flat
earth
by lynn
rapoport
Civic
planning
THE
BILLBOARD INTERVENTIONISTS who service my neighborhood
have readjusted the Clear Channel ad space across the
street again, this time to point out that Gavin Newsom
– mayoral candidate and friend to low-income people
everywhere – is actually a lackey for the rich.
Other than that, one of the best things I've seen in recent
weeks, aside from Footloose, the Russian River,
and a hand attached to an Outer Mission telephone pole
offering a free high five, is a faux commercial at an
Other Cinema screening for something called Re-Code.com.
In it, thrifty shoppers are invited to take part in a
bar code readjustment project enabling massive discounts
at chain supermarkets. I could almost learn to love capitalism,
if only for the traffic-stopping pranks, creatively distributed
vitriol, and flashes of culture-jamming brilliance it
brings out in people who really, really dislike it.
That's
where the people from the Department of Space and Land
Reclamation come in. You could say they're like civil
servants who believe in disobedience.
"Reclamation,"
Julia de Burgos* says. "Noun. 1: the conversion of waste
land into land suitable for use of habitation or cultivation.
2: rescuing from error and returning to a rightful course."
Using a definition her group found online, de Burgos is
explaining the mission of DSLR West, a group of artists
and activists who – inspired by the original DSLR
in Chicago two years ago – have organized a 72-hour
campaign to transform the Bay Area's public spaces.
"Global
capital has taken over every inch of public space," she
says. "We're trying to rescue it from error and return
it to a rightful course."
Of
course, like the term "reclamation," the phrase "transformation
of public space" is freighted with many meanings. The
suburban-mentality yuppies and homeowners in my neighborhood
have some ideas of their own, which mostly seem to revolve
around calling the cops on the homeless folks who crash
in the park. Then there are the advertising agencies,
which seem to think of little else. Entire campaigns are
launched off the idea that anything brought into existence
by a creative mind can be harnessed to the greater cause
of selling us things – cars, flame-broiled burgers,
rock stars, strong mints – and anywhere in our visual
field seems to be a good enough place to test that theory.
DSLR
West organizer Kelly Johnson admits that even talking
about reclaiming public space is problematic. "We don't
think it exists. Anything you try to do that's not shopping
or going to work – well, it won't last long." He
talks about the Situationists – pioneers in the
art of billboard reclamation – and their concerns
about the commodification of everyday life. The question
for DSLR West, he says, is how to appropriate space in
a way that's akin to how the Situationists appropriated
images. "Obviously, the billboard is a private space;
the billboard manipulator is appropriating intellectual
property. We're doing the same thing. It's debatable whether
if you take someone else's private space and transform
it, you're necessarily making it public, but you're undermining
the capitalistic logic. You're harnessing it to do something
toward anticapitalist ends."
When
the idioms and fonts of taggers have been harnessed by
people trying to sell us fresh breath in a candy, it's
hard to know what to do next. DSLR West suggests trying
something radical, like spreading out over your city's
visible spaces for days with more than 100 projects involving
performance, visual art, a soccer game pitting communists
against anarchists, and something de Burgos refers to
generally as "enhancing public areas." (Full disclosure:
My skate gang is likely to be in attendance.)
And
really, if there's no designated line between public and
private spaces, if the private truly has encroached on
everything around us, why not declare the entire landscape
fair game?
Johnson
and de Burgos (who has participated in convergences like
those that disrupted the World Trade Organization ministerial
in Seattle and the Democratic Convention in L.A.) both
emphasize that DSLR West is not a protest but what de
Burgos calls a proactive maneuver. "Spontaneous street
art – or even planned – is some of my favorite,"
she says. "It's delightful to come upon a performance
act that you weren't expecting. It makes you feel like
you're part of a community, that you're not as isolated."
It
would be off point – and pretty disrespectful –
to put down events like the antiwar demos or the antiglobalization
protests. But it's true that we badly need to work on
nonreactive strategies of altering the world around us.
To constantly be on the defensive, gathering forces for
each economic ministerial or presidential tour on the
global calendar, means that entities like the WTO, and
people like Bush, are in essence dictating protesters'
schedules, marking their day planners for them –
continuing to call the shots. This weekend DSLR West provides
an opportunity to start a whole new game.
DSLR West takes place Thurs/2-Sun/5 in a public space near
you. Participants will be using Balazo/Mission Badlands
Gallery (2811 Mission, S.F.) as a hub; the space will be
open to the public for several events throughout the weekend.
If you have a last-minute project proposal, write to onward@dslrwest.org. For more information
on the weekend's events go to www.dslrwest.org.
*
Names of participants have undergone reclamation and/or
transformation.
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