Presentations AND Expectations

This week FEB 23: MCMA 543/ RT 489-006

THIS EMAIL IS ALSO POSTED HERE (semi-permanent link)

1) Changes in reading for this week (see below)
2) Assignment to Propose presentation –due in writing- (see below)
3) For Thursday class- review last weeks “Intellectuals” reading + Leshne
a. also watch videos, discuss appropriation approaches
b. discuss class exhibition idea
c. discuss your presentations and next project
4) Notice: Monday film- People’s History of US- 6-9 PM student center
5) Poster (finals) should be in to our server by Wednesday morning 6 a.m.- or put original in my mail box Comm. bldg room 1048
6) Meetings: I am writing people individually to set up meetings. Or you can initiate this.
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1) Changes in reading: Please read carefully

For Week 6, Feb. 23, please make sure you have done the preceding week (FEB 16) readings
1) Intellectuals and Power by FOUCAULT and DELEUZE
2) A Users Guide to Detournement by DEBORD/Wolman – aka SITUATIONISTS
3) Defining Documentary film by Henrik JUEL

ALSO READ: (Taken from WEEK 7-
LESHNE: Film and Photo League of San Francisco- everyone can read this short account of media activism in the 30s
Grads, please START reading BENJAMIN: The Author as Producer- Undergrads, skim it at least

Feb. 23 we will have discussion about Intellectuals and Power.
Nick S will present the article and we will continue to discuss in relationship to the Film and Photo League article and the Detournement article.

NOTE: Underline what is a highlight for you, or what you really do not understand.
NOTE: OMIT the David Harvey (Body as an Accumulation Strategy)- not important enough to our context


2) PRESENTATIONS: give me a 2-sentence proposal commitment for your topic.
Posted to my email, by Wednesday midnight.
After I confirm your topic and week, you will post it to the blog (by end of week)
People who have already committed to presentations or have presented don’t have to do this.

I will give feedback on whether this is a good topic to work with the class schedule, and on your framing of the topic. I will schedule these into the weekly meetings. We will meet (remotely (such as online), or in person), and I will share additional resources with you, if needed, and we will discuss how you will implement your presentation.
• Two students may present together, if they contribute an equal amount of work.
• You can present any of the readings, and guide a discussion or workshop as your presentation.

A presentation means you take responsibility for showing us the historical or contemporary work of others, or you guide us through the issues of a topic and some activist media responses.
This should take 15 – 30 minutes- with discussion. You are expected to prepare by doing research into this topic, beyond what most people encounter casually on the Internet.

POSSIBLE TOPICS ARE OUTLINED ON THE WEEKLY SCHEDULE.
BESIDES PRESENTING A READING, A TOPIC CAN INCLUDE
Reiterated below with examples.

Any topic listed as a category covered in the weekly schedule.
You can choose from these, or use them as suggestions for starting your research.
Any of these can operate as search terms.
You must research before selecting a topic; know that you like what you are getting into.
You can present something from another country; if English is not your first language, this is a GREAT idea!

Media Self determination and DIY
• People’s Radio, TV, video and other broadcasting projects
Paper Tiger TV, Guerilla TV
Prometheus radio, pirate radio
Radical press, independent publishing
Eye-Witness, Media Mobilizing project, and other
Temporary Services
• Advocacy Documentary

Public spaces: Interventions in public space
Situationism
GRAN FURY, ACT UP and other aids activist media
historic and current farm workers and IMOLAKEE farm workers
flash mobs, interventions
RTMark and Yes Men
interventions in mass communication (Yes Men and others)
Pink Bloque
Temporary Services

Appropriation and Intellectual Property Rights
• Appropriation film

Collectivity and COLLECTIVE research
• Derivas de las precarias
• Platform London (a group)
• Disorientation guides
• Raqs Media Collective (India)
• Temporary Services, Yes Men

Storytelling as an activist strategy
• one presentation would be based on Imagining Change- reading
• Derivas de las precarias
• The essay film (a style of documentary)
• Film: Sir No Sir- Vietnam vet resistance and activist storytelling

Memes and social media distribution
• what is a meme, examples
• present or work with assigned essay- “Truth is a virus”

GROUPS, ISSUES & OTHER SUGGESTIONS: see notes- maybe these are interesting to you

• Tucuman Arde: Argentina: a 1968 project/artist collective involving interventions in mass communication

• Guerilla Art Action Group: “On a November afternoon in 1969, two men and two women began to wrestle in the lobby of the Museum of Modern Art until they were prone in a pool of blood, then suddenly got up and left, scattering behind them papers printed with the demand that the Rockefellers resign from the museum's board. The papers claimed that the Rockefeller family used art to ''disguise'' its involvement in the manufacture of weaponry for the Vietnam War. They were signed ''The Guerrilla Art Action Group,'' or GAAG; the acronym was a pun on gag, both as in joke and as in constraint to speech.” from http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/02/arts/art-in-review-900222.html

• Dara Greenwald: media artist and activist: check out by searching for her home page

Housing, -- CHECK OUT: Picture the Homeless: http://picturethehomeless.org/ “don’t talk about us, talk with us”

Education: CHECK OUT: “Another Education is Happening at http://monthlyreview.org/2011/07/01/another-education-is-happening
and http://boggseducationalcenter.org/

Healthcare, self-care, harm reduction – CHECK OUT: Icarus Project (mental health) http://theicarusproject.net/ and Young Women’s Empowerment Project http://ywepchicago.wordpress.com/

Gender, self esteem, self-help: Young Women’s Empowerment Project http://ywepchicago.wordpress.com/

Food justice, Environmental justice, Environmental safety

Veterans, War--, CHECK OUT: A Ride Till The End (ARTTE) is a collective of veterans and artists riding bicycles around the U.S. raising awareness about the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. We see art as an effective medium for healing and facilitating palatable dialogue amongst diverse voices on the occupations. Many veterans return home with frustration from participating in senseless war and need to find their voice in-order to begin a path of healing.
For this reason, we operate as a speaking bureau/performance art collective, facilitating open dialogue and artistic expression about our experiences at war. This is done while riding our bicycles around the nation seeking peace and reconnecting with the nation we swore to protect. http://www.operationawareness.org/ AND Iraq Veterans against the war: “open to Active Duty, National Guard and Reservists who have served since 09/11/2001.” You are not alone.”more at http://ivaw.org/



Poverty, class, 99%, occupy, -CHECK OUT- Poor People’s Campaign http://www.poorpeoplescampaignppc.org/

Economic inclusion, home rule, participatory democracy
Immigration, undocumented rights

Prisons, incarceration, drugs, representation: CHECK OUT: Thousand Kites Project, “Thousand Kites is a community-based performance, web, video and radio project centered on the United States prison system.” http://www.thousandkites.org/



content can be specific artists or groups or filmmakers too; check with me on these if you are unsure.