Help with spiritual activism paper

[Humming]

I'm writing a paper/article about spiritual and avant-art activism, and I thought I would post here to see if anyone could help me out with some sources.

It's been easy to find literature relating to spiritual, or conscious activism, but less easy to find articles/books about art activism and activism taking place within the context of mainstream popular culture.

I have a rather long list of authors to look at the process of transforming our consciousness to one that innately recognizes peace as the most worthy form of being in terms of non-violent, non-dualistic protest and love, among them Martin Luther King Jr, Buddha, Thomas Merton, Arundhati Roy, Allen Ginsberg, Ram Dass, Ken Wilbur, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Deepak Chopra, Paul Osterman, Susan Skog, the Dalai Lama, Peter Ackerman, Mahatma Ghandi, and others.

Specifically, I'm looking for writing about counter-culture art activism, utilizing the shamanic/zen trickster archetype to engage the media and move our counter-culture from the "New Edge" of love and understanding to the mainstream of public consciousness. Art movements like Burning Man, for example. Forms of alternative, integral activism that embrace communication and love as a transformative power, instead of anger and fear which probably characterize the majority of activist protest happening today. Things like guerilla theatre, counter-culture films and music, etc. Organizations like the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army: http://www.clownarmy.org/

If anyone could help me out by directing me to more of this type of information about the avant-art forms of activism, it would be quite helpful!

[ April 01, 2005, 10:36 AM: Message edited by: Humming ]

[Agent Smith]

this sort of thing is actually fairly popular among the slackavist set...

...i remember reading about early performance artists, groups like the 'situationists', the surrealists, and the like, being run like political movements (dali was expelled from the surrealist movement for living with another man's wife...*gasp*)

thanx for the clown link that was really cool, we used to love dressing up like clowns, and menacing the citizenry... LOL, the hostile reactions we'd get from people just for walking around dressed up like that were really funny... espcially once they found out that we were way more hostile then they could have imagined... (eventually we started adding fake blood, and real pig intestines to the outfits, chainsaws, etc... fun, fun, fun...)

the whole issue of the police banning puppets at demo's is an interesting, and bizarre statement about the power of art to induce paranioa in the minions of the corps....

...i once handed out 1000 kazoos at a anti-war rally, and got everybody there to start doing the 'imeprial death march' from starwars whenever we saw the riot cops LOL...

(my buddies used to like to use those 'spinning whistles' and walk up behind undercover cops at rallys)

....Wavy Gravy once made the observation that nobody ever tries to hit the guy wearing the clown nose in a riot...

...yep there's all sorts of this stuff floating about... look for links relating to demonstrations, and art from activists, puppets, like i mentioned would be a good place to start....

(hmmm, also maybe an old 'zine called RE/SEARCH where i read about alot of this stuff way back in the day...)

[whitewave]

Humming,
Do you know about the Bread & Puppet Theater from Vermont? They've been around at least 20 years I think. They make giant puppets that they bring to protests. I remember seeing them at Gulf War protests in DC. For a long time they had an annual festival in Vermont, that got closed to the public due to out of control drug use and violence, but they are still going strong in VT I think. You can visit their musuem in East Burke, VT.

[forteanajones]

Some of these have a more anarchistic bent:

Bread & Puppet Theater (http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/bread_puppet) (credit to whitewave)

Diggers Archive (http://www.diggers.org) (more info on Guerilla Street Theater here)

Adbusters (http://www.adbusters.org) (Culture Jammers, Campus Jammers, etc.)

Culture Jamming on Tribe.net (http://sanfrancisco.tribe.net/tribe/53a57dda-b7f0-4676-874a-a0db968d279a?r=10535)

The Yes Men (http://www.theyesmen.org)

Pie-throwing activist (http://www.raptorial.com/HOF/Godin.html) George Le Gloupier - "L'Entarteur" (aka Noel Godin)

[Manning]

Women on Drake's Beach...

http://www.barewitness.org/photoalbum/TN-peace_on_beach2.jpg

</font> Baring Witness (http://www.baringwitness.org/)</font>

[tana]

Man Ray's Montparnasse covers the pre-war surrealist scene in France (and is one of my favorite books)... Factory Made is a great book on Andy Warhol's movement...and the San Francisco Diggers are covered on this page:


http://www.mindmined.com/public_library/nonfiction/marcus_del_greco_theatrical_devi ces.html (http://www.mindmined.com/public_library/nonfiction/marcus_del_greco_theatrical_devices.html)

...as well as in many books on sixties counter culture.

Also, Robert Crumb's biographical stuff might be a good resource.

Oh yeah, and the "Gorilla Grrls".

Good luck.

[ April 01, 2005, 01:05 PM: Message edited by: tana ]

[gone]

http://0100101110101101.org/

[daniel]

read allen ginsberg's playboy interview in "Spontaneous Mind."

Reverend Billy you know about?

[Woodpecker]

Butoh.

http://www.collapsingsilence.com/butoh.html
http://home.earthlink.net/~bdenatale/AboutButoh.html
http://www.butoh.net/

[nanouk]

did y'all hear that Christiania of Copenhagen is closing down...after more 30 years as an autonomous bourough of the capitol...

the architecture of that place is amazing...

http://vibeke.schou.dk/denmark/copenhagen/christiania12.jpg

Christiania (http://www.christiania.org/)

[Isaiah Mpski]

I think I remember you saying something about a month or so about it,but figured you weren't too serious about losing your place after finding a job.

[Humming]

Thanks for the responses everyone, and especially thanks for the links!

whitewave, I was aware of the puppet theatre. In one of the last activist actions on my campus I helped make a huge puppet that represented a sweatshop worker. The visual representation, quite demanding at about 14 feet tall, was a good way to catch peoples' attention.

Daniel, I had not thought about Reverend Billy, but thanks for that idea. I listened to a few of his radio shows last year and found them quite entertaining. That seems like the kind of thing that might be too crazy to be taken seriously, but I guess that's kind of the point. I will check out his site again and download some shows.

Agent Smith,

"...i once handed out 1000 kazoos at a anti-war rally, and got everybody there to start doing the 'imeprial death march' from starwars whenever we saw the riot cops LOL..."

That is hilarious, thanks for sharing. But, my feeling is that even that playful expression of dissent would be feeding into the negative energy of the riot police. I think that many, perhaps even most of them would be pleased to be equated with the well organized, well armed, hi-tech futuristic imperial death machine presented in that saga.

What I really like about what CIRCA is doing is that they are specifically trying to awaken the authorities to questioning the nature of thier own power, a power that is only imbued to them because it is socially sanctioned and codified. Police must be some of the most hideously insecure people because they have probably never questioned the proscribed social roles that have been taught to them, or the morality of their part to play within the system (which is mostly abusing and oppressing the poor and defenseless).

In discussions like this, I still grapple with the idea of whether or not their brutality is a conscious or an unconscious act. I would like to believe that they are acting unconsciously (and thereby, are serving a much larger plan than they themselves can know...) but if they are acting consciously, then the world is a much more sadistic and evil place.

In my paper I hope to address the social situation that has created a populace that takes pleasure in sadistic abuse of other living beings, but that problem might be too deep for me to explore adequately.

I don't think I'll be getting much into the surrealist movement, because that happened mostly in Europe and I would like to talk about America and the internal movements against the United States empire that have happened here.

I would like to learn more and write about the Merry Prankster tour that happened in the 60's when Ginsberg and Leary and Kesey and Jerry Garcia toured the states and generally riled the populace with their drugs and revolutionary philosophies. Can anyone recommend books that I should look into for information about that?

[Charlie]

Merry Pranksters = Electric KoolAid Acid Test

http://www.tomwolfe.com/KoolAid.html

[nanouk]

anyone ever tried the Kool Aid Hair Dye Test?

Kool Aid works just as well as Crazy Colour in a can, and cost only a fraction of the cosmetic...if it works that well on our goldilocks, imagine the rainbow pattern on many american children's intestines... :(

yes Isaiah, i did get a job, but the wife hated me...shame, we really got on well, the team and I, and even Chef approved of my suitability...and he is so famous that the Gypsy Kings serenaded him on his birthday, the Boss' wife on the other hand, chases the customers away with her poisoned attitude...and my home, well Isaiah, the Duchy Farmer i call landlord, has been sniffing around my home in my absence, but has failed to fullfill his responsibilities, even after i called Environmental Health.

He decided to cop out and sell this little cottage, and now I have had a good chat to our Mayor, very nice and empathic man.

I told Mr Mayor I am interested in squatting the obsolete head quarters of the MOD(ministry of defence)in my neighbourhood, i might paint the building yellow, and call it my Yellow Submarine.

There would be enough room in the MOD for a daycare centre for children, a hostel for the homeless, and at least 10 other families to live until they/we get another suitable home.

as for avant-art rebellion, my family have started to use chalks to decorate our streets... :D

it is not damage to property, and if someone gets REALLY offended, all they have to do is to go and get a bucket of water...

have a nice day! smile.gif

love and respect,

~n~

[ April 04, 2005, 06:31 AM: Message edited by: nanouk ]

[sire_012]

I would like to learn more and write about the Merry Prankster tour that happened in the 60's when Ginsberg and Leary and Kesey and Jerry Garcia toured the states and generally riled the populace with their drugs and revolutionary philosophies. Can anyone recommend books that I should look into for information about that?
actually Kesey was the only one on the Futher bus of those you've mentioned. ginsberg wasn't part of that, but Neal Cassidy the speed gobbling patron saint of the Beats, was the bus driver. Leary was on another path. The Pranksters went out to see him at Millbrook and wound up scaring the hell out of the relatively square inhabitants of Millbrook. as Charlie mentioned 'Electric Kool Aid Acid Test' is one good source. Also hit up 'Acid Dreams' for some great accounts as well as Thompson's 'Hell's Angels' and i believe Gary Lachman's 'Turn Off Your Mind' touches on it a bit as well.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Wouldn't you rather hear of the Weathermen and my trip to Canada. The really anti-Viet Nam war activist patriots.

[Agent Smith]

you're probably right Humming. i didn't do it for the cops though, it was for my fellow activists, kinda get them into a more playful, and light hearted mood, if they could see the cops as goofs, instead of goons, then it might help a little.

i was also in a little bit more of a 'grumpy' frame of mind back then as well... i'd seen some really f'd up things at demos, and the paranoia was pretty intense. breaking the tension was pretty helpful.

at the last demo i was at, i felt the usual rage, and panic as i saw the police kicking the crap out of skinny kids, and little girls (not even exaggerating here) ...then it dawned on me... what if i modulated the energy i was putting out? so i calmed myself down, allowed myself to at least try to get a grasp of what was going through the police's minds... and then i started walking around actually talking to them, thanking them for coming out on their days off, putting in the overtime, explaining things to them calmly and listening to their point of view (it was a waste to protest the war, it was going to happen anyway, right or wrong, and they had to miss their days off to provide 'security' for us) just by being there, and radiating calm i was able to deescalate verbal confrontations, at least (without saying anything beyond 'thank you') being prestent, without engaging emotionally... it was instructive...

[ April 05, 2005, 10:34 AM: Message edited by: Agent Smith ]