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Not My Revolution If…The Stories of Angie O

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Dear Friends, we need art now more than ever. Artworks are”real answers to the puzzle externally posed to them” as Adorno wrote. And what a puzzle! And what better form than theater? Ritualistic life-acting. Experiments for potential revolutions. It is on the stage that I got the tools to participate in Occupy Wall Street with my full spirit, having collaborated with Berlin-based andcompany&Co (Alexander Karschnia, sascha sulimma, Little Red) since 2005). This new piece is an echo of 2011 merged with Brecht’s Joanna of the Stockyards. I designed the stage as a huge class pyramid, and the coin masks from Zuccotti park will be onstage! Andcos are building it into something magical. If you are in Berlin, please don’t miss it.

My Letter to Berlin that was distributed at the Premier

Not my revolution, if…: The Stories of Angie O. tells the stories of a professional activist, who gets involved wherever people come together in loose correlations. She pitches her tent at borders, airports, on public green spaces or in front of banks.

I have worked off and on with the Berlin based Andcompany&Co. on political concepts for theater since 2005. They taught me about how to project the voice which came in handy on the streets in 2011. I have designed the stage for this new and timely piece as well as sharing my experiences to develop the concept.

Andcompany&Co.
Not my revolution, if…: Die Geschichten der Angie O.
Von und mit: Noah Fischer, Alexander Karschnia, Nicola Nord, Krisjan Schellingerhout, Claudia Splitt, Sascha Sulimma, Vincent van der Valk&Co. / Text: Alexander Karschnia, Nicola Nord&Co. / Musik: Sascha Sulimma&Co. Bühne: Noah Fischer&Co. Licht: Reiner Casper

Mask of Money at ZKM, “Global Activism” Exhibition

“Mask of Money” an artwork/artifact from the 2011 Occupy Movement positioned on a pyramidal display structure was included in the exhibition, plus three videos. In January an “Activist Summit” provided means to “unfreeze the frame” of the exhibition by holding an assembly which ended in an action to intervene in the curatorial text and exhibition walls.

Priests of Growth:

Value of Occupy

global aCtIVISm is dedicated to the field of artistic form of expression as politically inspired by actions, demonstrations and performances in the public sphere, which draw attention to socio-political grievances and call for changes to existing conditions. By means of objects, photographic, cinematographic, videographic and mass medial documents, the exhibition presents global activism as the first novel art form of the 21st century.

global aCtIVISm serves as prelude to the exhibition marathon “Globale”, scheduled to be held on the occasion of the 300-year anniversary of the founding of the city of Karlsruhe 2015.

Project Team: Peter Weibel and Andreas Beitin, Andrea Buddensieg, Dietrich Heissenbüttel, Sabiha Keyif, Elisabeth Klotz, Sarah Maske, Linnea Semmerling, Joulia Strauss, Tatiana Volkova, Philipp Ziegler

Artists
Adbusters Media Foundation, G.M.B. Akash, Anonymous News Germany, ATTAC, Martin Balluch, Zanny Begg, John Beieler, Bombily Group, Ángela Bonadies & Juan José Olavarría, Nadir Bouhmouch, Osman Bozkurt, Campact, Center for Artistic Activism, Chim↑Pom, Noam Chomsky, Ralf Christensen, Chto delat?, Paolo Cirio, Cyber Guerilla, Hassan Darsi, Johanna Domke & Marouan Omara, Electronic Disturbance Theater, Enmedio, Everyday Rebellion, Femen, Noah Fischer, Floating Lab Collective, Freedom of the Press Foundation, Muath Freij, Isabelle Fremeaux & John Jordan, Jakob Gautel & Jason Karaïndros, Greenpeace, Stéphane M. Grueso, Ed Hall, Hedonistische Internationale, Stéphane Hessel, Niklas Hoffmann, Jim Hubbard, Indymedia, Alexey Iorsh, Just do it (Kim Asendorf & Ole Fach), Amadou Kane Sy, Thomas Kilpper, Kiss my Ba, kreativerstrassenprotest.twoday.net, Mischa Kuball, Jan Jaap Kuiper & Katja Sokolova, Sasha Kurmaz, Christopher LaMarca, Mohammed Laouli, Lynn Lauterbach, Julia Leser & Clarissa Seidel, Let’s Do It!, Viktoria Lomasko, Renzo Martens, Masasit Mati, Mikaela, Mootiro Maps, Carlos Motta, Neozoon, No TAV, occupygezipics.tumblr.com, Otpor!, Partizaning, Jean-Gabriel Périot, Platform, Pussy Riot, R.E.P., Resist, Oliver Ressler, Mykola Ridnyi, Itamar Rose & Yossi Atia, Faten Rouissi, Sandra Schäfer, Bahia Shehab, Lisa Sperling & Florian Kläger, Jonas Staal & Metahaven, Stop the Traffik, Joulia Strauss & Moritz Mattern, Stuttgart 21-Protest, Jackie Sumell, Surveillance Camera Players, Tanya Sushenkova, Aaron Swartz & Taryn Simon, Take The Square, Pelin Tan, Teatro Valle Occupato,The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, The Yes Men, Thomson & Craighead, Patricia Triki & Christine Bruckbauer, Troika, UK Uncut, Various authors organized by Sharon Hayes with Angela Beallor, Voina, Christoph Wachter & Mathias Jud, Mark Wallinger, WANGO, wearethe99percent.tumblr.com, WikiLeaks, Alexander Wolodarskij, Yomango, Malala Yousafzai, Salam Yousri and others

The exhibition global a_Ct_IVISm is dedicated to the field of artistic form of expression as politically inspired by actions, demonstrations and performances in the public sphere, which draw attention to socio-political grievances and call for changes to existing conditions. By means of objects, photographic, cinematographic, videographic and mass medial documents, the exhibition presents global activism as the first novel art form of the 21st century.

global a_Ct_IVISm serves as prelude to the exhibition marathon “Globale”, scheduled to be held on the occasion of the 300-year anniversary of the founding of the city of Karlsruhe 2015.

http://on1.zkm.de/zkm/e/

http://on1.zkm.de/zkm/stories/storyReader$8502

Curator: Peter Weibel

Israel, Occupied Territories, 2012

Summer of Change: Distribution of 10,000 Lincoln Pennies

“Today, September 22nd, 2011 is the last day of Summer. And tomorrow is the beginning of the Fall…of the Empire of Greed. These coins, though insignificant in value, are the seeds of change for a new nation built on equality and justice” With these words, spoken before the New York Stock Exchange, the seven performances of the Summer of Change conclude. We distributed each American numismatic currency from the dollar to the penny at the feet of the Gods of Wall Street in a bid to break through the mythology of Free Markets. Today we marched from Liberty Park, currently occupied as a democratic “Free Zone” in the mode of Tahrir Square (Egypt) and Puerta del Sol(Spain) to Wall Street- scattering the seeds of change as we walked.

Summer of Change@ #occupywallstreet

Saturday September 17, 2011 a peaceful movement inspired by Tahrir Square in Egypt, Puerta del Sol in Madrid, and the worldwide rage against an out-of-control financial system blossomed in New York City just as the Summer of Change turns to Fall. Protesters who had hoped to occupy Wall Street were not surprised to find the pedestrian mall completely shut down by the NYPD. However, The protest went on anyway in other locations of the Financial District and it continues as of this writing. The Summer of Change project is taking part in what we hope will be a beautiful new mass-performance of freedom and economic empowerment.

(FDR is interviewed in the video at 1:35).

film by Velcrow Ripper

Check out this photo of FDR smoking his kazoo in the Gothamist:

Summer of Change: Distribution of 2000 Jefferson Nickels

Midnight on Wall Street. Alexander Hamilton appears on a red carpet, saunters past the Stock Exchange, and approaches the Federal Building steps. In the center of the square is a cardboard box inhabited by The Common Man. “Who is here that distrurbs my slumber?” “It is I who have some to see/if there is anything I can do for thee…”And thus ensues a performance in rhyme, a modern day Faust which, like Goethe’s great story, tells the tale of ambition, wealth, and ultimately, folly, and chilling horror. This is the fifth disribution of money to Wall Street and as in the other performances, the visage of the coin embodied, Thomas Jefferson, appears in his silver numismatic mask, shining in the streetlights of midnight Wall Street, to ring in the shower of 2000 nickels.

Summer of Change: Distribution of 1000 Roosevelt Dimes

At high noon September 13, a man rolls onto Wall Street in a wheelchair, dismounts, and painfully makes his way up the steps of the Federal Building to speak to the American people:

“It is high time we speak frankly/ Of the current crisis threatening our Democracy/ The very state of the world today is a summons for us to stand together/ And to Act against injustice/ For this very spot, my friends/Is the site of a heinous crime…”

What heinous crime was committed on Wall Street? Come to the performance to find out! You’ll meet the Common Man and hear of his anger, hopes, and dreams for the future. And, of course, this will be followed by the usual showering of coins on Wall Street that you have come to know as the Summer of Change. Please join us for the fourth performance of the Summer of Change: the Distribution of 1000 Dimes.

…”progressive government by its very terms, must be a living and growing thing, that the battle for it is never ending and that if we let up for one single moment or one single year, not merely do we stand still but we fall back in the march of civilization.”

–FDR

In Gold We Rust

“The ability to construct symbolic objects attains its greatest triumph in money. For money represents abstraction at its purest form; it makes comprehensible the most abstract concept …thus money is the adequate expression of the relationship of man to the world which can only be grasped in single and concrete instances yet only really conceived when the singular becomes the embodiment of living mental process which interweaves all singularities and in this fashion creates reality.”

-Georg Simmel, The Philosophy of Money

Coin Return is an artistic exploration of that uniquely human abstraction that we call money, or currency. This project was realized with a class of Rhode Island School of Design students as assistants. We created a “gezamptkunstwerk” (total work of art) made up of many objects, sounds, ideas, and media, culminating in a performative assembly line, and series of objects. Collaborators worked alongside Brooklyn-based artist Noah Fischer, who played the role of capitalist inventor in an Thomas Edisonesque laboratory. Collaborators became worker- elves in this money-making production. This was a human-powered “anti-mint”, which un-produced currency- transformed into unique numismatic objects.

The project turned on the fact that pennies made after 1982 are filled with zinc.

A resulting series of 3 minute Super-8 MM films are a collaboration between Noah Fischer and artist Edward Kimball.