‘Our Demonstration’ is an exhibition occupying the Guardian’s News and Media Gallery from 12th April to the 1st May 2012.  Using the Guardian’s photo archive as a starting point, the exhibition will show selected photographs from the history of protest, alongside work from both established and emerging artists, addressing the role of art as an agent of social change.

To compliment the ‘Our Demonstration’ exhibition, Housmans has teamed up with the Central Saint Martins organisers to host a discussion with a panel of artists, activists and theorists, as to how art can most effectively play a role in political movements. The focus will be on recent anti-capitalism, anti-war and climate change demonstrations, put into historical context with examples from the 1960s.

The panel includes artist and activist Noel Douglas, journalist and film-maker Leah Borromeo, artist and activist The Vacuum Cleaner, and artist and writer Dean Kenning. This event will be taking place at The Hub in King’s Cross – all welcome.

The Hub
34B York Way
London N1 9AB
kingscross.the-hub.net
Nearest tube: King’s Cross
http://www.ourdemonstration.co.uk/

Free Syria Air Force is now recruiting.

freesyriaairforce.tumblr.com

Join the Syrian resistance as we prepare for ‘Air Strike’ Syria.

(Previous pilot experience not necessary, Plane Stupid activists welcome).

At 13.00 hours on April the 18th the newly formed Free Syria Air Force (UK Division) will begin air strikes against Bashar al-Assad’s brutal dictatorship and its instruments of terror.

Armed with the latest in grassroots technology, a group from the rebel alliance will launch air attacks against Syrian sovereign installations from a new forward operating base.

Armed with 1000’s of deadly paper aeroplanes – each lovingly named after a fallen Syrian martyr – coupled with the latest in multi-propellered aviation technology, the Free Syria Air Force will launch aggressively peaceful strikes against the Syrian Embassy, London.

Want to get your wings? Fancy dropping one? Or even double dropping?

*Rendezvous [meet] at 12.30h Wilton Crescent [map: http://g.co/maps/6y9py] for a 13.00h blitz*

NOTES:

The Free Syria Air Force will supply all munitions and craft.

Come dressed in black (but not Black Bloc).

Please note that this action will be filmed and photographed. Should you have any concerns about your identity, please come appropriately dressed to ensure your security.

For more info, please contact freesyriaairforce@gmail.com

Whilst tackling the Metropolitan Police’s logo with a roll of blue sticky tape, this short film explores our complex and sometimes ‘bi-polar’ relationship with authority and policing.

Channel 4 Random Acts is a series of 3 minute short films profiling contemporary British art and artists. This is one of 10 Random Acts that the vacuum cleaner has been producing with filmmaker Leah Borromeo. To date they have produced films focusing on Dr.D, The Space Hijackers, Reverend Billy/Liberate Tate, The Haircut Before The Party and Santacon.

thevacuumcleaner.co.uk/channel4randomacts

randomacts.channel4.com

42 days since the coup d’état, six years after the inauguration of the country’s first National Art Gallery tonight it was teeming with silently protesting young local artists. Walking around with placards depicting the recent gruesome police violence, the silent protestors formed a mobile exhibition parallel to the official opening ceremony of Breathing Atolls: Japan-Maldives Contemporary Art Exhibition. This is the first art gallery opening since a military coup backed by the former dictatorship brought down the first ever democratically elected government. Afzal Shafiu and Ali Nishan the only two local artists that were featured in the Breathing Atolls exhibition and the majority of the visitors unanimously joined in with the demonstrating artists
in supporting their message:

“NO FREEDOM! NO EXPRESSION! Maldivian Artists suppressed under illegitimate government protests for the freedom to express. Freedom of Expression is a fundamental right, yet, a space for creative and artistic flourishing has been denied to us violently and brutally by this Police State. The continuing abuse of fundamental rights and freedom must stop!”

Tonight, for the first time ever there was heavy police presence (in riot gear) at the art gallery and surrounding compound attempting to disperse the demonstrating artists and at times denying them entry into the gallery. These artists demonstrated silently calling for an end to police brutality and restoration of order through immediate elections. International artists may not be aware of the current relapse into repressive situation in the Maldives.

Since the coup violent crackdowns have begun, imposing an atmosphere of fear and repression. Members of the general public including political activists continue to be terrorized by the police and defense forces on the street. Fear and repression by security forces, as well as seeing old faces of dictator Gayyoom’s regime back in power marks a return to darker days of authoritarian rule that Maldivians thought they had overcome during the last three years. These developments treated to undo the huge gains made by the Maldives in strengthening its infant democracy with daily onslaught of violence unleashed upon citizens and violations of fundamental rights and freedom.

It is also noteworthy to mention that the Minister of Tourism, Foreign Minister and the newly installed head of National Centre of Art, Ali Waheed (coup president Dr.Waheed’s brother) were escorted by police personnel while viewing the artwork on display. On the other hand coup president Dr.Waheed’s younger brother Naushad Waheed (an artist currently residing in the UK) is a vocal opponent condemning the coup and calling his brother to step down.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17353230)

Meanwhile just a few blocks away police were attacking and arresting people peacefully protesting outside coup defense minister’s residence calling for an end to the ongoing state sponsored terrorism against Maldivians. And a couple of hours earlier riot police brutally dispersed a crowd gathered near the Justice Square protesting against the coup.

Artists and artistic expression were systematically suppressed during the dictatorship and art was never considered a medium for political expression. It was simply commodified and sold as souvenirs for tourists. But the young courageous artists tonight took one giant step for all the artists in the nation.

for more information please visit: mvdemocracy.com

WikiLeaks begins to publish today over five million e-mails obtained by Anonymous from “global intelligence” company Stratfor. The emails, which reveal everything from sinister spy tactics to an insider trading scheme with Goldman Sachs (see below), also include several discussions of the Yes Men and Bhopal activists. (Bhopal activists seek redress for the 1984 Dow Chemical/Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India, that led to thousands of deaths, injuries in more than half a million people, and lasting environmental damage.)

Many of the Bhopal-related emails, addressed from Stratfor to Dow and Union Carbide public relations directors, reveal concern that, in the lead-up to the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, the Bhopal issue might be expanded into an effective systemic critique of corporate rule, and speculate at length about why this hasn’t yet happened—providing a fascinating window onto what at least some corporate types fear most from activists.

“[Bhopal activists] have made a slight nod toward expanded activity, but never followed through on it—the idea of ‘other Bhopals’ that were the fault of Dow or others,” mused Joseph de Feo, who is listed in one online source as a “Briefer” for Stratfor.

“Maybe the Yes Men were the pinnacle. They made an argument in their way on their terms—that this is a corporate problem and a part of the a [sic] larger whole,” wrote Kathleen Morson, Stratfor’s Director of Policy Analysis.

“With less than a month to go [until the 25th anniversary], you’d think that the major players—especially Amnesty—would have branched out from Bhopal to make a broader set of issues. I don’t see any evidence of it,” wrote Bart Mongoven, Stratfor’s Vice President, in November 2004. “If they can’t manage to use the 25th anniversary to broaden the issue, they probably won’t be able to.”

Mongoven even speculates on coordination between various activist campaigns that had nothing to do with each other. “TheChevron campaign [in Ecuador] is remarkably similar [to the Dow campaign] in its unrealistic demand. Is it a follow up or an admission that the first thrust failed? Am I missing a node of activity or a major campaign that is to come? Has the Dow campaign been more successful than I think?” It’s almost as if Mongoven assumes the two campaigns were directed from the same central activist headquarters.

Just as Wall Street has at times let slip their fear of the Occupy Wall Street movement, these leaks seem to show that corporate power is most afraid of whatever reveals “the larger whole” and “broader issues,” i.e. whatever brings systemic criminal behavior to light. “Systemic critique could lead to policy changes that would challenge corporate power and profits in a really major way,” noted Joseph Huff-Hannon, recently-promoted Director of Policy Analysis for the Yes Lab.

Among the millions of other leaked Stratfor emails are some that reveal dubious financial practices, including an apparent insider trading scheme with Goldman Sachs Managing Director Shea Morenz, who joined Stratfor’s board of directors and invested “substantially” more than $4 million in the scheme, called StratCap. “What StratCap will do is use our Stratfor’s intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical instruments,” wrote Stratfor CEO George Friedman in September 2011. StratCap was designed through a complex offshore share structure to appear legally independent, but Friedman assured Stratfor staff otherwise: “Do not think of StratCap as an outside organisation. It will be integral… It will be useful to you… We are already working on mock portfolios and trades.” (StratCap has been due to launch in 2012, though that could now change.)

Other emails show Stratfor techniques of a truly creepy Spy vs. Spy sort: “[Y]ou have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control,” wrote CEO Friedman recently to an employee, Reva Bhalla, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence informant providing information on Chavez’s cancer. (Stratfor’s “confidential intelligence services” clients include, besides Dow and Union Carbide, the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines, the US Defense Intelligence Agency, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon.)

Perhaps most entertainingly of all, the email trove reveals that Stratfor’s “Confederation Partners”—an unethical alliance between Stratfor and a number of mainstream journalists—are referred to informally within Stratfor as its “Confed Fuck House.” (Another discovery: Coca Cola was spying on PETA. More such gems are sure to surface as operatives sift through the 5.5 million emails.)

A number of the remaining Yes Men-related emails take the form of reports on public appearances by the Yes Men, such as one that describes one audience comprised of “art students on class assignments and free entertainment.” Another notes that “The Yes Men tweeted about the US Chamber of Commerce ‘plotting forged emails, documents to trick (AND smear) opponents,’” a reference to an apparent plot to discredit Chamber opponents using forged documents, as revealed when thousands of emails were recently leaked by Anonymous from cyber-security firm HB Gary. Yet another discusses Alessio Rastani, the Wall Street trader widely mistaken for Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum, who proclaimed, live on the BBC, that “governments don’t rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world.”

“Rastani was right,” said the real Andy Bichlbaum five months later. “But it’s now very clear that it doesn’t have to be that way anymore.”

The Yes Men and representatives from the Bhopal Medical Appeal will join Julian Assange of Wikileaks at a press conference at noon today, Feb. 27, at the Frontline Club in London.

Saturday 25 February, 1pm-3.30pm, London.

Last year the National Gallery hosted an evening reception for weapons dealers, celebrating the first day of business at DSEi, the world’s largest arms fair.

Italian arms company, Finmeccanica sponsors the gallery: for £30,000 it buys the opportunity to use the gallery’s rooms to impress its clients and woo decision-makers. Against such a lavish backdrop it’s probably easy to forget that their business is death and destruction.

Help get the arms dealers out of the Gallery

Stop the Arms Fair is launching a campaign to end the National Gallery’s links with Finmeccanica. There is loads of potential for artivism: using art to communicate and win the campaign. Get involved and help plan a creative and engaging launch action and sketch out future plans.
When: Saturday 25 February, 1pm-3.30pm

Where: Room 1, Friends House, Euston Road (opposite Euston station)

Please invite friends and people involved in other networks.

Let us know you’re coming, email info@stopthearmsfair.org.uk

Facebook event here.

II Symposium

Political Performance

Performances for Change the World

Or

Performances for Apply Make-up on the Dead Body

24. -  27. 3.  2012

Belgrade, Serbia

The second Symposium Political Performance is dedicated to the theory and current practice of political performance art and performance art in politics. Political Performance is a convergence of desire and necessity; the desire to question how performance art today might approach the subject of politics, and the necessarily to respond to the imperative, in these crisis times: to put performance art at the forefront of political collective conscience and individual thought and practice. In one sense, it has already done so: politicians (not artists) have moved performance art from the margins of art history to the centre of a broader political discourse. The performance artists now stay in closed gallery circle, making performances with bureaucratically determined goals, in order to be enjoyed by the few.

And during these turbulent times, many of the most radical behaviours and skills from performance art migrate to politics, and politicians have given the most attractive, and, unfortunately, the most influential performances. Why do they use one of the most expressive, most emotionally powerful, most radical of art forms; one synonymous with political resistance? Why do today’s politicians have to be performance artists as much as possible? Because, there is no longer enough bread – only circuses! Politicians-as –“circus” were a global phenomena until yesterday.

Today’s performance stars are angry protesters! A new global phenomenon has occurred in real political life and performance: the politicians, who have been using   performance very successfully, and political protesters, have exchanged places! Iconic performance sites such as streets and squares have already been occupied by real political performers – for instance protesters in Tunis’s November 7 Square (now renamed Mohammad Bouazizi Square after the first protester who stared the revolution), Tahrir square, Cairo, Green Square, Tripoli (renamed Martyr’s Square after the 2011 Revolution).

However, let us not assume political use of performance art is reserved only for the Third World), for this is a situation where globalization brightly shows its real face: everything, everywhere is disintegrating. There is no place on the Earth where you are safe with politicians and politics, their exploitation and opposite: there is no place for calmly sleeping: there are protesters in Madrid, London, Wall street, Roma, Moscow, in every major city. Protesters in revolt give not only the most powerful and radical performances but performances in which they risk life and limb (as in Syria and South of Serbia)!

But, now in the world of global capitalism, we wonder: are these performances really progressive?. We have no peace because we feel the words of Walter Benjamin from 1936, which are very apt for the times: “Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property… War and war only can set a goal for mass movements on the largest scale while respecting the traditional property system.”

Now more than ever, performance artists must help their societies win in this curative fight with global Fascism, so they must perfect in the subtle ways to use performance art to advertise itself.

The Second Symposium Political Performance opens up  the questions:

- Performance art to change the world or performance art only to apply make-up on the dead body. Every now and then, performances really  question  and try to radically change the society, or do they slave only to beautify  the dead body? Does this mean performance has lost its radical edge? Has performance become a safe artistic commodity, or does it still épater la bourgeoisie and demand a better tomorrow?

- The performance art in the age of “Calculated Stirring”. Leading or supporting role of the performance art in the Eve of Destruction? What is the nature and  function of political performance art in the second “dark” middle ages of art and life, riddled with unimaginable exploitation and torture, sadism, totalitarian systems, and unprecedented mass destruction; riddled with sick needs to endlessly devise even more perfected ways of man’s degradation until total ruin and destruction engulf him… In the age when The True, the Beautiful, and the Good, the Holy Trinity of Art, are banished from all realms artistic and existential.

- “To the Left, to the Right, the freshness is nowhere!” Left Wing and Right Wing performances; Fascistic and Antifascism performances?

- “Money in the Hands” of “You, People without Mercy.” Anti capitalism  and anti globalization  performances have been implicated in a process of inoculation  to protect  capitalism? Must  the performance art be influenced by capital or must they be fully integreted with capitalism? Has political  performance been co-opted   into signs and  commodities and thus becoming subservient to Capital?

Ana Milovanović

The second Symposium Political Performance examines the complexities underlying our current perceptions of political performance, not only in Serbia, but worldwide. It aims to discover the mechanisms of political propaganda and manipulation of the masses across performance art   and to try to offer a new approach to the study of political performance. It aims to encourage performers, artists, academics, theoreticians and, not least, the audience to make differences between performance within the political setting of everyday life, and performance art with a political content.

The symposium will be a gathering of some of the most exciting and radical performance artists and thinkers from across the world and will showcase some of the most interesting examples of performance in the political life of Serbia. It will be a four-day program of events and activities, taking place at well-known public and historical sites in contemporary Belgrade on historical dates (24th March and 27th March) and at an important historical time – just before the “pro or contra EU” referendum in Serbia.

We are seeking submissions only from artists, activists, academics and theoreticians working within live performance art and political performance.

For artists: Please submit as much as possible about the work you wish to show (visually and textually), alongside details and information about your previous political performances. Please also enclose a CV and links to online media about the work you wish to show and any other previous works. All must be sent as a file attachment to:  politicalperformance@yahoo.com

For academics and theoreticians: Please submit as much as possible of   the text you wish to participate at theoretical platforms. Also, enclose a CV. Abstracts should be no more than 250 words in length and must be sent as a file attachment to politicalperformance@yahoo.com

The deadline: 20. 2. 2012.

THE  PARTICIPATION  IS  FREE AND WITHOUT ANY KIND OF CENSORSHIP!

No  Admission Fee