shuffle

SHUFFLE

A psychogeographic experiment
with a deck of cards and your own two feet.

Saturday, 21 September, 2:00pm [rain or shine]

Williamsburg [Brooklyn]

Meet at the corner of Bedford Ave. and N. 7th Street
in front of the Salvation Army thrift store.
[Closest train is the L to Bedford Ave.]

***Please bring a small notebook/pen [paper or digital].
Digital camera, video camera, GPS receiver, voice/audio recorder, laptop,
area map, chalk, stickers, breadcrumbs, etc. are optional...

Psychogeography can be broadly defined as the study of how physical
surroundings affect mood and behavior. Explorers who wander the world as
psychogeographers have various motivations ã political, artistic,
scientific, technological, philosophical, historical. There are those who
engage in demographic research, social protest or the documentation of
overlooked spaces. Others study patterns of movement and navigation by
setting specific parameters for constrained walks. Audio/visual artists and
writers who use the landscape as raw material gather objects, data and
recordings, and often alter their cities by means of stickers, graffiti,
performance or intervention. Some psychogeographers use GPS receivers to
locate hidden caches or make drawings in the landscape. High-speed networks
and wireless devices are also being used as psychogeographic tools. Areas of
related activity include urban planning, cartography, gaming, virtual
environments, the creation of mazes and labyrinths and urban code (tagging,
warchalking, hobo signs). Finally, there are always those who stroll, drift
and wander simply for the pleasure of turning the next corner...

Taking a cue from those working in generative/algorithmic psychogeography,
Glowlab is interested in devising a method with limited rules that can
generate diverse actions. SHUFFLE is an attempt to incorporate the various
sub-genres of psychogeography in a list of instructions that will be printed
as a deck of cards. Examples of the instructions include "take the next
right," "note any landmarks on this block," "chalk the sidewalk with a
message," "go into the nearest shop and have a look," "describe any
surveillance devices in this area," "do nothing for one minute," "photograph
or sketch graffiti/stickers/flyers on this block" and "keep walking straight
ahead."

At the start of the session, participants (working alone or in groups) will
be given an identical deck of cards stacked in numerical order. Each group
must shuffle the deck of another group, thus randomizing the order of their
walk. Heading in different directions, each group will turn over the first
card of the shuffled deck and follow the instructions. Cards are to be
'played' in succession for about an hour, after which there will be a
gathering at a local bar for drinks and discussion. Depending on the results
of this first experiment, future sessions could be set to last an entire
day, or until the deck has been run through.

"Dark Market" Media Politics Conference, Vienna, October 3-4, 2002

Infopolitics, Electronic Media and Democracy in Times of Crisis

Dark Market is a two-day strategic conference that will look into the state of the art of media politics, information technologies, and theories of democracy. A variety of international speakers will inquire into strategies of oppositional movements and discuss the role of new media.

These are some of the questions Dark Markets would like to address:

Autonomous Media Conference

Tucson, Arizona, October 3-6, 2002

Matt Bevel Institute, 530 N. Stone Avenue, Tucson, Arizona

Workshops

How to Build Your Own Micro FM Radio Station

Magazine Production and Distribution

Book Production and Distribution

Billboard Improvement

Web Design

Self-Censorship in Mainstream Media

Community Radio and Cable TV Access

Starting and Running Infoshops and Bookstores

Graffiti

Multi-Media and Music CD Production

Puppet- and Banner- Making

Decision-Making in Media Projects

Fundraising

Schedules Follow:

Old Night Equinox

A Surrealist Exercise

With every new encroachment by the repressive forces of civilization,
wilderness finds a new means for reasserting its presence. It is inspiring
that, even as we enter into this terrible new age of the National Security
State and its perpetual wars "in defense of civilization," we continue to
encounter ancient, ignored, or heretofore unseen manifestations of that
which refuses to be "civilized." At every turn, one finds evidence that
what is wild cannot and will never be controlled.

Invitation to research: Old Night Equinox is a scavenger hunt for night in
the full light of day. This surrealist intervention is scheduled for the
early afternoon of Monday September 23, the autumnal equinox. The objective
is to document elements of persistent and/or impending darkness during the
diurnal period. On June 21, Stephen Clark contacted his comrades in the
Leeds (UK) Surrealist Group to play Old Night with the following call to
participants:

Activist Calendar for Washington, DC, September 25–30, 2002

More than 40 events for this long weekend are listed below. Please click on the "read more" box.

"Biopower and Societies of Control"

First Annual Meeting of the Society for Social and Political Philosophy: Historical, Continental, and
Feminist Perspectives

To be held in conjunction with the 41st Annual Conference of the Society
for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP) at Loyola University,
Chicago, October 10, 2002 (from 9 am to 12 noon)

The term ^biopower^ is almost exclusively associated with the work of
Michel Foucault. In the last decade, however, the significance of the
term and its usage as a suggestive invocation about a fundamental
relation between life and politics has been re-examined and explored by
numerous thinkers (Patton, Agamben, Lazzarato, Hardt and Negri, etc.).

Plans for our opposition to the celebration of
Columbus Day in Denver, Colorado, are in full swing.
Planning is constantly underway, but we have come out
with a general outline of events and actions from
October 9th –13th for those planning on attending.

We will also have plenty of food and housing available
for our out-of-town guests, as well as child care for
everyone.

The Herbert Read Conference

Dates: 25, 26 and 27 June 2004

Location: The Djanogly Arts Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, England

Deadline for Submission of Proposals: Not yet set

Following his death in 1968, interest in Herbert Read's work fell away dramatically, and even his position as a signifiant historical figure in the history of Modernism was often forgotten. This situation began to change in 1993 with the staging of the major international exhibition, Herbert Read: A British Vision of World Art, at Leeds City Art Galleries in England. Together with the accompanying catalogue and an academic conference, this exhibition sowed the seeds for a revival of interest in Read which is very much in evidence today.

FAU Moers 2 faumo2 writes:

A report about the International Solidarity Conference (i2002)

Essen, Germany, August 29 - September 1, 2002

THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE TO SOCIAL REVOLUTION

"ZECHE CARL" is a social and cultural center, within a former coal mine
complex, located in the former "red Ruhr region", in Essen. Perhaps
better called the "black-red Ruhr region", since the surrounding
industrial cities were the stronghold of anarchosyndicalism and unionism
at the beginning of the last century. At that time radical workers were
able to temporarily institute the 6 hour day in the Ruhr mines, before
their militias were broken up after 1920 on orders of the
social-democratic reaction.

It seems that the conference was rather
inspired by this space, to which the "Freie Arbeiterinnen Union" (FAU),
the German Section of the IWA, had invited them. 160 militants from 20
countries accepted invitations, some as groups, some as individuals.
Among them were, just to mention those who had the most miles to travel,
workers from Argentina, Australia, Japan and Siberia. Many more would
gladly have come, had they not been frustrated by the bureaucratic
hurdles of "Fortress Europa", or by the inability to raise the means for
the trip in the midst of a global capitalist crisis. Several instead
sent greetings to the conference, such as the exil region of the Spanish
CNT, the IWW and the WSA from the United States, the Syndicalist
Education Union from Australia, and many others.

ACEHNESE CULTURAL FESTIVAL

in memoriam for murdered human rights activist Jafar Siddiq Hamzah

The New School University in conjunction with the International Forum for Aceh will present an Acehnese Cultural Festival, including an exhibition and a Discussion of Culture and Conflict in Aceh. The Festival Theme: "THE JOURNEY TO ACEH"



Exhibition and Discussion of Culture and conflict:

Friday, September 20, 2002, 3.00 PM- 6.00 PM

At the Wolff Conference Room (229), 65 Fifth Avenue,

The New School University, New York City

The Cultural Performance: Saturday, September 21, 2002
2.00 PM-5.00 PM

At Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street,

The New School University, New York City