Street Blitz info for urgent forwarding to all artists

Hello everyone.

A quick thanks and belated welldone to everyone that came to, helped at,
took part in, or just thought about TAA last month. It was mega awesome
and we all did wonders. welldone all!!!

If you are still waiting to get work back then phone the artists line or
send an email.

Also, the website is changing!! new personally uploadable gallery pages
going up as we speak. Check it out, make your own gallery page, add
comments on past exhibitions. we would also love it if anyone has any
outstanding memories or opinions on London TAA '07 to email us a few
lines
to put on the website.

more on all this soon, but for now check out the street blitz....

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello fellow types,

Although promotion of the impending Street Blitz event has been scant we
are hoping this last minute kick up the bum will serve to get you
involved
in something which we want to push to become a national and
international
phenomenon. If you have missed all mention of it thus far you can get
the
lowdown below. Please circulate to anyone you think will want to
contribute and most importantly, get out there and do something
yourself...............................................

STREET BLITZ London

1 - 15 July 2007

2 weeks of creative urban modification

THE CONCEPT

Two weeks to use London as an open gallery. Install your art, modify
something currently spoiling your view or do something which changes the
perspective on our city. You then mark it onto the map on the Street
Blitz
website along with text and pictures.

THE MOTIVATION

The corporate image factory spends a huge amount of money on billboards,
posters, flyers or 'guerrilla' marketing campaigns masquerading as
street
art. They fill your lives with an unrelenting barrage of preposterous
ideals, numb values and false icons. No one asks for your permission
before they push these images in your face so neither should we seek
consent in order to leave our own mark on the city.

DEEDS NOT WORDS

We propose a 2 week blitz of street art in London between 1-15 July
2007.
Whether you make murals, stencils, stickers, posters, sculptures, street
projections, sign modification/removal/additions, billboard
subverting/defacing/destruction etc; whether creative or destructive;
whether to convey a message, brighten up a dull spot, rewire some
corporate brainwashing tactics; whether to leave your mark, remove a
stain, express yourself or simply to show your disgust - it's all valid
and all adds to The Blitz!

THE PROCEDURE

During the proposed two weeks we want you to use London as an open
gallery. There is a map of the city primed and ready for Blitzers to
post
their activities, no matter how big or small, onto a map overlay.
Install
your art or anything which changes the perspective on our city then get
online and post it onto the empty map on the Street Blitz website at
www.streetblitz.org. You can add a description and any photos of your
work. There will also be room for comments on each placemark which can
also be used to tell us if the artwork is still there or if the miserly
bureaucrats got there first.

THE FUTURE

Is ours. We wish to encourage Street Blitzes in other cities around the
world. We can set up sub-domains, email accounts and maps for these
events
- you just need to set the dates and promote it locally. The idea is
that
most people work best to deadlines and it also creates an intense
burst of
activity which is more readily perceivable and which turns the city
into a
temporary gallery space.

THIS IS YOUR CITY

Leave your mark!

WWW.STREETBLITZ.ORG

This is an automated system without any humans in control.

If you want to stage a Street Blitz in your town you can email
info@streetblitz.org

Variant 29 Summer 2007?

Variant 29 Summer 2007
http://www.variant.org.uk
...the free, independent, arts magazine. In-depth coverage
in the context of broader social, political & cultural issues.

text : full issue
http://www.variant.org.uk/29texts/issue29.html
PDF : full issue
http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue29/0Variant29.pdf

Content

* Who Are You to tell me to Question Authority?
Radical education in a 'proto-fascist' era
Benjamin Franks
A comprehensive review of Henry Giroux's 'Against the New
Authoritarianism', a well-researched polemic that identifies the
threat of authoritarianism in the nexus of hierarchical institutions
that have formed in the United States, where the images from Abu
Ghraib provide Giroux with a significant set of 'proto-fascist' texts
for discussing the wider social processes that produced them.

text :
http://www.variant.org.uk/29texts/Franks29.html
PDF :
http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue29/3Variant29Frank.pdf

* Closed Circuit Tunnel Vision
Tom Jennings
An incisive review of Andrea Arnold's Glasgow-set film, the suspense
thriller 'Red Road'. Jennings posits that Arnold in intending to
question the ramifications of surveillance in Britain "explains the
apparent acceptance of the state's intrusiveness in terms of 'our
national psyche'". A reference which he details as being beyond
current affairs' hysterical hyperbole and the film's erstwhile
critical reception.

text :
http://www.variant.org.uk/29texts/jennings29.html
PDF :
http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue29/4Variant29Jennings.pdf

* Comic & Zine Reviews
Mark Pawson
Pawson opens the eclectic pages of: Hitsville UK: Punk in the Faraway
Towns,
Duke, Anorak, Okido, Street Play, Tour de Fence, Here, Foie Gras, I
Can't Draw, Your Mum, Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in
All Fifty States...

text :
http://www.variant.org.uk/29texts/pawson29.html
PDF :
http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue29/5Variant29Pawson.pdf

* 'Reframing the Poverty Debate' the New Labour Way
Gerry Mooney
"Poverty is back on the agenda, but back on it in particular and very
worrying ways. ... how poverty is defined, understood and talked
about says much about the shape and nature of any policy and
political response to it." Here, Mooney draws "attention to some of
the ways in which the question of poverty is being reconstructed by
New Labour and an assortment of journalists, academics and social and
political commentators today." And rather than a "neo-liberal vision
of social justice premised on a celebration of the market" advances
"an entirely different conception and understanding of social justice
that argues for social and economic equality through an attack on
wealth and vested interests."

text :
http://www.variant.org.uk/29texts/mooney29.html
PDF :
http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue29/6Variant29Mooney.pdf

* The Agreed Truth & The Real Truth: The New Northern Ireland
Liam O'Ruairc
"The 'historic' restoration of devolution in Northern Ireland, on 8
May 2007, has been hailed by the media as marking the symbolic end of
the conflict there. ... But is Northern Ireland really 'reaping the
dividend of peace, stability and, it is to be hoped, impending
prosperity' as the media is assuring us? And if so is it going to
last" when "Northern Ireland has the lowest household incomes in the
UK ... the gap between rich and poor is even larger than in the rest
of Britain" and "Sectarianism is supposed to be solved by a system
that institutionalises it."

text :
http://www.variant.org.uk/29texts/liam29.html
PDF :
http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue29/7Variant29Liam.pdf

* Multiple Agendas, Impossible Dialogues: Where Irish Studies and
History of Art Meet
Lucy Cotter
Blow-by-blow conference report of 'Irish Studies and History of Art:
Impossible Dialogues?' at the Association of Art Historians 2007
conference, University of Ulster, April 2007: "The main point of
tension in such an interdisciplinary dialogue is the function and
status of the national - which is central to Irish Studies and often
seen as reductive in Art History."

text :
http://www.variant.org.uk/29texts/cotter29.html
PDF :
http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue29/8Variant29IrishStudies.pdf

* Loving Art
Tim Stott
Irish art criticism not contracted to the laborious recovery of
meaning, or that puts interpretation in the service of promotion and
general arts management, might engage instead in the intimate
exchanges of lovers...

text :
http://www.variant.org.uk/29texts/stott29.html
PDF :
http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue29/9Variant29Stott.pdf

* Art School and the Old Grey Cardigan Test
Mick Wilson
There is a "topicality to the question of art education even within
the mainstream of the international art world." But "within art
education institutions established patterns of low-level conflict
fail to pass over into open, critically accountable debate, dialogue
or exchange. ... Many of the self-avowed bearers of the art school
'tradition' have been absorbed into an old grey cardigan kind of
comfortable though miserable institutionalisation. The painful irony
is that rehearsing matters in this way risks closing down the very
discussion one is demanding..."

text :
http://www.variant.org.uk/29texts/wilson29.html
PDF :
http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue29/10Variant29Grey.pdf

* The Critique of Everyday Life and Cultural Democracy
Alex Law
An unfolding review of John Roberts' study of the possibilities for
cultural democracy 'Philosophizing the Everyday: Revolutionary
Practice and the Fate of Cultural Theory', sixty years of critical
theorising between 1917 and 1975 about everyday life and a conflicted
reality, a more activist sense on which to hook a democratic cultural
politics for today. Markedly, Law concentrates on Roberts' deepening
excavation on the submerged figure, at least for cultural politics,
of Henri Lefebvre.

text :
http://www.variant.org.uk/29texts/law29.html
PDF :
http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue29/11Variant29Law.pdf

* Killing Culture (Softly)
Stephen Dawber
The draft Culture (Scotland) Bill was not negligible. It marked a
dramatic recomposition of the relationship between the Scottish state
apparatus and its cultural agencies: stronger centralised state
control of cultural policy; mounting bureaucratisation across the
sector; the branding of national culture for promotional gain; an
insidious instrumentalisation of cultural practice and erosion of
creative freedoms; and a commitment to declining state funding and
increased privatisation. Dawber sets out the key tasks for cultural
workers to recover cultural policy from the miasma of technocracy in
which it has become lost...

text :
http://www.variant.org.uk/29texts/dawber29.html
PDF :
http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue29/12Variant29Dawb.pdf

* O Rose, thou art sick!
Outsourcing Glasgow's Cultural & Leisure Services
On April Fools' Day , Glasgow City councillors rushed through the
removal of the City's entire Cultural and Leisure Services and staff
from the control of the people and delivered them into the hands of
bankers: the Charitable Trust and Trading Company 'Culture and Sport
Glasgow'. Drawing on UNISON and activist sources this is an otherwise
missing public account of the hiving off of Glasgow's common good.

text :
http://www.variant.org.uk/29texts/commons29.html
PDF :
http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue29/13Variant29Common.pdf

* Adult Educators, Adult Education and Progressive Social Movements
Gordon Asher interviews Stephen Brookfield, one of the pre-eminent
writers and thinkers in the field of adult and continuing education
and active participant in social movements. "When you create
democratic space, which means that you as the teacher are not the
sole source of authority, you're starting to question the power of
certain individuals in the college or the university to make
judgements about whether the learning is valuable or not. Then you
come right up against the issue of power and who has the right to
make these judgements, which brings you up against the issue of
social structure..."

text :
http://www.variant.org.uk/29texts/edu29.html
PDF :
http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue29/14Variant29AdultEd.pdf

* Front cover
Jonathan Owen and Neil Grassie

PDF :
http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue29/1Variant29cover.pdf

-----------------------------
Call for articles:

Creative Industries
...to develop critical understanding and to broaden public discussion
about 'Creative Industries' as a key aspect of contemporary policy
that is presumed to address inequality. Full details: http://

www.variant.org.uk/CI.html

-----------------------------
Associated Events:

* Radical Independent Book fair project - Glasgow
NEXT event:
Sat 4th August, Kinning Park complex, next to Underground, 11am onwards
http://www.ribproject.org
rib@angryartworks.com

* Document 5 : International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival
Call for Submissions - Deadline : 1st July 2007
http://www.docfilmfest.org.uk

-----------------------------
Subscribe to the print magazine and receive a complete, 20 years of
publishing archive CD ROM.
http://www.variant.org.uk/subs.html

-----------------------------
ADVERTISING in Variant 2007

15,000 free copies per issue distributed throughout the UK & Ireland
at over 420 locations

Variant, ISSUE 30 - Winter 2007
Advertising Copy Date: Friday 14th September
Publication Date: Monday 1st October
Covers: October '07 to and including January '08

For details of advertising in the magazine please see:
http://www.variant.org.uk/ads.html

To advertise contact Luke Collins, Dan Monks or Alice Hodge
Advertising & Marketing on: +44 (0)141 333 9522
or email: variantmag@btinternet.com

-----------------------------
* A fully accessible archive of back issues is freely
available at the Variant web site: http://www.variant.org.uk

* Newsprint Magazine Subscription details can be found
at: http://www.variant.org.uk/subs.html

* Please contact us if you wish to distribute newspaper
copies of Variant magazine.

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The Yes Men and The Vacuum Cleaner - Wednesday 27th june 2007 @ CCA Glasgow, 7 – 9 pm

   

wednesday 27th june 2007 @ cca Glasgow, 7 – 9 pm igor vamos (the yes men) and the vacuum cleaner

	Igor Vamos (also known as Mike Bonanno) is one of the leading members of The Yes Men, a culture jamming activist group. Their exploits in "identity correction" are documented in the film The Yes Men. Known as Frank, he is a co-founder of RTmark. He is a winner of a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship for his film about an abandoned military base in Wendover, Utah. His first successful action was to replace the voice of Barbie dolls with that of G.I. Joe dolls: The soldiers ended up saying "want to go shopping?", while Barbies said "dead men tell no tales"! Vamos is currently a teaching fellow on the time based art course in the School of Media Arts and Imaging at the University of Dundee, teaches Media Interventions and New Media at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. the vacuum cleaner is a cultural resistance collective of one fashioning radical social and ecological change. By employing various creative legal and illegal tactics and forms the vacuum cleaner attempts to disrupt concentrations of power and reverse the impending ecological collapse of planet earth. the vacuum cleaner have intervened, disrupted and ocassionally shutdown corporate and public spaces like Selfridges, Starbucks, Virgin Megastores, Barclays Bank, House of Fraser, John Lewis, Brent Cross Shopping Centre, Asda, Sainsburys, Tesco, Waterstones, The City of London, Wall Street and the Nokia HQ's. Admission is free, but please email rsvp@mediascot.org to make sure of a seat
	The Upgrade! Scotland is a monthly gathering of artists, curators and others interested in art and technology in Scotland organised by New Media Scotland and hosted alternately at Dundee Contemporary Arts and CCA Glasgow

Workshop on Art Activism and the Camp for Climate Action

Departure Lounge: A weekend workshop designing creative resistance against the root causes of Climate Change.

13 – 15 July, near Heathrow, London. 

EXXON'S PLAN B FOR CLIMATE CALAMITY: BURN PEOPLE

June 14, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EXXON PROPOSES BURNING HUMANITY FOR FUEL IF CLIMATE CALAMITY HITS
Conference organizer fails to have Yes Men arrested

Text of speech, photos, video: http://www.vivoleum.com/event/

GO-EXPO statement: http://newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/

June2007/14/c5086.html
Press conference before this event, Friday, Calgary: http://
arusha.org/event/7214
Contact: mailto:fuel@theyesmen.org
More links at end of release.

Imposters posing as ExxonMobil and National Petroleum Council (NPC)
representatives delivered an outrageous keynote speech to 300 oilmen
at GO-EXPO, Canada's largest oil conference, held at Stampede Park in
Calgary, Alberta, today.

The speech was billed beforehand by the GO-EXPO organizers as the
major highlight of this year's conference, which had 20,000
attendees. In it, the "NPC rep" was expected to deliver the long-awaited
conclusions of a study commissioned by US Energy Secretary
Samuel Bodman. The NPC is headed by former ExxonMobil CEO Lee
Raymond, who is also the chair of the study. (See link at end.)

In the actual speech, the "NPC rep" announced that current U.S. and
Canadian energy policies (notably the massive, carbon-intensive
exploitation of Alberta's oil sands, and the development of liquid
coal) are increasing the chances of huge global calamities. But he
reassured the audience that in the worst case scenario, the oil
industry could "keep fuel flowing" by transforming the billions of
people who die into oil.

"We need something like whales, but infinitely more abundant," said
"NPC rep" "Shepard Wolff" (actually Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men),
before describing the technology used to render human flesh into a
new Exxon oil product called Vivoleum. 3-D animations of the process
brought it to life.

"Vivoleum works in perfect synergy with the continued expansion of
fossil fuel production," noted "Exxon rep" "Florian Osenberg" (Yes
Man Mike Bonanno). "With more fossil fuels comes a greater chance of
disaster, but that means more feedstock for Vivoleum. Fuel will
continue to flow for those of us left."

The oilmen listened to the lecture with attention, and then lit
"commemorative candles" supposedly made of Vivoleum obtained from the
flesh of an "Exxon janitor" who died as a result of cleaning up a
toxic spill. The audience only reacted when the janitor, in a video
tribute, announced that he wished to be transformed into candles
after his death, and all became crystal-clear.

At that point, Simon Mellor, Commercial & Business Development
Director for the company putting on the event, strode up and
physically forced the Yes Men from the stage. As Mellor escorted
Bonanno out the door, a dozen journalists surrounded Bichlbaum, who,
still in character as "Shepard Wolff," explained to them the
rationale for Vivoleum.

"We've got to get ready. After all, fossil fuel development like that
of my company is increasing the chances of catastrophic climate
change, which could lead to massive calamities, causing migration and
conflicts that would likely disable the pipelines and oil wells.
Without oil we could no longer produce or transport food, and most of
humanity would starve. That would be a tragedy, but at least all
those bodies could be turned into fuel for the rest of us."

"We're not talking about killing anyone," added the "NPC rep." "We're
talking about using them after nature has done the hard work. After
all, 150,000 people already die from climate-change related effects
every year. That's only going to go up - maybe way, way up. Will it
all go to waste? That would be cruel."

Security guards then dragged Bichlbaum away from the reporters, and
he and Bonanno were detained until Calgary Police Service officers
could arrive. The policemen, determining that no major infractions
had been committed, permitted the Yes Men to leave.

Canada's oil sands, along with "liquid coal," are keystones of Bush's
Energy Security plan. Mining the oil sands is one of the dirtiest
forms of oil production and has turned Canada into one of the world's
worst carbon emitters. The production of "liquid coal" has twice the
carbon footprint as that of ordinary gasoline. Such technologies
increase the likelihood of massive climate catastrophes that will
condemn to death untold millions of people, mainly poor.

"If our idea of energy security is to increase the chances of climate
calamity, we have a very funny sense of what security really is,"
Bonanno said. "While ExxonMobil continues to post record profits,
they use their money to persuade governments to do nothing about
climate change. This is a crime against humanity."

"Putting the former Exxon CEO in charge of the NPC, and soliciting
his advice on our energy future, is like putting the wolf in charge
of the flock," said "Shepard Wolff" (Bichlbaum). "Exxon has done more
damage to the environment and to our chances of survival than any
other company on earth. Why should we let them determine our future?"

About the NPC and ExxonMobil: http://ga3.org/campaign/

lee_raymond/explanation
About the Alberta oil sands: http://www.sierraclub.ca/prairie/

tarnation.htm
About liquid coal: http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/liquidcoal/

Seed Bombing with All Tomorrow's Particks - Glasgow

Dear All

Following on from our World Record Mass Massage, All Tomorrow's Particks would like to invite you to our second event - Seed Bombing. 

Come and build your own seed bomb and catapult it into the proposed Tesco site.  We provide the seeds, the soil and the clay while you provide the imagination to turn Partick into what you would like it to be.

The event will take place at 3pm on Sunday 17 June 2007, behind Morrisons on Beith Street. (A map is attached on the E-Flyer)

We look forward to seeing you there.

All Tomorrow's Particks

IF YOU CAN NOT SEE THE ATTACHED E-FLYER PLEASE DOWNLOAD IT FROM: 

http://www.alltomorrowsparticks.org/images/seed-bomb-poster.jpg

13 Morsels To Suck On - 7pm 16/06/07 - Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow

13 Morsels To Suck On

A performative screening by the vacuum cleaner

7pm on Saturday the 16th of June, 2007 - Street Level Photoworks - £REE 

Thorn-in-the-side of your local multi-national, cheeky anarchic wagsters The Vacuum Cleaner, present an evening of their favourite films and stories. Political pranks, art activism and acts of creative resistance with all the subtlety one can expect from groups with names like the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army and The Space Hijackers.

About the vacuum cleaner

the vacuum cleaner is an artist and activist collective of one fashioning radical social and ecological change. By employing various creative legal and illegal tactics and forms the vacuum cleaner attempts to disrupt concentrations of power and reverse the impending ecological collapse of planet earth. http://www.thevacuumcleaner.co.uk

What the press (and police) think about us. 

"Cult figures in their own right" BBC

"This is not a normal travelling theatre company" Metropolitan Police

"In the juvenile camp" Scotsman

Where?

Street Level Photoworks

48 King St (First Floor) - Glasgow G1 5QT

T - 0141 5522151

http://www.streetlevelphotoworks.org

Access and Signing

We regret that this venues temporary facilities have limited access, if you require assistance please contact suck@thevacuumcleaner.co.uk 

If you require signing it maybe possible to arrange  - again please contact suck@thevacuumcleaner.co.uk a.s.a.p.