| |
"Global capital has reached
such a point that both the physical and intellectual landscape
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 buses and trains, 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 increasingly individuals
and cultures are illegalized to protect rising property values."
This is how the organizers of the Department of Space and
Land Reclamation (DSLR) describe the landscape of Chicago today: a landscape
that is owned, privatized and coopted, not for the enjoyment and benefit
of the average person but for the profit and benefit of corporations
and the system of capital.
In a weekend-long festival April
27 to April 29, which gave birth to what participants hope will be
an ongoing movement, artists, activists and others from around the
city and beyond came together to reclaim p~blic space physically, philosophically,
artistically, emotionally and often illegally, in a variety of quirky,
creative and provoking actions. While some were overtly political,
others acted more subtly to take back public space, even if it was
JUSt by stirring people out of their daily routines for a few minutes
through the presence of an unexpected sight.
This was certainly the case with Trevor Paglin's "De
Profundis," which featured tape loops of "zombie
breathing sounds" being placed in sewers and trashcans
for passersby to hear.
Then there was the NEST Project, with wire nests and other
additions being added to lampposts and other structures around
the city. Or the ladders placed on walls and fences all over
the city, presumably with the message that people can and
will transcend or break the structural, economic and social
barriers that are put up for them.
Possibly the most show-stopping projects occurred downtown,
the heart of Chicago conspicuous consumerism. With hundreds
of shoppers taking advantage of the warm weather to purchase
expensive clothing and the like on Michigan Avenues "Magnificent Mile," a
monstrous landfill came to life waddlling along and begging
customers to stop feeding him with trash and making him grow.
"I dont want to get any bigger," intoned the beast,
which was actually made of several people under a garbage
bag body with a papier mache mask.
Also on Michigan Avenue, a squad of people cloaked in white
work suits rolled a huge "ball of trash" down the sidewalk,
earning startled looks, laughs and questions from some and cold
shoulders from others. Meanwhile at the Chicago Board of Trade,
a group from around the country called The Society for the Representation
of Society break danced and performed stunts around a rolling piece
of installation art they had collected, entitled the "Nomadic
Apocalypse."
Other projects included an anti-street harassment project,
in which women turned the tables and cat called and harassed
men. Artist Yoshie Suzuki took a unique tack on reclaiming
public space, inviting a variety of strangers to kiss her
on video tape. Meanwhile others videotaped a sticker campaign
in which stickers saying "Boycott this product" and
giving reasons why were placed inconspicuously on various
products in stores.
A loft space called The Butcher Shop
in the industrial but gentrifying area just west of the Loop
served as the nerve center for the festival, with the walls
lushly decorated in graffiti by local artists and collages
of posters and photos of public art. A slew of video monitors
at the space documented the ongoing actions, and Guerrilla
Love Radio, a pirate low power radio station operating from
the festival, "reclaimed" the airwaves
by offering noncommercial program ming and a forum for artists
and visitors to share their stories and thoughts.
Throughout the weekend participants
at the nerve center organized "reclamation raids," in which they
placed stickers and spray paint tags throughout the city. On Ashland
Avenue, two consecutive billboards that advertised Air Italia and Tide
laundry detergent were tagged to create the message "Ethnic Cleansing." In
Albany Park, where a $5,000 reward from Ald. Eugene Schulter (47th Ward)
has been offered to anyone assisting in the apprehension of the person
spray painting anti-"yuppie" graffiti on condos, residents "reclaimed" public
kiosks which are usually bolted and filled only with information
approved by Schulter.
On Friday evening, about 300 bicyclists
reclaimed the streets in the citys monthly Critical Mass ride. As with
most Critical Mass events, the riders take over the road for blocks on
end, in a perfectly legal maneuver, to draw attention to the rights and
safety of bikers on car-dominated streets.
Friday evening also featured a panel with
representatives from First Defense Legal Aid, the University of Hip Hop
and residents of the 47th Ward (Albany Park), among others.
"Whether they are spilling out of
the sewers, taking the parks, invading the steps of City Hall, scrambling
up trees or cramming the sidewalks, these projects are actively engaging
everyday life," says the DSLR brochure. "Take back to the streets.
Take back what is ours."
On June 9, there will be a follow-up discussion and video screening
at The Stockyard Institute, 4741 S. Damen.
back
to Press page
|
|
