DoSomething.Org, a nonprofit that helps young people take action on social change initiatives, has a “FailFest” once a quarter (some people call this a FailFaire). It’s an off-the-record session open to all staff, interns, and board members and it’s designed to send a message: Failure isn’t something to be ashamed of. CEO Nancy Lublin presented during the first-ever event, demonstrating that admitting mistakes was OK and would be rewarded.

The two or three presenters at each FailFest follow specific rules:

1. They wear a hot-pink feather boa (provided).
2. They present for no longer than 10 minutes, and then take two minutes of Q&A from the group.
3. They cover the goal, history, and timing of the failure; what went right and what went wrong; three things he or she personally learned; three things DoSomething.org learned.
4. They present lessons using a fun metaphor. For example, they might show a photo of a celebrity or sing a song lyric that summarizes what they took away from their gaffe. This makes the presentations less speech-like and more, well, silly.

By making failure silly and fun, DoSomething.org takes the sting out of what might otherwise feel embarrassing.

Thursday, May 2nd; 7 PM

NYU Tisch, Performance Studies Dept.
721 Broadway, 6th Floor
FREE
Photo ID required

Paul Engler, Director of the Center for the Working Poor, will speak about his experience in the anti-globalization movement after Seattle, immigrant rights marches, Occupy, how the Serbian nonviolent revolutionaries changed his life, a concrete plan to get high numbers of protesters arrested in nonviolent direct action, and ways to sustain a moment of the whirlwind of revolution.

Not An Alternative is a hybrid arts collective and non-profit organization with a mission to affect popular understandings of events, symbols, and history. They curate and produce interventions on immaterial and material space, leveraging the tools of architecture, exhibit design, branding, and public relations.  And they are great friends of the Center for Artistic Activism!  See below for their call for interns:

Not An Alternative is seeking interns to assist with our current and upcoming projects. We’re looking for candidates who are detail-oriented, organized, and motivated. Solid communications skills and an interest in Not An Alternative’s mission are a must. A background in art, design, or previous experience working with activist mobilizations or community organizations is highly desirable. Positions are paid, and academic credit may be possible depending on the institution.

Location: Brooklyn, NY (Greenpoint)
Hours and Duration: Quarterly 2013; 20-30 hours per week
Application Deadline: Rolling until filled. STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO APPLY BY APRIL 26TH.

1) Art Production Internship
Help realize the production of Not An Alternative projects. Work in a team with Not An Alternative’s Creative Director and Principal Designer. Responsibilities include sign-making, stencil cutting, vinyl cutting and sign-making, screen-printing, basic carpentry, and basic painting. You are dexterous, detail-oriented and have a precise hand. Photography, video, and graphic skills a plus.

2) Graphic Design Internship
Seeking a junior designer with experience in typography, imaging and photo touch-ups, and strong familiarity with Adobe programs (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator). AfterEffects and HTML5 a plus. Design work to be featured online, in print publications, and in projects deployed within art institutions and in public space.

3) Social Media / Online Communications Internship
Polish your online communications, promotions, and community engagement chops using Hootsuite, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and Pinterest. Get direct hands-on experience with social media outreach, organizing, and strategy development. Research and implement creative campaigns to boost the profile of art/activist projects. Additional responsibilities may include blogger engagement and maintaining the Not An Alternative website. Great skills development opportunity – work one on one with a senior online organizing and social media strategy consultant. Strong writing skills and comfort level with social media required.

4) Research and Development Internship
Not An Alternative is hiring a Research and Development intern to identify opportunities for our organization and further the development of our practice. “Socially engaged art”, “design for social innovation”, “art and politics” — these fields are exploding and so is the discourse surrounding these practices. Dive into it with research and writing for grants, residency openings, and for the development of arguments and examples used in Not An Alternative presentations and programming.

TO APPLY: Please send cover letter, CV, design portfolio or work samples (if applicable), and contact information for two references to info@notanalternative.net. Be sure to indicate which position(s) you are interested in. Please use the subject line “INTERN Application Spring/Summer 2013”

VOLUNTEERING
Volunteer opportunities are available for a number of Not An Alternative projects. Volunteers can assist with art production, design, research, social media outreach, and more. Interested applicants should send an email to info@notanalternative.net with “VOLUNTEER” in the subject line. Applicants will be contacted as opportunities arise.

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ABOUT NOT AN ALTERNATIVE
Not An Alternative is a hybrid arts collective and non-profit organization with a mission to affect popular understandings of events, symbols, and history. The group curates and produces interventions on immaterial and material space, leveraging the tools of architecture, exhibit design, branding, and public relations.

Not An Alternative’s actions, installations, and presentations have been featured within art institutions around the world, and in the public sphere, where they collaborate with community organizations and activist mobilizations. They host programs at a variety of venues, including their Brooklyn-based gallery No-Space (formerly known as The Change You Want to See Gallery).

In a recent New York Times editorial, Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton discussed America’s broad distaste for the institution of taxation, a phenomenon that plagues advocates of progressive taxation in this country.  Rather than addressing the historical-political underpinnings of these contemporary attitudes, they approach the issue from a design perspective.  Their conclusion?  Taxes could benefit from a strong marketing campaign.

Why the hatred?  One reason is that it’s not easy for people to see how taxes provide benefits.  One survey that asked Americans whether they had used any government social programs found many saying they hadn’t – when in fact, a majority had taken advantage of tax deductions for mortgage interest or child care.  Fifty-three perfect had taken out student loans, and 40 percent had benefited from Medicare.  Clearly, the government has a marketing problem.

The duo used Boston’s statistics on service requests for everything from potholes to missing street signs to create a visual portrayal of the city’s taxes at work:

We brought these numbers to life, providing a map with color-coded yellow and blue pins that indicated the exact spot in the city where each service request had been opened and closed.  Those who saw the latter version not only thought their government was doing a better job, but also that it deserved more credit than it was getting.  Forget big changes to the tax structure: a little color coding can push people’s opinions in the right direction.

http://www.newtactics.org/tactics

The term “escrache” comes from Argentina, where it was coined in in 1995 by the human rights activist group H.I.J.O.S, to condemn the genocides committed by members of the military dictatorship that had been pardoned by Carlos Menem, who was prime minister at the time. When justice fails to signal a violation of human rights, the people signaled where criminals live. This tactic has been used in various countries, from South America to Northern Europe.

In Spain, the local version of the global crisis is intimately linked with real-state speculation. Companies built buildings, and banks gave loans so people could buy them. Many people from the middle and lower classes got into mortgages that were to be payed in thirty or forty years. Now, that the unemployment rates are over 20%, many people can´t continue with them. But according to current laws, even if you had already paid the original prize of the household, you get evicted from your home. And even after you have been evicted, you still have to continue paying for a house you will never live in.

The Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (Platform for those Affected by Mortgates) or PAH, was founded in 2008 to face these problems collectivelly. Understanding housing as a human right, they fight against evictions and have launched a People´s Legislative Initiative: this text has been submitted to the Congress with the support of one million and a half signatures people. The Legislative Initiative asks for  the cancellation of debt after the house has been returned (payment in kind), for social-rent prices for the empty homes owned by banks, and for the halting of evictions. These demands have recently been legitimized by a ruling in the European court that says the Spanish eviction law is illegal.

However, Partido Popular (PP), Spain´s ruling party, holds majority in the Congress, and does not want to vote in favor of the People´s Legislative Initiative. According to the PAH, the various amendments introduced drastically change its meaning. Reacting to this, in March, the PAH started their own “escrache” campaign.

Standing in front of politicians´ homes, people affected by mortgages conduct demonstrations and tell their experience with megaphones. The graphic-kit, a usable piece of agitprop, has been designed by Enmedio artivist collective. It depicts the two buttons for voting in the Congress, the red one for “no” and the green one for “yes”. The motto is “sí se puede, pero no quieren” (“It is possible, but they don´t want to”).

“Escraches” have been responded with the outrage of politicians and with polemics in the media. Members of the affected PP party have strongly denounced a practice that they say is anti-democratic and violent, and the government is trying to harden the law. Some annalists say the attention that is being given to “escrache” is covering up the real debate that is needed to solve the mortgage crisis.

While it was taking place, people recorded this strange parade with their phones, and hung the videos on youtube. Although they did not know who had organized this, the meaning was clear: those in charge are already politically dead, as the social contract has long been broken. This iconic image was a performative ritual that represented the flagrant crisis of representation in Spain.

Some time later, an edited video appeared, entitled “Los encargados” (“Those in Charge”). In black and white, and with careful editing, the procession of cars is recorded with the sound track of a subtle music that grows in volume as the film advances. The song is “Warszawianka”, a Polish political hymn which in the Spanish context is recognized for giving the tune to ”A las barricades” (“To the Barricades”), an emblematic anthem for the Anarchists in the Civil War.

In this performances, the head-downward portraits evoque hanging leaders. Their depiction also suggests a symbolic decapitation. At a certain point, the image of the city is also inverted by film-editing, so that the leaders can be  upright: either their heads are exhibited upside down, or the world itself will be the tilted. The order of political representation and the order of reality are obviously incompatible. At the end of the video, there is the sound of an ambulance, a subtle evocation of the beginning of violence.

This work was actually a commitment for Helga de Alvear, a prestigious Spanish gallery. The author of the portraits is painter Jorge Galindo, working together with  Santiago Sierra, a famous and polemic political artist. Although this piece was produced in the context of the art world, it still works on an activist level. Its clarity in meaning with its explicit call for insurrection, and the diffussion of the video on the internet turn it into a piece of agitprop through the medium of video art.

http://www.helgadealvear.com/web/index.php/santiago-sierra-jorge-galindo-2/?lang=en

As SCOTUS debates the constitutionality of Proposition 8 and DOMA this week, Facebook users all over the nation have become part of a burgeoning social media trend. Supporters of marriage equality have been changing their profile pictures to the icon on the left, a version of the Human Rights Campaign logo designed specifically to indicate support for same-sex marriage rights.

Although many people have said that it’s been personally meaningful to sign onto Facebook and see a screen full of red avatars, many have criticized the trend for being a silly way of “showing support” without actually accomplishing anything significant. However, although the SCOTUS justices might not be checking Facebook to tally up the red avatars before rendering a decision, a demonstration of solidarity like this one really could end up making an impact.

Will changing your Facebook profile picture do anything for marriage equality? | PsySociety, Scientific American Blog Network.

Apr 11, 2013, 6:30pm | Room 9206
Center for the Humanities
The Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Experiments in Extra-Institutional Education

What are the theoretical and political repercussions of education outside of a traditional classroom? Whether spurred on by a tidal wave of student debt, changes in technology, or new and nontraditional learning scenarios emerging from various academic disciplines, DIY education is on the rise. This workshop and roundtable brings together artists, educators, and researchers to present case studies of important experiments in this area to explore the future of creative learning outside of the conventional classroom, moving beyond questions of whether these alternative spaces can produce meaningful learning.

Mary Walling Blackburn, Anhoek School; Jen Messier and Jonathan Soma, Brooklyn Brainery; Ajay Singh Chaudhary and Abby Kluchin, Brooklyn Institute for Social Research; Haley Mellin, Bruce High Quality Foundation University; Mark Allen, Machine Project; J. Morgan Puett, Mildred’s Lane; Michael Mandiberg, New York Arts Practicum; Jon Santiago,  NYC Resistor; Yukiko Hanawa and Cynthia Lawson Jaramillo, Occupy University; Steve Lambert,School for Creative Activism; Nova Benway & Taeyoon Choi, The Public School; Katherine Carl and Srdjan Jovanović Weiss, School of Missing Studies; Carla Herrera-Prats, SOMA Summer; Caroline Woolard,TradeSchool.coop. Moderated by Michael Mandiberg, College of Staten Island, CUNY.

Cosponsored by Graduate Center Digital Initiatives and JustPublics@365.