[if you want it] xo: June 2008

Sunday, June 22, 2008

BED PEACE/HAIR PEACE/ENDURANCE PEACE

WE ARE WRAPPING UP!
COOPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH OF USA THUS CREATED TODAY, JUNE 22nd, 2008
SELF NAMED COOP COMWEALTH: IFYOUWANTIT
next event TBA but theme to be deconstructed and explored is HEALTH in America

we've got the tech and the knowlege, next time we get specific and come prepared to construct something beautiful
keep blogging keep informed send ideas rally support
see you next time
[if you want it]
xo

PROJECT PROPOSAL

SEA AND SPACE EXPLORATIONS
4755 York Blvd, Los Angeles CA 90042
WWW.SEAANDSPACE.ORG

This event is to be a 24 hour live installation, a sort of collective meditation. We will operate much the same as a think tank, whose aim is first solidarity : our individual selves, to our group, to collective volition.

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"A false radicality had scattered us into centrifugal spaces: a vital leap will bring us back to reality."

Jean Baudrillard, Fatal Strategies
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The main theme to be explored throughout the WORK IN is ACTIVISM. How do we, a generation of young developing professionals, use the information that is readily available to us about the current state of affairs, the Iraq War, the recession, environmental issues, etc...to advocate for change? What sort of answers can we collectively find when we focus our time and energy and resources for an extended period of time? In answer to such questions, during the WORK IN, the group will create a mock manifesto, thereby creating a mock institution with a platform for change, an anti-corporation. In effect, our anti-corporation will recall the NUTOPIA created by John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and the Peacenicks 40 years ago.

In 1969, when John Lennon and Yoko Ono “gave peace a chance” in the face of Vietnam, they did so with wit and whimsy. Their reductionist tactics made peace seem a not-too distant possibility. At first, the two lovers simply stayed in bed, using their media-anticipated honeymoon as public ground for dialogue. They simply demonstrated how lovely peace can be. And then, beyond the walls of their bedroom, they wrote freedom songs for marches and used slogans like “THE WAR IS OVER (IF YOU WANT IT)” to induce the apathetics to believe. They sent acorns, literally seeds to be planted in peace, to all the nations of the world.

Today, the American socio-political landscape seems to mirror that against which Lennon and Ono were working. The violence in Iraq and Afghanistan right now is particularly alarming. There is still no end in sight to a war in its sixth year, fueled by the American dollar and a hypocritical, moralist agenda. America battles ideals and an entire people, rather than a specific country with a defined regime. The western world is wrought with renegades who arm themselves with cameras and questions, and take photos, transcribe dialogue, adding to the media frenzy surrounding all the violence and foul play. Meanwhile, back on the ranch in America, we “informed” citizens follow strands of stories and misinformation mingled with elusive truths. We remain “participants” of American politics, even in our inertia, with nothing to add but silent dismay and outrage. Should we continue to work as individuals, keeping to our own paces, working on our own isolated agendas and projects? Should we keep “informed” about the world at large,so that we can spout witty, cynical anecdotes at pool-side parties and gallery openings? Should we suddenly become activists and sign a random petition? Give money to Green Peace outside our local Whole Foods? Find a campaign we can get behind to which we’ll simply pledge our votes?

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"We need to coalesce all the centrifugal forces to escape from this force of inertia."

Baudrillard, IBID
*****

Our WORK IN, with a piece of writing and a verbal agreement, will define a few current problems and outline potential solutions. The 24 hour period will be fully documented by video and photography. By showing the actions of the group uncensored in real time, we thus comment on the issue of surveillance, of being watched by the invisible powers that be. After all is said and done, what does it take to actually shake us from inertia?

Let’s not hesitate to stand firmly on the shoulders of those who have come before us. Those prophet-like personalities like John Lennon, Martin Luther King, and Ghandi exist today in a frozen idealistic theoretical space. Shouldn’t we continue where they left off? Aren’t the parallels of today’s American administration to the Nixon administration in particular, striking enough to incite the need for artful rebellion? Do we need something so threatening as the draft to instigate our personal feelings of fear and infringement, so that we will finally seek community by which to take action?

The WORK IN is to be a beginning. Specifically, as freelancers, young professionals and artists in Los Angeles, we are ostensibly free members of a democratic nation. We are in a fortunate position. So we will congregate. Collectively, we will take the hours necessary to ponder. To clean the slate, realize where we are, and where we are now headed. To openly debate. To organize. And to try and come to some decisions. And hopefully broaden our palette for activity.

GOALS:

To preserve, in our activity, the seeds of limitless possibility, freedom inherent in democracy, and the necessity of collective action.

To create an anit-corporation, in the tradition of NUTOPIA, and to do so “under surveillance”.

To incite the “celebrity” aspect of the Lennon/Ono peace projects by virtue of the internet and the accessiblity to community thereby provided.

To develop an ongoing project which could involve a series of performance/protest events in the name of peace and love.

To develop the structure for a second installation, a SLEEP IN, to ironically occurr on July 4th, the day of America’s Independence.

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WISH LIST:

Names of committed participants.

Laptop computers and cameras, equipment to stream live video.

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Stay tuned for part 2:

THE SLEEP IN
sleep with me / through our independence XX
*****

THE MAN. WE ARE ON TO SOMETHING...

[if you want it] xo

Sunday, June 22, 2008

BED PEACE/HAIR PEACE/ENDURANCE PEACE

Saturday, June 21, 2008

WE ARE HERE!

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