Installed Videos
The following videos are installed in the Signs of Change exhibit at Exit Art
(monitor 1)
Gimme an Occupation with that McStrike
(2005, 04:05 minutes, Victor Muh, Precarity DV/–Magazine, made in
collaboration with: P2Pfightsharing Crew; Greenpepper Project, Amsterdam;
and Candida TV, Rome)
McDonald's workers go on strike in Paris, occupying their workplace (a
McDonald's restaurant) for six months.
Richmond Strike
(1969, Newsreel, courtesy of Roz Payne Archives)
In January l969, local police in Northern California attacked striking oil
workers and their families, killing one person and injuring many others.
Student protestors from San Francisco State University were asked to join
the struggle, uniting workers and students against a common foe. This
film includes interviews with employees on strike and against Shell Oil in
Martinez and Richmond, California.
(monitor 2)
Repression
(13:33 minutes, Newsreel, courtesy of Roz Payne Archives)
A documentary about the Los Angeles Black Panther Party with music by Elaine Brown.
Queen Mother Moore Speech at Green Haven Prison
(1973, 17:00 minutes, People’s Communication Network [co-founded by Elaine Baly and Bill Stevens], courtesy of Chris Hill and Bob Devine)
Think Tank, a self-organized group of prisoners at Green Haven Prison, coordinated a community day with outside activists. This tape captures a powerful speech by one of the guest speakers: Queen Mother Moore, a follower of Marcus Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). People's Communication Network, a community video group founded by Bill Stevens, documented the event for cablecast in New York City.
(monitor 3)
Up Against the Wall Ms. America
(1968, 08:00 minutes, Newsreel, courtesy of Roz Payne Archives)
This film documents a creative Women’s Liberation protest outside the 1968 Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Women’s Lib Demonstration I
(1970, 05:00 minute excerpt, Videofreex, courtesy of Video Data Bank and the VideoFreex Partnership)
Documentation of the 1970 Women's Liberation march in New York City, part of the "national women's strike for equality" called to commemorate the 50th anniversary of women's suffrage. Demonstrators include members of Women’s Strike for Peace. Videofreex was an early video collective, which existed from 1969-1977. During that time, the collective documented the counterculture and social movements, experimented with new video technology, ran a pirate television station, and produced over 1,500 tapes.
Purple Dinosaur Action Segment
(1973, 10:00 minutes, Barbara Jabaily, Tracy Fitz and Lesbians Organized for Video Experience (L.O.V.E), courtesy of the Lesbian Herstory Educational Foundation, Inc.)
In this film members of the Lesbian Feminist Liberation (LFL) create a large, purple, papier-mâché dinosaur and wheel it to the Museum of Natural History in New York to protest the patriarchal values and histories presented by the museum. They are accompanied by the Victoria Woodhall Marching Band, a lesbian marching band that performed at protests and senior centers. L.O.V.E. documented many of the activities organized by LFL, including the New York City Lesbian Olympics and this action at the Museum of Natural History.
(monitor 4)
South Africa: Freedom Rising
(1978, 20:00 minutes, audio slideshow, ITT Boycott and the Dayton Community Media Workshop, courtesy of the American Friends’ Service Committee)
This slide show was produced to educate Americans on the injustice of the apartheid system in South Africa and the presence of US corporations in that country. It serves to illustrate one of the many ways grassroots movements used technology that was accessible to them to get the message out. The Dayton Community Media Workshop described itself as “a collective of artists working within the New American Movement.”
(monitor 5)
Indonesia: Art, Activism, and Rock ‘n’ Roll
(2002, 26:00 minutes, Charlie Hill Smith and Jamie Nicolal, in Indonesian and English with English subtitles, courtesy of Marcom Projects)
This documentary film follows Taring Padi, an art collective based out of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Since 1998, the group has produced posters, murals, street performances, puppets, poetry, and music and has published a newsletter. They describe themselves as an "independent non-profit cultural community, which is based on the concept of peoples' culture." They are committed to contributing to autonomous culture, democracy, and social justice in Indonesia.
(monitor 6)
It Can Be Done
(1974, 32:00 minutes, Shirley Jensen and Barbara Bejna with the Chicago Women’s Graphic Collective, courtesy of Kartemquin Films and Shirley Jensen)
This documentary follows the Chicago Women’s Liberation Print Shop as it makes a poster for United Farm Workers. These artists, women, and activists talk about their collective process and the political relevance of this project within the women’s movement and other political campaigns.
(monitor 7)
TXTmob - Nw Mor Thn Evr
(2004, the Institute for Applied Autonomy, courtesy of the Institute for Applied Autonomy)
Documentation of creative uses of a text messaging service devised to assist protest communications. The Institute for Applied Autonomy (IAA) is an arts and engineering collective founded in 1998 devoted to developing “technologies which extend the autonomy of human activists.”
(monitor 8)
Reclaim the Streets
(1996, 07:00 minutes, Undercurrents, courtesy of Undercurrents)
Undercurrents is an alternative news organization that has documented social movements in the United Kingdom since 1994. This film documents a Reclaim the Streets Party-Protest.
Sound Demo
(03:11 minutes, Japanese Activism DVD, courtesy of ill commonz)
A sound demo from Reclaim the Streets, Japan.
Transistor Connected Drum Collective
(06:49 minutes, illcommonz, courtesy illcommonz)
Japanese experimental musicians reclaim the streets of Tokyo to protest the war in Iraq.
(projected)
Iraq Veterans Against the War: Operation First Casualty
(2008, 5 minutes, Elizabeth Press for Democracy Now)
Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) is a national organization formed in
2004 by veterans of the Iraq War. Operation First Casualty (OFC) is a street
theater project that members of the organization perform dressed in military
uniforms. OFC stages performances that are reenactments of combat patrols on
the streets of US cities, as they would happen in Iraq, to bring the
realities of war home. In this document they perform OFC outside the
Democratic National Convention in Denver 2008.