Performing New Realities
Marco Antonini
Over the course of two days, NYU presented six different media-activists’ collectives speeches and demos, generating overwhelming excitement and catalyzing public involvement: the event was run by Digital Is Not Analog (a.k.a. D-I-N-A, an International organization born in Bologna, Italy, in 2000 and currently based in Barcelona).
The Yes men started the dances with their powerful and experienced stage-performance. Three members of the infamous gang led the audience through the history of the group, its famous pranks and actions, and the recent "Yes Bush Can" Project. After having restyled an almost-wrecked bus into a functional pro-Bush vehicle, the Yes Men toured the US high and low in "support" of our beloved President in the months before the election we all remember. The Yes Men gang actually tried to uncover the reckless politics of His Nullity via an endless series of provocative shows and pranks (in one piece, encouraging people to sign a paper to "donate" their backyards to nuclear waste disposal use). The tour had a sad ending when the crew realized that the situation was way too serious to joke about. The Yes Men stopped their witty pantomime to join the actual pro-Kerry militia in Florida. I was struck by the honesty that they proved by sharing the bitter end with the whole audience, triggering a lively debate and finally driving the whole auditorium crazy in an exhilarating collective-karaoke.
What’s money good for? I kind of always wondered myself… An answer comes from the second intervention, YoMango, a loose organization that works on the "liberation" of wealth trough "YoMango moments" staged in malls, boutiques, supermarkets, etc. If you can read between the lines, you probably understand
that we’re talking about stealing (styling…) your way to a whole new lifestyle. The motto is "You want it, You have it," and while personal accumulation is prohibited, free exchange of the "liberated" goods is encouraged. The goal is scored by means of manual ability. Additionally, YoMango produces accessories and apparel to make "YoMango moments" easier. Their complimentary poster, a sowing pattern to add a secret pocket to your jeans, is just amazing. After a good night’s sleep (and an already legendary Chinatown karaoke session), the War of The Worlds team hit the 8 hour tour de force of Day Two with high spirits and brand new issues. If the Yes Men and YoMango were filed under "Semiotic Warfare," independent video producer Big Noise and street TV micro-tycoon Candida TV represented the "Media Activism" section. Big Noise aired fierce, exquisitely edited, dramatic videos of independent reports from some of the hottest spots worldwide. Just back from Iraq (not exactly your next LonelyPlanet guide on the bookshelf destination), they mesmerized the audience with their powerful images and sounds. The idea of a world conflict not based on politics or religion but on macro-economics and corporate greed permeated their entire work. Candida TV, on the other hand, addressed smaller but equally intense issues of urban conflict and suburban decay, with their locally broadcasted videos aimed at the outcasts and the oppressed. Their projects include an awesome TV series broadcasted for the prisoners of a popular jail and the hacking of a cable-only football game that they broadcasted for free in the city of Rome, to popular delight.
Finally, Eddo Stern and his twisted videogames shared the "Critical Entertainment" category with the visual/conceptual trips of RetroYou. While Stern focused on the use of videogame imagery as a building component of wholly reinvented "films," RetroYou digs the videogame code to find and destroy the foundation of the game’s usability. In both cases, videogames still look like videogames, but brings us somewhere else, denying our despotic right to interaction and crashing our decisional power in favor of twisted, controversial internal logics, set by the author (Stern) or by random, unleashed algorithms (RetroYou). The War of the Worlds’ title echoed the fictional USA vs. Europe culture-clash so very functional to war interests, but this event actually showed how artists and activists of the Old and New World can still work together in the definition of new realities, "Beyond the boundaries of the Atlantic Ocean and the limits of the Atlantic Pact."
D-I-N-A presents: The War of the Worlds
March Fri 4th/Sat 5th 2005, New York University
