This is a video from my presentation for Prix Ars on the New York Times Special Edition. I talk about how the idea was generated, developed, and a bit about the purpose of the project as well as some of the ramifications. It’s about 30 minutes total and you can watch it below.
Or download Quicktime Version
See other Prix Ars presentations on their site.
Get Free %
Featuring works by Gert-Jan Akerboom, John Hitchcock, David Horvitz, Steve Lambert, Little Friends of Printmaking, Jaybo Monk, Tar Art Rat, and Cassie Thornton.
October 1st – October 30th, 2009
Vernissage: October 1st, 7-10pm
Golden Parachutes is pleased to present Get Free %, group exhibition that experiments with applying alternative modes of economic exchange to a fine arts context. Get Free % is a platform to explore the commodity status of fine art and how disrupting this balance affects ideas surrounding comfort and value, as well as a practical call for artists and cultural producers to envision creative solutions for commodity exchange in a rapidly changing world. All artwork will be for sale, but cash will not be accepted. Instead, each artist has determined a barter that they will accept in exchange for their work. This can be anything from a practical work exchange or conceptual action to a material necessity (or frivolity).
Thomas Pynchon describes paying for something in his opus Gravity’s Rainbow as a “primal American act” in which the payer feels “most deeply himself.” While paying is indisputably an international act, Pynchon correctly assesses the ease and comfort that paying for something can lend to a social transaction. Get Free % intends to explore what happens on both sides of the transaction when that comfort is taken away.
The exhibition presents work from European and American artists working in a variety of media. In addition to works on paper by Gert Jan-Akerboom, Steve Lambert, Little Friends of Print Making, Jaybo Monk, and Tar Art Rat, the exhibition will present three interactive projects.
Golden Parachutes
Kreuzbergstraße 42e
10965 Berlin Germany
49 30 86 45 22 22
goldenparachutes.net
Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Saturday, 12pm-6pm
U7 Yorckstraße/ U6 & U7 Mehringdamm
This is one of the interviews I did while at Prix Ars. Somehow we started talking about death in video games. If you want to know what I think about Grand Theft Auto, watch this:
Stephen Duncombe and I led a think tank on creative activism called The College of Tactical Culture at Eyebeam’s Summer School this year.
Summer School is an annual workshop and public presentation series designed to encourage the creative use technologies for personal expression, activism, communication, and community involvement. The College of Tactical Culture was established within this context to create an opportunity for creative activists to get together within a focused period of time to discuss ideas and develop strategies.
The College of Tactical Culture (CTC) examined questions such as:
Participants in CTC were encouraged to draw from and build off of each other’s experiences to inform their practices, build new relationships, and create space for new projects and collaborations. The group met in close-door sessions twice per week over the course of three weeks (June 30 – July 16, 2009).
EYEBEAM’S COLLEGE OF TACTICAL CULTURE, CLASS OF SUMMER ’09
*Forgot to Get his PhD
September 27 – November 15, 2009
Since 1992 the San Francisco Arts Commission has been enlisting local artists to create original posters for the kiosks along Market Street between Van Ness Avenue and the Embarcadero. The Art on Market Street Kiosk Poster Series provides round-the-clock access to contemporary art for thousands of pedestrians. The artists, who work in a variety of media to reflect urban life, have included such well-known SF artists as Seyed Alavi, Megan Wilson, Kara Maria, Katherine Aoki, Amanda Hughen, Owen Smith, Jason Jagel, and Mark Brest van Kempen. The Bedford exhibition pays homage to this successful and model public art project by featuring thirty of the original 6ft by 4ft posters.
Bedford Gallery
1601 Civic Drive
Walnut Creek, CA 94596
(925)295-1417
Schroeder Romero
637 West 27th Street, Suite B, 212-630-0722
September 10 – October 24, 2009
Opening: Thursday, September 10, 6 – 8 PM
Schroeder Romero is pleased to announce Play It Forward an exhibition that celebrates our future and gives a sneak peak at our upcoming exhibitions this season.
Artists: Bobby Neel Adams, Brice Brown, Charles Browning, Tony Fitzpatrick, Susan Graham, Eric Heist, Brian Kenny, Steve Lambert, Wendy Small, Ken Weaver, Julie Weitz
Conflux 2009
Date: Friday 9.18
Start Time: 2:00pm
Location: NYU Einstein Auditorium, Rm. 105, Barney Building
The CTC is a think tank on creative activism led by Stephen Duncombe and Steve Lambert, where participants traded experiences in order to inform practices, build relationships, and create space for new projects and collaborations.
The College of Tactical Culture workshop will kick off with a panel of participants, including Brooke Singer, Britta Riley, Eve Mosher, Stephen Duncombe, and Steve Lambert, who will summarize lessons taught during the college in the first 75 minutes. The remaining 45 minutes of the workshop will be a discussion about the purpose of the CTC, the lessons taught by each panelist, and an open dialogue with Conflux participants.
The College of Tactical Culture (CTC) examined questions such as:
How can we measure the impact of our work?
What lessons can we learn from popular culture?
How can we use humor to broach difficult content?
How can we reach new audiences?
How can we use new tools and technologies to organize and connect with audiences?
Steve Lambert is a Senior Fellow at the Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology in New York, and teaches at Parsons/The New School and Hunter College.
Stephen Duncombe is the author of Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in the Age of Fantasy and editor of Cultural Resistance Reader and is an Associate Professor at New York University.
Brooke Singer is a media artist, an Assistant Professor of New Media at Purchase College, State University of New York, and co-founder of the art, technology and activist group Preemptive Media.
Britta Riley is a social media strategist and co-founder of Submersible Design, an interaction design company. She studied Social Entrepreneurship at NYU Stern and computer programming at NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program.
Eve Mosher is an artist and interventionist whose work has been profiled in international media including the New York Times, ARTnews and Le Monde.
Possible surprise guest: Larry Bogad
Camera/Chimera
Curated by Ethan Ham
Gallery Aferro
73 Market St
Newark, NJ 07102
September 12 – October 3
Opening Reception September 12, 7-10 PM
Artists: Becca Albee, Holly Andres, Patterson Beckwith, Chase Browder, xtine burrough, Cassandra C. Jones, Stephanie Dean, Dennis Delgado, Joel Fisher, Harrell Fletcher, Joy Garnett, Greta Ham, Tim Hutchings, Steve Lambert, Gus Meisner, Robin Michals, Hajoe Moderegger, MTAA, Shani Peters, Anne Schiffer, Christian Marc Schmidt, Tom Thayer, Mariana Tres, Angie Waller
Camera/Chimera is a series of photographs, each by a different artist. The artists are asked to replicate the previous artist’s photograph. The result is a visual game of “Telephone” in which the image slowly (and sometimes abruptly) mutates through the process of recreation.
Ethan Ham is a sculptor and installation artist who often uses kinetics, electronics, and computers in his artwork. His projects include Tumbarumba and Self-Portrait (both commissioned by Turbulence.org), Anthroptic (commissioned by The Present Group), and Email Erosion (commissioned by Rhizome.org). Ethan is an Assistant Professor of New Media at The City College of New York.
The New York Times Special Edition received an Award of Distinction at the 2009 Prix Ars Electronica. I will have more images, video, and details here soon. In the meantime…
Installation of The NY Times Special Edition at the OK Centre in Linz, Austria
Video of Steve Lambert’s presentation on behalf of Because We Want It.
More coming.
Started in 2009, The Center for Artistic Activism is a research and training institute dedicated to artistic activism.
The first rule of guerilla warfare is to know your terrain and use it to your advantage. Today’s terrain is one of signs, symbols, stories, and spectacle. Here, activism gets stale. Political action doesn’t exist in a vacuum of enlightenment ideals and rational actors, it works in a cultural context. Our programs at the Center for Artistic Activism train both cultural workers and grassroots activists who strive to be more effective in affecting power.
Here’s a short film about a workshop in Berlin:
And what some participants from a workshop in Macedonia had to say:
The C4AA was co-founded by Stephen Duncombe and myself after working on the New York Times Special Edition. It launched as a research project at Eyebeam, and later became a one-time education program, The College of Tactical Culture.
Shortly after we began doing workshops around the United States, and established as a 501.3(c) non-profit organization.
As of 2016 we’ve worked with over 500 artists and activists in more than 25 workshops on 5 continents, in 9 countries.
For more information visit the Center for Artistic Activism at artisticactivism.org
