http://01sj.org/content/view/334/49/
http://www.o-matic.com/isea

Karaoke Ice is a delicious pop culture mash-up, an ice cream truck-turned-mobilekaraoke-unit, deployed to unite people in a collective quest to transform the streets of San Jose into a space of community interaction. Participants karaoke for an audience while sitting in the transformed front cab of the vehicle, and use a customized karaoke engine to select, sing, and record a song for later broadcast, as the truck makes it way to a variety of festival locations. Free frozen treats lure prospective performers to participate, distributed by Remedios the Squirrel Cub, who drives the truck and choreographs enigmatic rituals of his own to the tunes emanating from the citizen performers. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Superstition. Heart of Glass. The streets of San Jose transformed through flavor and song.

Karaoke Ice is a commissioned residency proejct by ZeroOne San Jose, San Jose State University, and the Lucas Artists Program at Montalvo.
Overview

Imagine an ice cream truck transformed into a mobile karaoke unit, driven by a squirrel cub with a penchant for cheap magic, deployed to spark spontaneous interaction between festival-goers, locals, and tourists in Cesar Chavez Plaza and surrounding neighborhoods. Customized with karaoke mics, disco ball, and speakers, and aesthetically "dressed" in a language of local vernacular (think lowrider neon, mariachi fringe, Chinese lanterns, and California cool), this "mobile magnet" not only serves as an information node within the festival network, but represents a "metanomad" who wanders the festival grounds, seeking and sharing information, catalyzing play among the Cesar Chavez populous, and delivering cool treats amidst the rays of the bright August sun.

The truck, or Lucci as she is known, is a tasty pop culture hybrid, one that brings two familiar expressions of "network culture" - ice cream trucks and karaoke bars--into conversation with one another. Dressed in song and shimmer, Lucci broadcasts tinny pop songs in endless, repetitive loops as she weaves her way through the zone of the Festival. This then, is her magic. The resulting mix is one that celebrates the power of song to entice and inflame, as well as the sense of community that can be fostered among strangers trapped in a terrestrial network.

Tinged with the themes of deception and illusion, of costume, character, water, and ice, Lucci and her pal Remedios draw participants in through sight, sound, and taste. Unable to resist the temptation to editorialize the festival goings on, she doles out festival news, providing her own sharp brand of observation and opinion on things seen and (over) heard. Patrons can read these printed missives as they are dispatched daily through a slit in Lucci's side. At nighttime, once their work for the day is done, it's time to let loose. They find a party to join, hustle some more karaoke, and enjoy the festival entertainment.

I hope to collect and compare anecdotes of Mrs. Ba from the Vietnamese diaspora in Vancouver and San Jose and transcribe these oral tales to one cohesive history in Vietnamese and English. This record will be a part of the shrines/installations to be installed in Vietnamese noodle restaurants in San Jose.
Ba Ba is a woman who sells noodle soup at Bai Sau Beach in Qui Nhon, the town in Vietnam where I was born. Many tragedies befell Ba Ba including the suicide drowning in 1971 of her son who had refused to enlist. In 1972 she was gunned down when Bai Sau Beach became a battlefield; while operating on her wounds, the surgeon notes that she was shot by an AK 47, the Soviet-made gun of the advancing North Vietnamese Army - and as well as by an M-16 supplied to the retreating South Vietnamese Armies by the Americans. Betrayed by her two daughters, who had married American soldiers, she was left outside the American embassy in Saigon on that fateful day in June of 1975. Ba Ba returned to Bai Sau Beach and amid accusations from her friends and neighbours of working for the enemy she planned her escape and left Vietnam by boat in the fall of 1976 in search of her daughters. She was never seen again. These tales of Ba Ba's indomitable spirit were invoked by many Vietnamese boat people during the exodus by sea throughout the eighties and early nineties.

Vietnamese altars and shrines are dedicated to many contemporary personages whose stories and deeds are often passed on as shining examples of the human spirit and as well as what to do in such situations. These stories of Ba Ba resonate with many Vietnamese restaurant workers whose struggles mirror her own. Although it is an important and relevant tale, it is gradually fading. The last known shrine to Ba Ba in Vancouver was at Little Saigon Restaurant, which closed in 2003.

My work has always drawn inspiration and clarity from Vietnamese stories and rituals. Many of my works are anchored by personal stories from my mother and her friends, such as recent installations highlighting Lao Noi Kieu (Ancient Citizen) a spirit whose influence includes matters of nation and citizenship. Lao shrines were installed at Banff Centre in 2004 and at the Glenbow Museum in Alberta in 2005. Calling for Ba Ba is an important and necessary extension of my particular interest in creating installations to figures whose deeds inspired and galvanized the Vietnamese community in Canada during its early struggle.

[Live at IAMAS (10.18.2005)]

The Breadboard Band is a performing band that uses breadboards made of freely constructed electronic circuits to play music. We produce audio and visual expression through the most minimal, fundamental elements in the form of showing the electronic components of an instrument while directly touching and forming the electronic circuit by hand. The electric signals released from hand-made electronic circuits releases extremely rough and ferocious wave patterns. This performance is based on improvisational interplay, and we pull powerful music into shape through each member's operation, while discovering new sounds by hand.

The Breadboard Band is one that uses a breadboard to perform music. A breadboard is a board that is perforated with connector holes into a grid-shape, to which electronic components are inserted in order to build a prototype of an electronic circuit. The electronic components can be inserted or removed with ease, making it simple to change the wiring with jumper cables. Utilizing the features of the breadboard, The Breadboard Band creates audio and visual circuits on the board, and modifies them during performance.

Today, 100 years from the public performance in 1906 of the Telharmonium, the first electronic musical instrument, The Breadboard Band raises objections toward black-box electronic musical instruments and computers. This objection is raised in the form of showing the electronic components of an instrument, directly touching and forming the electric circuit by hand, and producing audio and visual expression through the most minimal, fundamental elements. This can be considered the hardware version of software programming. The circuit change during a performance is called "On-the-fly Wiring".

The performance of the circuits on the breadboard is less than 0.1% of that of electronic audio and video devices offered commercially. The electric signals released from hand-made electronic circuits releases extremely rough and ferocious wave patterns that might destroy a commercial instrument. However, the primal screams of ecstasy released from the electric circuits surge from the depths of modern society that is surrounded by sophisticated information technology, and stirs us with emotion.

The Breadboard Band's performances based on improvisational interplay, and we pull powerful music into shape through each member's operation, while discovering new sounds by hand. Various elements blend together, becoming one from beats made through analog oscillation circuits, riffs made through programmable chips, noises made through magnetic head, scratches made through a hacked iPod, and the videos of changing audio signals. It may be quite humorous to see the serious expressions of the performers as they grapple with small electronic components, but they match any band in vigor and potency.

The project examines the private politics behind the corporate world, an environment where competitiveness turns into deceit. It focuses on the covert act of sabotaging office communications and equipment to reduce its efficiency in daily operations. This act creates a suspense in the strange imperfections, the unnerving fault finding performed on the equipment and the growing frustrations by the co-workers.

Weapons for the corporate armoury investigates the possibility of designing a weapon that inflicts trauma on your co-worker in a non-lethal manner, thereby allowing you to get ahead in business. The project examines the private politics behind the corporate world, an environment where competitiveness turns into deceit. It focuses on the covert act of sabotaging office communications and equipment to reduce its efficiency in daily operations. This act creates a suspense in the strange imperfections, the unnerving fault finding performed on the equipment and the growing frustrations by the co-workers.

The narrative
The relationship between the co-workers deteriorate as a result.. The consequences became so drastic that the victim's performance drops and eventually loses his job.

The tools/design
The Firefly tool intercepts the scanning job through the use of intermittent bright flashing lights in the scanner. The frequency of activation causes disturbances to the output. The result is random imperfect quality on the final scanned document.

The Woodpecker tool produces irregular stamping action in the printer. This action is synchronised with the mechanical movement of the print head to create an array of patches in the final printout, rendering it useless.

The Cateye tool is basically the eye of the saboteur. It is a spy camera that [provides a visual overview of the victim's actions and intentions. It has to be strategically placed within the operations area.

ABOUT SCRAPYARD CHALLENGE WORKSHOPS
The Scrapyard Challenge Workshops are intensive workshops where participants build simple electronic projects (both digital and analog inputs) out of found or discarded "junk" (old electronics, clothing, furniture, outdated computer equipment, appliances, turntables, monitors, gadgets, etc..). So far the workshops have been held 14 times in 6 countries with 3 different themes including the MIDI Scrapyard Challenge where participants build simple musical controllers from discarded objects and "junk", DIY Wearable Challenge where they create wearable tech projects from used clothing, and the DIY Urban Challenge where they work on public space interventions and other projects. The MIDI Scrapyard version includes a mini workshop where participants build simple drawing robots or "DrawBots" with small, inexpensive motors, batteries, and drawing markers that can also be connected to Serial or MIDI interface. At the end of the day or evening, the workshop participants have a small performance, concert, or fashion show (depending on the workshop theme) where they demonstrate and preent their creations together as a group. No electronics skills or any experience with technology is necessary to participate in the workshops.

OPEN AND COLLABORATIVE SPACE
The Scrapyard Challenge Workshops are built on the premise of encouraging an open and collaborative space for creative ideas and hands-on prototyping. Workshop attendees learn how to build simple instruments from found and/or discarded objects. We encourage attendance from visitors from multiple backgrounds and all skill levels.

Fine Cell Work is a Registered Charity that teaches needlework to prison inmates and sells their products. The prisoners do the work when they are locked in their cells, and the earnings give them hope, skills and independence.

Savings reduce the likelihood of offenders returning to crime. Prisoners often send the money they earn from Fine Cell Work to their children and families, or use it to pay debts or for accommodation upon release.

The inmates are all taught by volunteers from the Embroiderers Guild, the Royal School of Needlework and the world of professional design. Once trained, they can be responsible for difficult commissions done to deadlines, and support other inmates who are still learning.

chess set

salt and pepper shaker

This project was a collaboration with Angelo, an incarcerated artist. He illustrated many incredible inventions made by prisoners to fill needs that the restrictive environment of the prison tries to supress. The inventions cover everything from homemade sex dolls, condoms, salt and peper shakers to chess sets. We collaborated on this project with Angelo for over two years. We had many additional collaborators who made a book, exhibition of re-created inventions and a prison cell possible. This page offers an overview of the project thus far.

"When first approached with the idea of illustrating examples of inmate inventiveness, I was skeptical, thinking that there would be little of real interest to depict. When I set my mind to the task, though, I recognized the surprising range of inventions and innovations that I had witnessed. I had just become so used to it all that the uniqueness no longer registered."

As we live, so we work

Temporary Services is a group of three persons: Brett Bloom, Marc Fischer, and Salem Collo-Julin. We draw on our varied backgrounds and interests to incorporate our aesthetic practice within our lived experiences. The need to create change within our daily lives translates directly to our public projects.

The distinction between art practice and other creative human endeavors is irrelevant to us. We embed the creative work we present within thoughtful and imaginative social contexts and strive to create participatory situations.

We champion public projects that are temporary, ephemeral, or that operate outside of conventional or officially sanctioned categories of public expression. We appreciate such diverse activities as makeshift roadside memorials to accident victims, temporary housing encampments designed by homeless people, tree houses fabricated by children, and idiosyncratic public notices that get stuffed inside the display windows of free newspaper boxes. We like outdoor projects that are encountered by surprise rather than sought out with deliberation like exhibitions and special events. We especially appreciate those projects that do not have permission and challenge expected usages.

Pirkle Jones, Women, Free Huey Rally, Oakland, 1968

We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.

So begins the ten-point political platform of the Black Panther Party. Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Party, Black Panther Rank and File offers a multifaceted look at one of the 20th century's most controversial and inspirational organizations.

The exhibition pairs rare artifacts--never-before-released documents, recordings, film clips and archival photos, including seminal historical photography--with artworks inspired by the movement and reflecting its liberating ideals. A range of photography, film and artworks from leading contemporary artists will reflect upon the Party's lasting legacy. Also on view will be works by artists who were creating during the rise of the Party. This complex and powerful exhibition uses the Black Panther Party as a lens through which we can explore the role artists play in inspiring social change, and in remembering and reflecting on human struggle and achievement.

Artist list:
Radcliffe Bailey
John Bankston
Ruth-Marion Baruch
Joseph Beuys
Margaret Bourke-White
Nick Cave
Emory Douglas
Ducho Dennis
Sam Durant
Coco Fusco
Ellen Gallagher
Leon Golub
Tony Gray
David Hammons
Ilka Hartmann
Barkley L. Hendricks
Lonnie Bradley Holley
Jeff Hull
It's About Time
Arthur Jafa
Paa Joe
Pirkle Jones
Kerry James Marshall
Daniel J. Martinez
Chris McNair
Zwelethu Mthethwa
Refa 1, Steve Jones and Toons
Paul Sequeira
Stephen Shames
Gail Shaw
Jeff Sonhouse
Carlos Vega
Roberto Visani
Andy Warhol
Carrie Mae Weems
and others

Creative Commons licenses provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators. We have built upon the "all rights reserved" concept of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary "some rights reserved" approach. We're a nonprofit organization. All of our tools are free.

About Us
"Some Rights Reserved": Building a Layer of Reasonable Copyright

Too often the debate over creative control tends to the extremes. At one pole is a vision of total control -- a world in which every last use of a work is regulated and in which "all rights reserved" (and then some) is the norm. At the other end is a vision of anarchy -- a world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but are left vulnerable to exploitation. Balance, compromise, and moderation -- once the driving forces of a copyright system that valued innovation and protection equally -- have become endangered species.

Creative Commons is working to revive them. We use private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them -- to declare "some rights reserved."

The Luddites were a social movement of English workers in the early 1800s who protested - often by destroying textile machines - against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution that they felt threatened their jobs. The movement, which began in 1811, was named after a probably mythical leader, Ned Ludd. For a short time the movement was so strong that it clashed in battles with the British Army. Measures taken by the government included a mass trial at York in 1813 that resulted in many death penalties and transportations (deportment to a penal colony).

The English historical movement has to be seen in its context of the harsh economic climate due to the Napoleonic Wars; but since then, the term Luddite has been used to describe anyone opposed to technological progress and technological change. For the modern movement of opposition to technology, see neo-luddism.

E. P. Thompson's view of Luddism
In his work on English history, The Making of the English Working Class, E. P. Thompson presented an alternative view of Luddite history.

Luddites are often characterised, and indeed their name has to some become synonymous with, people opposed to all change--in particular technological change such as that which was sweeping through the weaving shops in the industrial heartland of England. They are often characterised as violent, thuggish, and disorganised.

E. P. Thompson advances many arguments against this view of the Luddites. He shows that the Luddites were not opposed to new technology, but rather to the abolition of set prices and therefore also to the introduction of what we would today call the free market.

Thompson argues that it was this newly-introduced economic system that the Luddites were protesting. For example, the Luddite song, "General Ludd's Triumph":

The guilty may fear, but no vengeance he aims
At the honest man's life or Estate
His wrath is entirely confined to wide frames
And to those that old prices abate

"Wide frames" were the weaving frames, and the old prices were those prices agreed by custom and practice. Thompson cites the many historical accounts of Luddite raids on workshops where some frames were smashed whilst others (whose owners were obeying the old economic practice and not trying to cut prices) were left untouched.

Secondly, Thompson counters the view that the Luddites were thuggish. There were remarkably few Luddite arrests and executions, and yet they operated highly effectively against the forces of the state. Thompson's explanation for this is that they were working with the consent of the local communities (or indeed were part of those communities).

Thirdly, Thompson argues that the Luddites were not disorganised. He notes that some of the largest Luddite activities involved a hundred men.

In short, Thompson feels that in caricaturing the Luddites as 'thugs' who just wanted to smash up new technology we are simply continuing the propaganda of the time. The reality, in Thompson's view, is that the Luddites were normal people who were protesting against changes of which they disapproved.

Evidence for this point of view has been further developed by Prof Kevin Binfield ('Writings of the Luddites' - see [1] ).-

From an early stage in his work, Shonibare has employed the ambiguous materials and motifs of West African textiles. These fabrics seem to symbolise the rich complexity of post-colonial cultures in that, while the patterns and colours are thought to be authentically African, they actually originate from Indonesian Batik work,a technique which was industrialised by Dutch traders. The British adopted these processes, setting up factories in the North of England where Asian workers printed English designs for the West African market. So as Kobena Mercer notes the fabric has a mixed identity In Africa it has the allure of imported goods, in Europe it evokes exotica. More recently these cloths have been styled and worn by Black British and African American people as a visual signifier for a connection with and pride in their African roots.

Shonibare`s work examines the contradictions of both contemporary and historical portrayals of Africans living in Britain, a country built on hierarchies of class and race. He has made a series of sculptural pieces, using his trademark African textiles, which take the form of Victorian crinolines and bodices, transforming these usually staid and confining structures into bright, flamboyant sculptures. Many of his pieces have a highly crafted and decorative appearance but at the same time through their translation of materials or juxtaposition of references, provide a critical commentary on the way the orthodox history of art has judged, categorised or completely overlooked other histories, artists and works.

How a Dutch company's batik textiles became the basis of "traditional" West African culture.
By Matt Steinglass, Metropolis Magazine

"Vlisco was founded in 1846 by a famous Dutch merchant family called the van Vlissingens," explains Joop van der Meij, the company's CEO. "One of the van Vlissingen sons had been in Indonesia, where he discovered the batik method of dying cloth. He had the idea that maybe this method could be industrialized in Europe." By the late 1800s Dutch factories were supplying the bulk of the Indonesian batik market, and as Dutch freighters stopped at various African ports on their way over, the fabrics began to gain an African clientele. At the beginning of the twentieth century, when measures were taken to protect domestic Indonesian batik production, the market for imports there slumped. Africa gradually became the exclusive market for Dutch batik, and by the 1960s Vlisco, having merged with all its rivals, had become the exclusive supplier.

In an industry where the reverse is more common, Vlisco is an anomaly: a European-based textile company whose market is in the third world. Almost none of Vlisco's product is bought in Europe or North America. ...

The patterns on the imitation fabrics, meanwhile, are often nearly identical to those on Real Dutch Wax, because the competitors steal them. Van der Meij claims that 80 percent of the designs one sees on wax-print fabrics in Africa started out on Vlisco drawing boards. The company has fought several successful legal actions, but the Asians are not to be deterred. Lately Nigerian textile makers have also been getting in on the act. "We can put the new fabrics out on the market as soon as the containers arrive from Holland," says Agbobli Médémé, service representative of Vlisco's Togolese partner company, V.A.C.-Togo. "The Nigerian copies start showing up eight days later."

So the authentic traditional West African fabrics are the ones produced in Holland, and the stuff made in West Africa is fake? Can this be right?

Texts by and pertaining to the Situationist International have been entered into a database, and are available at the Text Library by clicking the link on the left. The library is fully searchable, and features more texts than ever before. Information on related articles are linked from each text, and biographical blurbs about the authors are just a click away.

Situationist images and related graphics are available from the Images link, which currently offers a selection of graphics, and a picturebook of posters from May 1968 in Paris.

Links to other Situationist and prositu websites are available through Links.

The Independent School of Art is a nomadic experimental art school. Without institutional affiliations, degrees, or public funding, the school exists solely through the labor and efforts of it's participants, and thus fosters a proactive approach to college-level arts education, a real-world model where students are challenged to determine and create their own artistic realities. The school's barter-based tuition system makes explicit and direct the social contract between students and teachers and honors their collective labor as a vital form of cultural production. By existing without a site and locating nomadically, the school prioritizes social over physical architecture, and challenges students and teachers alike to imagine how their practice might intersect and respond to a larger set of physical situations and cultural possibilities. Since the ISA is not driven by tuition payments, employee payrolls, facility maintenance, fundraising quotas, degree granting and accreditation requirements it can be fluid and experimental, changing each semester to reflect the ambitions, personalities, and abilities of those in its community.

The Independent School of Art includes students of all ages, levels of experience, and disciplines in a one-room schoolhouse environment of shared learning and mentorship. The ISA prioritizes an action-based approach to arts education and cultural discourse and complements it's curricular offerings with student and faculty designed exhibitions, lectures, grants and publications. These multi-disciplinary public actions are a central part of the school's pedagogy, and serve a vital function by engaging the students in the direct creation of public culture.

founded by artist Jon Rubin http://www.jonrubin.net