Direct Action Flâneurs
‘Sense Collection with a Typewriter’
in re-connection & re-flection alongside the re-occupation of Liberty Plaza
Saturday, March 17 - Join us anytime from 1 pm till dusk
Liberty Plaza aka Zuccotti Park (corner Liberty & Trinity)
Which type are you?
Join with fellow Direct Action Flâneurs engaged in “Sense Collection with a Typewriter” to create lists cataloguing our sensations—everything we see, feel, hear, and experience at the 6-month anniversary of the OWS encampment. Take the inventory, make the index, document the event. We’ll provide the typewriters. Come witness, stroll in the park, sit down, and type.
What’s the action score?
Direct Action Flâneurs stroll around with their “type” of typewriter, find a place to sit, and generate lists with the typewriter. The lists will be gathered through on-the–spot observation (sensing) of movements, objects, colors, sounds, etc. in Liberty Plaza, akin to an ethnographer performing a field study or a choreographer interpreting and describing human movement. A list of what people hold in their hands, a list of human proportions, a list of what is written on banners, a list of bits of overheard conversation, a list of the names of policemen, a list of the colors of peoples’ pants. While typing, you can at any time interrupt yourself with a personal list (like a to-do list, a biographical list, appointment list) and/or your own collected thoughts. We will give you a list of lists--possibilities for observation--but you can create your own. Through typing you will generate as well a copy of your written list which will go into an outbox where passersby can read it in the moment. You can type for as long as you want, and you can change to another “type of typewriter” if you want.
Why collect lists?
The lists have the potential to highlight patterns and find meaning in the OWS anniversary. The collected lists will also serve for future Direct Action Flâneurs projects.
Why use a typewriter instead of a laptop or pen and paper?
We enjoy the sound of the keys typing. We enjoy the physical engagement. We enjoy that each typewriter has its own typeface and its own feel. We enjoy that they make you slow down. We enjoy that we don’t need electricity to make them work. We enjoy the simplicity. Take a step back. Allow history into the present and future.
Cheers,
Direct Action Flâneurs
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2 comments:
Great post.I will share it with my friends.
I have carpal tunnel and so could not use the typewriters. I had to go to a copy shop to use a computer. Here is the letter I typed
#S17, 2011 was an ecstatic moment that seemed to promise that at last the people of America were waking up and becoming active in resisting the ways corporate America had destroyed not only democracy, but our hopes for a greener, more equal future. OCCUPY WALL STREET gathered together students, working class people from all walks of life, homeless, immigrants, and helped us stand in solidarity.
When the movement began I thought at last progressives were going to develop a political counter force to the power of the Tea Party, that we could take back congress and that would give some much needed courage to our moderate Democratic President.
#S17, 2012 Means hopelessness. Occupy Wall is a big fat ZERO. A lot of idealistic young, middle aged, and older people setting up tables, making signs, and having lots of feel-good apparent activism, but refusing to actually assume any of the power and responsibilities for changing the country in a meaningful direction.
Example: At the Common Cause Table I asked why activists were not going helping disenfranchised citizens get proper ID in n the states that have required voter ID. The response? “We don’t do that cause it would be admitting that they have the right to demand ID.”
HUH???? So instead of making sure people who are likely to vote for progressives can vote, activists would rather cede more power to those who will pass such voter ID laws in more states instead of assuring the election of people who will actually make such laws illegal.
Example: At least four tables today were against Citizens United. Each table had different posters, each wanted donations. Why can’t these groups work together on a political process that would elect representatives who will make that ruling illegal?
All I see in the Occupy movement is individualist ideology triumphant: Do your own thing.
OCCUPY WALL STREET has turned out to be toothless, gutless, powerless movement that pops up here and there to little or no effect. It’s a joke .
I can’t help but ask whether its spokespeople are funded – either unwittingly or in secret – by the Koch brothers and Karl Rove.
GET SOME BALLS OCCUPY! GET SOME BRAINS! ORGANIZE A POLITICAL MOVEMENT.
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