LECTURES

Simon Critchley:
Barack Obama and the American Void

Thursday, September 18, Theresa Lang Community and Student Center
Lecture: 6:30 – 8:00 p.m.
Admission: $8; free to all students and New School faculty, staff, and alumni with ID

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School is dedicating its annual programming to the theme of Branding Democracy. The inaugural lecture is delivered by Simon Critchley, professor of philosophy at The New School for Social Research and at University of Essex, Colchester, United Kingdom. His research focuses on the history of philosophy, literature, ethics, and politics.

In keeping with this political moment, Critchley approaches the subject of democracy through the current presidential elections and focuses on one of the two candidates: entitled “Barack Obama and the American Void,” Critchley’s lecture examines Obama’s subjectivity, the existential detachment that seems to haunt him, and its relation to democracy. Obama as the ultimate brand.

ONLINE

Rebranding Acts is, according to this artists’ collective, “an investigation into cultural identity in an age of global migration.” The initiative uses the online platform wooloo.org to invite artists from around the world to consider the ways in which “nationality” is manufactured in their home country, and to “rebrand” these concepts, from their own perspective. While the open call is predicated on the argument that such hegemonic nationalist constructions often exclude identities that don’t fit the mold, Rebranding Acts invites anyone to add their voice to the discussion by uploading videos of their own public interventions. The project draws on previous interventionist and participatory works by the collective’s founders in which the concept of national identity is revealed to be anything but black-and-white, and the resulting archive documents the myriad ways in which people around the world respond to this problematic notion.

PERFORMANCES

PETLab, Re:Activism NYC, 2008
Tuesday, November 4
Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery
Game gathering: 12:30 – 2:30 p.m.
Register online at http://petlab.parsons.edu/reactivism

On Election Day, the streets are reclaimed—and the history of political protest embedded therein—in a participatory project initiated by Colleen Macklin and other members of PETLab at Parsons The New School for Design. Structured as a team-based urban street game using mobile technology, Re:Activism NYC offers a tour of New York City through an exploration of its history of activists, protests, and riots. As participants carry out a clue-based scavenger hunt and site-specific challenges, they are informed of the ongoing resonance of historic issues fought for in the battleground of the city. Winning the game necessitates collective action and proactive problem-solving, thus teaching players how to be effective activists while challenging the definition of “playing by the rules.”

Gather in the gallery at 12:30 p.m. for the official take-off; bring your cell phone along. Gamers can also join throughout the day.

ONLINE

The Good Life is Motta’s expanding online archive of over 360 video interviews conducted with pedestrians in the streets of twelve cities in Latin America, regarding what the artist describes as “individuals’ perceptions of United States foreign policy and its history of interventions in the region, local democracy, leadership, and governance.” The archive can be searched in a variety of ways, for instance according to the content of the questions or the demographics of the respondent, thus serving as a sort of census of the large and diverse response about the local repercussions of the political, economic, and military actions of the U.S. Viewers can also make their voices heard by contributing answers to the central query of what constitutes the good life.

ONLINE

This participatory project was initiated by the organizers of the UnConvention, an umbrella for art projects and interventions happening in the region of the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul. Sidestepping efforts by authorities to keep voices of dissent or other visual distractions at bay during this quadrennial spectacle, and taking its title from the obligatory statement uttered by candidates at the end of campaign ads, “I Approve This Message” gives the public a chance to address delegates at both conventions. Touted as “a community-generated media response” giving people “a voice and an opportunity to promote thinking about what participating in democracy looks like,” the project revolves around a Web site in which users’ two-minute videos are posted to paint a collective picture of what this process means to them.

ONLINE

At once a promotional ad and a speculative performance, Transferring Patriotism is the trailer or placeholder for an exchange in which the artists would—for the cost of their travel expenses—travel to a buyer’s home country and sell their patriotism. The transaction has precise terms and must occur over a table evenly riding the border between the buyers’ nation and the territory of the local American Embassy, around which the respective parties would first sit and consume an American beer. The terms of this contract recall the patriotism-stoking genre of American Westerns in which contention over frontiers entrenched imperialist fantasies.

ONLINE

This project mimics the means by which Americans are on the one hand inculcated in a culture of fear and on the other sign off on policies that sacrifice their rights to privacy—protecting democratic processes in order to protect their self-image as participants in a democratic state. Modeled after the history and ideals of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Neighborhood Network Watch (NNW) is a fictitious community organization recruiting residents to spy on themselves and their neighbors in vigilant protection against suspected terrorists. The Web-based organization boastfully updates guerrilla tactics and counterinsurgent warfare techniques by using emergent technologies in strategic, if vague, new ways.

ONLINE

Oil Standard is a post-Gold Standard measure of the state of the U.S. economy, in relation to the current cost of oil. Internet users who download Mandiberg’s Firefox plug-in can visit sites like Amazon or Orbitz and see U.S. dollar amounts converted into relative barrels of oil, according to their current cost. The project speaks to the relationship between American foreign policy and the branding of the U.S. economy, creating the context for a conversation about the impact that the often violent exportation of “democracy” is having on the U.S. economic health and about the ways in which consumer habits are implicated in this cycle.

ONLINE

Pure Products is an online store initiated by the artists to sell “pseudo-patriotic consumer goods.” In the fifteen years since the store first opened, there has come to be an ever closer, and unfortunately ever more ironic relationship between the items for sale and the lack of critical discourse about consumer debt, national debt, and even American obesity. Taking the form of t-shirts, tschochkes, and food products cleverly branded in alignment with American political personae and ideology, the site’s inventory has a tongue-in-cheek reliance on the adage “you are what you eat.” Highlighting the American ideal of capitalism, the novelty items become touchstones for a conversation about the ways in which national identity is packaged, distributed, and consumed.

ONLINE

This source project “Fake is a Fake” by the Italian collective Les Liens Invisible makes it easy for internet users with access to free Word Press blogging software to mimic high profile sites like news and government agencies, while inserting their own statements. Constantly updated and refined by a group of devoted developers, the list of available spoofs continues to grow while blending art, advertising, and activism. The newest available Web site template, “Peking2008,” used the Olympic games in Beijing as a backdrop for discussing China’s attitude towards human rights. In demonstrating that the ubiquity and recognizability of branded messages make them particularly vulnerable to forms of plagiarism, the site looks just like the Olympics homepage, while addressing issues censored in China.