impact your work.
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Posted December 2nd, 2008 by surplus
“IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT”
Thursday, December 4, 8pm, free
at The Change You Want To See Gallery
Since its humble beginnings in 1994, subMedia has grown from a small group of determined filmmakers into a grassroots network of socially and politically engaged artists and individuals. subMedia scrutinizes popular culture and media through the production of film, performance art, video, music and zines.
Equal parts performance and protest, an attitude of art following action defines subMedia’s productions. From the regularly released and highly produced video blog “It’s the End of the World as We Know It”, to the collaborative documentary “Ground Noise and Static”, their work injects a radical analysis into the culture in a most entertaining way.
Please join subMedia founder, director and producer Franklin Lopez (aka The Stimulator) as he steps out from behind the talking boxes to tour us through a video montage of his latest works, mixing culture jamming, news, radical commentary, music and action.
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Posted November 12th, 2008 by surplus
November 12, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
writers@nytimes-se.com
917-202-5479
718-208-0684
“SPECIAL” NEW YORK TIMES BLANKETS CITIES WITH MESSAGE OF HOPE AND CHANGE
Thousands of volunteers behind elaborate operation
* PDF: http://www.nytimes-se.com/pdf
* Ongoing video releases: http://www.nytimes-se.com/video
* The New York Times responds: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/pranksters-spoof-the-times/
Hundreds of independent writers, artists, and activists are claiming credit for an elaborate project, 6 months in the making, in which 1.2 million copies of a “special edition” of the New York Times were distributed in cities across the U.S. by thousands of volunteers.
The papers, dated July 4th of next year, were headlined with long-awaited news: “IRAQ WAR ENDS”. The edition, which bears the same look and feel as the real deal, includes stories describing what the future could hold: national health care, the abolition of corporate lobbying, a maximum wage for CEOs, etc. There was also a spoof site, at http://www.nytimes-se.com/.
“Is this true? I wish it were true!” said one reader. “It can be true, if we demand it.”
“We wanted to experience what it would look like, and feel like, to read headlines we really want to read. It’s about what’s possible, if we think big and act collectively,” said Steve Lambert, one of the project’s organizers and an editor of the paper.
“This election was a massive referendum on change. There’s a lot of hope in the air, but there’s a lot of uncertainty too. It’s up to all of us now to make these headlines come true,” said Beka Economopoulos, one of the project’s organizers.
“It doesn’t stop here. We gave Obama a mandate, but he’ll need mandate after mandate after mandate to do what we elected him to do. He’ll need a lot of support, and yes, a lot of pressure,” said Andy Bichlbaum, another project organizer and editor of the paper.
The people behind the project are involved in a diverse range of groups, including The Yes Men, the Anti-Advertising Agency, CODEPINK, United for Peace and Justice, Not An Alternative, May First/People Link, Improv Everywhere, Evil Twin, and Cultures of Resistance.
In response to the spoof, the New York Times said only, “We are looking into it.” Alex S. Jones, former Times reporter who is an authority on the history of the paper, says: “I would say if you’ve got one, hold on to it. It will probably be a collector’s item.”
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Posted November 9th, 2008 by surplus
What’s the difference between a commissar’s propaganda and a Constructivist’s poetics of production? Not An Alternative’s Marco Deseriis reviews Gerald Raunig’s ‘Art and Revolution’ and ponders some of the gaps in his aesthetic-political theory.
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