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Department of Space and Land Reclamation
(DSLR) is a weekend an activist campaign that occurred in Chicago in
April, 2001. It was designed to unite various practitioners of space
and land reclamation. This article is a brief introduction to the forces
that we are fighting and to the methods we are using to challenge them.
The Manipulative City
"Yet, because artists often share city spaces with the
underhoused, they have been positioned as both perpetrators
and victims in the processes of displacement and urban planning.
They have come to be seen as a pivotal group, easing the
return of the middle class to center cities. Ironically,
however, artists themselves are often displaced by the same
wealthy professionals - their clientele - who have followed
them into now chic neighborhoods."
- Rosalyn Deutsche •'Alternative
Space" from B Wallis (ed) If you Lived Here (1991)
Global capital has reached such a point that both the physical
and intellectual landscapes have been completely purchased.
To exist today means to tread on the property of others.
The city has increasingly become a space completely built
around consumerism. The freedom of expression has come to
mean the freedom to advertise. Advertisements on billboards,
advertisements on public busses and trains, advertisements
on benches, advertisements on clothes, advertisements on
radio, advertisements on television, advertisements on menus.
Like a minefield of manipulative codes, urban space has been
designed to maneuver us from one point of sale to the next.
Racist and classist anti-loitering and anti-gang laws have
been instituted across the country as individuals and cultures
are increasingly illegalized at the behest of property values.
The search for greater market returns and the increased role
of the global city" in the information age has resulted
in the phenomena known as gentrification. Gentrification
reveals itself in the relocation of entire lower income communities.
Generally, artists move into a low income area and then are
quickly followed by young urban professionals. Some forms
of resistance include community groups lobbying to retain
rent controls, squatters refusing to leave their homes when
they are evicted and somewhere in the North of Chicago. a
glorious vandal has been spraypainting "Yuppies go home''
on the doors of new condos. (Currently a 55,000 reward is
being circulated for her head.)
Not only are we on borrowed land, we are also on borrowed thoughts. The
increased litigation over intellectual property rights has made the expression
of ideas prone to law suits and corporate intimidation. Whether this is
in the form of patented genetically modified corn or patented AIDS medication
to Mickey Mouse; the land of ideas has been fully purchased and commodified
as well. Additionally, the entertainment industry has quickly moved in
and absorbed every point of radical culture, whether it is raves, Punk,
skateboarding or Hip-Hop, and rapidly dismantled it into salable pieces.
Selling out culture is just another example of the manner in which the
creative products of culture are quickly alienated and sold back to their
producers.
Reclamation
The shrinkage of public space, the complete commodification
of counter cultures and the sudden emergence of a newly radicalized
global protest movement, the anti-WTO protest in Seattle
being a particular harbinger, are all factors that have given
rise to aesthetic reclamation projects. What we consider
projects of reclamation are in some sense trespassing. They
creatively tread on the property of others. Some examples
of this include graffiti, pirate radio, Critical Mass, billboard
manipulators, guerrilla gardening and hacking. While these
practices are all in some way or other illegal, they are
also creatively resisting the forces of capital that have
swallowed up everyday life. As many already know, numerous
methods of reclamation have their roots in anarchist, Punk
and Hip-Hop cultures.
It is important to emphasize, however, that
the effort for reclamation is as long as the history of oppression. From
the Gnostics to the Diggers to Sitting Bull to Haymarket to the Slack Panthers,
projects of reclamation are as old as exploitation. It is only today that
this movement has truly become worldwide.
The popular form of reclamation known as Culture lamming
has become more prevalent over the last decade. As forces
like gentrification and the commodification of counter culture
increase their presence in everyday life, aesthetics of resistance
will inevitably grow. However, it is important to not isolate
Culture Jamming from a greater socially conscious perspective
(as magazines like Adbusters tend to). Once we make the mistake
of seeing reclamation outside of the greater struggle for
human rights, we will soon find ourselves complicit in a
system we claim to oppose. The DSLR campaign is far more
interested in continuing a tradition of resistance to capital
and control than in promoting the next art world fad or "hip" advertising
angle.
We welcome the return of artistic practice
to radical politics. For too long the "scene" nature of the arts,
whether music, art or film, has been a divisive and boring mode of production.
The changing face of protest has made it clear that all the various forms
are important in the movement toward social justice. Artists, who have
struggled to find their relevance in a culture dominated by album sales
and galleries, are finding ways to participate in projects of reclamation.
DSLR would like to provide an invigorating series of potentials to insert
artistic practice into radical politics.
DSLR
During the campaign, over 50 reclamation projects occurred in the streets,
alleys, corporate atrium, barren walls and park benches of the city of
Chicago. The projects included Kansas artist Stacey Switzer's design
of bright orange holsters for women to carry household items in, to gouge
out the eyes of potential attackers. Graf crews FCT and CMK bombed plywood
that was pieced up around the city and they painted the DSLR HQ walls.
Trevor Paglen inserted boom boxes on the undersides of manhole covers
so the ominous sounds of zombies and dinosaurs rose up from the sewers.
Pittsburgh collective, The Institute for Applied Autonomy, presented
their Graffiti Writer robot, which uses a dot matrix printing system
to become a remote control mobile graffiti writer. Chicago collective
Flotsam challenged the anti-loitering ordinances with the assistance
of an inflatable couch and coffee. In front of Chicago's city hall, Flotsam
provided a place to loiter and dialogue on who controls the space we
live in. 47 Ward.org reclaimed corporate kiosks in their continuous efforts
to turn back the tide of gentrification in the North Side communities.
DSLR had a central HQ from which the campaign unfolded. The HQ was designed
to connect various practitioners of reclamation as well as initiate a
critical dialogue about the building of a radical aesthetic/arts movement
in Chicago and beyond. A large map was placed on the wall displaying
the various sites of reclamation. There was also a massive wall of monitors
displaying video footage of the reclamation projects. We wanted to create
an atmosphere akin to a campaign headquarters w here the city begins
to look like something we can physically take back. The HQ also had couches,
lending libraries, project space, documentation and free food for participants
and supporters.
Our ideas are not new. We take our lessons from the creativity of the
DIY scene, the methods of activist groups and the fusion of art and life
by groups like Critical Art Ensemble, Group Material, Gran Fury, the
Situationists and RepoHistory. We are trying to blend various rnodels
to provide effective and exhilarating results.
The Department of Space and Land Reclamation will appear and disappear
but the struggle will not. Space and land belong to everyone. We invite
you to take it back.
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