The Center for Artistic Activism was mentioned in an article on [We Make Money Not Art] going into detail about a project](http://we-make-money-not-art.com/unthanksgiving-and-the-occupation-of-alcatraz-by-american-natives/) we mentioned in the C4AA Fundamentals Webinar series.
The webinars are rather brilliant. And fun. I’d highly recommend you have a look.
The Center for Artistic Activism was profiled on The Creators Project this week.
A lot of artists might be thinking about how to incorporate more political activism into their practices right about now, and if you’re one of them then you’re in luck, because there just happens to be an organization that exists for that specific purpose. The Center for Artistic Activism (C4AA) is the brainchild of artist Steve Lambert and activist Stephen Duncombe, a.k.a., “The Steves,” and was born out of their mutual frustration over the lack of imagination and innovation in grassroots movements.
I was a panelist in-studio on Al Jazeera’s The Stream on Monday and Tuesday’s show. It aired internationally and the topic was “Art and Activism.” I was a guest with Molly Crabapple, Annya San, and Rajkamal Kahlon.
You can watch archived versions of the shows below or on the Al Jazeera site. I was all warmed up by part 2.
Al Jazeera site: The Stream – Art and Activism
Al Jazeera site: The Stream – Art and Activism Part 2
I was the MC for A Night of Alchemy, A Blade of Grass’ 2016 fundraiser event.
I did some half-assed magic, told a set of jokes about anxiety after the election, “stole” a few board members wallets using “teleportation”, and then closed the evening with the staff in a song.
Big thanks to Victoria Estok who performed as my assistant, and Scott Vermeire, who helped with the writing.
Living in the Hudson Valley, I’ve seen an American flag on this overpass for years on my way to work. After the election a Thin Blue Line flag popped up as well.
“Yes, and…” is the first rule of improv theater. You take what’s in the scene and add to it.
I saw this scene and I added to it. It cost $12 and took about 40 minutes. You could do it too.
Hat tip to Dread Scott’s project, “Flags Are Very Popular These Days”
I’ll be the M.C. of this event tonight.
NIGHT OF ALCHEMY
A Blade of Grass Benefit and FIELDWORKS Season Two Premiere
Tickets Available Now: Seal your fate as a supporter of Socially Engaged Art!
Thursday, November 17, 2016 / 6:30 — 9:30 PM
The Flatiron Room
37 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10010
Featured in artnet News’ 19 Art Galas and Benefits to Get Excited About in November
Our annual Night of Alchemy celebrates the transformative power of socially engaged art! All proceeds directly benefit the ABOG Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art, an acclaimed program that directly supports artists, and presents engaging stories about the change artists enact in communities.
Master of Ceremonies Steve Lambert will amaze and delight! James Leonard and his Tent of Casually Observed Phenologies will inspire new visions of your future! DJ Kristine Barilli will transport with vinyl tracks from around the globe! All accompanied by the energizing spirits of Montelobos Mezcal and wine from Lynmar Estate.
FIELDWORKS Season Two showcases projects by 2015 Fellows Sol Aramendi, Laura Chipley, Suzanne Lacy, Mary Mattingly, The Plug-In Studio, Nigel Poor, Dread Scott, and Adaku Utah
I’ve been using Syncthing to sync and backup data across my laptop, desktop, phone, and a home server for the past couple years. It’s been useful, dependable, fairly invisible, secure, and free.
Why consider replacing Dropbox, iCloud, Box, or others with Syncthing?
Syncthing replaces proprietary sync and cloud services with something open, trustworthy and decentralized. Your data is your data alone and you deserve to choose where it is stored, if it is shared with some third party and how it’s transmitted over the Internet. via
One key difference is that Syncthing needs two computers running for the sync to happen. There is no central Dropbox servers running constantly with your data. Depending on your values, that’s good or bad. You can compare features and decide for yourself.
Installing Syncthing on a Mac is much simpler with Homebrew. (Windows, Linux, here’s the documentation)
Homebrew installs and manages software for you. It makes it really easy.
To get homebrew working on your mac, in terminal.app paste the following
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
Homebrew gives you the ability to install complex software very quickly and easily. So now, instead of a lot of instructions to install various, handy command-line tools, say something like git, or youtube-dl, you just write in the terminal:
brew install git or brew install youtube-dl
You can read more about Syncthing, but to install it, it’s pretty simple.
In terminal type:
brew install syncthing
Once that’s done you can run it by entering:
brew services start syncthing
It should start automatically after that.
Syncthing and Homebrew are now installed and you can use them.
Syncthing has a web-based interface you can find at localhost:8384 in your browser. You can set up another device and folders, and then connect it to that computer. There’s plenty of documentation online, and you can skip all the detailed instructions about installation, and start looking at how to configure it to optionally save old versions of files and much more.
Once you get some folders set up and configured the way you like, it more or less takes care of itself.
You’ll just need to install updates now and again.
Occasionally you’ll need to remember to update and upgrade homebrew and the software you’ve installed. (Maybe put a reminder on a calendar?) This is pretty straightforward.
brew update – goes online and searches for updatesbrew upgrade – will install those updates.
If you want to do it all on one line, you can enter brew update && brew upgrade
Good luck!
I’ll be running Center for Artistic Activism workshop in Dublin for artists looking to do projects around sex work and learn the C4AA philosophy in the process. It’s this December and well supported. Artists should be based in Europe or nearish. Check out the Center for Artistic Activism post for details and the application form.
It’s always a pleasure to hang out with Douglas Rushkoff and this time was the same: intellectually challenging and full of laughs. Rushkoff hosts a podcast called “Team Human” and the episode we did together came out short, smart and fun. I’d say it’s one of the better interviews I’ve been a part of.
Check out our episode of Team Human, then dig back. The other episodes are great listening.
Art, Politics, Cities in Transition explores the role of art and creative industries in urban regeneration. Organized by Purchase College, State University of New York and CLUSTER (Cairo Lab for Urban Studies, Training, and Environmental Research), the symposia looks to several international and local case studies in an effort to examine the politics of urban revitalization and its relationship to gentrification, securitization, real estate development, exploring how artists, designers, activists imagine oppositional alternatives to culture-driven economic development.
With participants:
Davarian Baldwin, Jamie Bennett, Center for Artistic Activism (Stephen Duncombe and Steve Lambert), Cynthia Clabough, CLUSTER (Omar Nagati and Beth Stryker), Teddy Cruz, Arlene Davila, Andrea Frank, Jerold Kayden, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Lisa Jean Moore, MTL+ (Nitasha Dhillon and Amin Husain), Sara Reisman, Christopher Robbins (Ghana Think Tank), Meredith TenHoor, Nato Thompson, Hakan Topal, Adaku Utah, Margy Waller, Caroline Woolard, Woodbine NYC (Stephanie Wakefield, Glenn Dyer, and Clark Fitzgerald)
October, 21 — 22, 2016, 1 — 5 pm
Center for Architecture
Edgar A. Tafel Hall
536 LaGuardia Place
New York, NY 10012
Friday, October 21, 2016
1:00 pm | Welcome and introductions
1:15 pm | Provocation: UniverCities: Higher Education and the New Management of Urban Space and Capital, Davarian Baldwin, Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies, Trinity College
1:30 pm | Discussion: Collective knowledge, Center for Artistic Activism (Stephen Duncombe and Steve Lambert), Cynthia Clabough, SUNY Oswego, MTL+ (Nitasha Dhillon and Amin Husain), moderated by Sara Reisman, Artistic Director, Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation
2:30 pm | Provocation: Weaving Interdependence for the Sake of Liberation, Adaku Utah, artist, healer, founder and director of Harriet’s Apothecary.
2:45 pm | Dialog: Creative Commonwealth — Linking Land trusts to Cultural Production, a conversation between Caroline Woolard, artist and educator, and Christopher Robbins, Ghana Think Tank and Associate Professor, School of Art+Design, Purchase College, SUNY and Ghana Think Tank, moderated by Margy Waller, Senior Fellow at Topos Partnership
3:45 pm | Provocation: The Ruins of Deep Time, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, NYU
4:00 pm | Discussion: Ruined Cities — reconsidering economic development through the Anthropocene, Woodbine NYC, Andrea Frank, Assistant Professor, SUNY New Paltz, Meredith TenHoor, Associate Professor, Pratt Institute, moderated by Lisa Jean Moore, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies, Purchase College, SUNY
Saturday, October 22, 2016
1:00 pm | Welcome and Introduction
Carol Loewenson, President AIANY
Thomas J. Schwarz, President, Purchase College, SUNY
Don Chen, Equitable Development, Ford Foundation
1:30 pm | Panel: Whose Public Space? International case studies, CLUSTER (Cairo Lab for Urban Studies, Training, and Environmental Research) Omar Nagati & Beth Stryker, Jerold Kayden, Department of Urban Planning and Design, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Teddy Cruz, UCSD; Director, UCSD Center for Urban Ecologies; Co-Director, Civic Innovation Lab, City of San Diego, moderated by Hakan Topal, Assistant Professor of New Media and Art+Design, Purchase College, SUNY
3:30 pm | Panel: Creative Placemaking: Art as a catalyst for urban development, Jamie Bennett, Executive Director ArtPlace America, Nato Thompson, Artistic Director, Creative Time, Arlene Davila, Professor of Anthropology and American Studies, NYU, moderated by Margy Waller, Senior Fellow at Topos Partnership
The event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited.
To RSVP for the October 21 event, register here.
To RSVP for the October 22 event, register here.
For additional information contact Steven.Lam at purchase.edu.
The Art, Politics, Cities in Transition symposium builds on a dialogue begun in Cairo by CLUSTER through the Creative Cities: Reframing Downtown conference, held in association with the American University in Cairo in partnership with the Research Foundation of the State University of New York. The program hosted by the Center for Architecture is funded by Ford Foundation and the Network of Excellence in the Arts and Humanities by the State University of New York.
