Avatar has become a pop culture nexus for Palestinian rights activists.  The film portrays the struggle between a heartless interstellar corporation and the Na’vi, lithe and luminescent aliens indigenous to a planet rich in the lucrative mineral “unobtanium.” The Na’vi live atop a rich deposit of this shimmering ore, so the corporation and its thugs want to remove them, by any means necessary. For activists, the film is an apt analogy to Israel’s annexation of Palestinian territory. So what do these idealistic youth do? Dress up like the aliens.

The protestors appeared in Bil’in, a Palestinian town cut in half by the Wall (whatever adjective, security or Apartheid, no one on either side disagrees that the structure is a wall) and Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem which Israeli settlers have laid claim to and from which Israeli authorities have evicted Palestinians.

When I was in Bil’in in April 2009, the buzzword on the banners was “Occupation Flu,” play to the now-almost-forgotten H1N1 craze. Demonstrators gathered every Friday after prayer to confront Israeli soldiers who meet Palestinians’ stones with tear gas and flash-bang bombs. I was there to write a story, here, which explains more about this weekly protest.

A protestor shields his nose and eyes from the effects of tear gas.

The most striking aspect of this re-appropriation of a distinctly American, Avatar meme, is the irony. And right across the barbed-wire fence opposite from Bil’in are Israeli soldiers whose weapons supplied by American taxpayers. So, as Joseph Nye would explain, that’s an example of U.S. “hard power.”. Then, on the other side, the Palestinians to score by appropriating imagery siphoned with sophistication from the mighty currents of American “soft power.”

Are you sick of being bombarded by countless advertisements in your daily life?

Do you want to check your email or look up the definition of epistemology without being lured into a dating site or convinced of some obscure disease that you don’t actually have (and obviously don’t need insufficiently tested prescription drugs for)?

Well fret no more.

Add-Art has saved the day.

Add-Art is a FireFox add-on which not only blocks internet ads, but replaces those ads with thoughtfully curated art exhibitions, commonly with social change themes.

Add-Art is an open source project and is run on a day-to-day basis by Hana Newman and Steve Lambert.

Go to http://add-art.org/ to add it to your FireFox or just to check out the very fitting current exhibit:

Merchandise (you are not what you own):

“The artists in this show appropriate and subvert the language of marketing, using its tools of photography, costuming and set dressing, digital manipulation, and data tagging. By copying these strategies, they create transparency where obfuscation is usually found. By bringing the sublimated messages of consumer culture into question, these artists offer the possibility of a more critical engagement with the image.”

Curated by Anuradha Vikram

Enjoy detournement, not marketing, and make better use of your space, time, and eyes.

Jess Baines has an excellent new article in Afterall on the history of radical graphics beginning in England in the 1960’s.  It’s a great introduction/reminder of how a previous revolution in technology, namely broad access to low-cost printing equipment, fueled global resistance to war and helped spread alternative social justice movements.

A wiki has been started to collect information on the topic.

Image: Poster from the Poster-Film Collective’s History Series.

Avatar has made more dollars in the last month than there are people in China, but not all of its fans left the theater feeling happy. Psychology Today reports that some experienced depression and even suicidal thoughts after seeing Avatar. Here’s an example of the post-movie melancholia an Avatar fan felt:

“Ever since I went to see ‘Avatar’ I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na’vi made me want to be one of them. I can’t stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it. I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora and the everything is the same as in ‘Avatar.’

No, it’s not because Avatar has a silly script or condescendingly simplifies the complex historical narratives of native peoples. The reason is that some Avatar fans can’t handle being thrust back into the bleak reality of early 21st century Earth, a dying planet whose quickly decaying beauty can’t match the shimmering, bioluminescent landscapes of Pandora (the planet where Avatar is set). Finding the IMdB discussions full of “trolls and 12 year old deconstructors”  (according to one Avatar enthusiast) the blockbuster film’s fans have created their own online forum communities, one of which includes a thread entitled ‘Ways to cope with the depression of the dream of Pandora being intangible’ And an antidote is indeed desperately needed.

Another forum member offered a rather comprehensive solution:

“Start living like Neytiri: in touch with nature, the environment, and not being greedy and wasteful. Pass on the burger, for something more healthy for you and less cruel to animals. Spend your time on this forum, or volunteering in your free time, instead of getting high or drinking, twiddling your thumbs, being apathetic and complaining about how bad the world is. Don’t get swept away by the wave of negativity, live your dream. Your life has only two switches, to shine or not to shine. There is no ‘apathy’ setting. If you’re on apathy setting you might as well sign your world away to destruction. When you get discouraged by everyone around you, be courageous like Jake, and jump on the leonopteryx. Be the change you want to see in your world. There are only so many people on this earth, the more of them that are doing positive things, the less of them that are out there doing negative things. It’s unfortunate that we live in a world where, just by pulling a trigger or making a corporate decision, one single greedy human being can wipe out the hard works of love of many people. But this is why we need to stop focusing on money and start focusing on our environment. Because we have the intelligence to kill ourselves, but not the wisdom to stop it. What will our money buy, when everything that is worth having is destroyed? The only way you can fill the emptiness you feel after this movie, is to jump on the leonopteryx.”

Speaking as someone who has seen this movie (in Copenhagen, actually, so the Danish subtitles sort of distorted some of the experience, since parts of the dialogue are in Na’vi, the lilting language of idyllic Pandora’s noble natives) I can tell you that it’s not worth getting this worked up about, just in case that wasn’t clear. It’s a great looking movie but it’s certainly not a great movie. Indeed, Jake Sully, the Na’vi’s human advocate (dressed up as an alien for diplomatic purposes (don’t worry, it’s  a long story)) fulfills the tired troupe of White Savior, like some sort of interstellar Lawrence of Arabia or Kevin Costner’s character in the eponymous Dances with Wolves. Don’t take my word for it though, this is Ezili Danto’s interpretation. Personally, I can’t find a reason to disagree with her. So maybe one way to beat those “Avatar blues” is to remember that, at the end of the day, two important facts a) the millions of dollars James Cameron spent making Avatar (and the subsequent cost of pricey tickets for 3-D showings) all could’ve gone to, I don’t know, cleaning up The Chesapeake Bay or subsidizing wind farm construction. At least something less vain, frivolous, and decadent  than a major motion picture.  And, of course, b) it’s just a movie. A great antidote to movies are books. I suggest Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece Blood Meridian, a novel depicting panoramas surpassing Pandora’s in primordial beauty.

Pop music star and Sri Lankan native M.I.A. reacted angrily to the Times heavily laundered assessment of touristic possibilities on the revolution-torn island.  “HERE IS THE LUSH COASTLINE THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT,” she stated in a Twiitter post with a link to atrocities commited against rebels.

Here’s an article about government-inflicted atrocities.

Thanks to Pitchfork.

[Below, a vintage performance by the brilliant, irrepressible Patti Smith on the occasion of her sixty-fourth birthday. Rock on Patti!]

[Cross-posted to The Data Stream.]

Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

November 6-8
Editions|Artists’ Book Fair
X Initiative
548 West 22nd Street
[Between 10th & 11th Avenue]
New York City, New York

VENDORBAR
304 West 10th Street, 1A
New York, NY 10011
1.212 431 4571

“VendorBar is part of an ongoing series of itinerant exhibitions and interventions, organized by Kirby Gookin and Robin Kahn, in which art is presented to the public that is either free, with no copyright, or sold inexpensively. The goal is to open up direct lines of communication between artists and the public in order to make ideas and artwork more accessible. Past projects include Free Show, Disappearing Act, Holiday Shopping, Copiacabana, Copilandia and To Market to Market. For E/AB’09 VendorBar is inviting artists to directly engage the public by presenting actions, exchanges and services that result in the production and distribution of artists editions made specifically for the event.

Participating artists will include ARTifariti-Western Sahara Collective, Mike Bidlo, Gaye Chan & Nandita Sharma, Kirby Gookin, Geoffrey Hendricks, Nancy Hwang, Robin Kahn, Amanda Keeley, Alison Knowles & Alan Bowman, Cary Leibowitz, Larry Miller, Ken Montgomery, Peter Nadin, Yoko Ono, Tom Otterness, Sal Randolph, Showpaper, and Elaine Tin Nyo.”

[Text and graphic from E|AB Fair 2009 website. Capiton: "Free Show: Nancy Hwang, 'Hand Job', 2008. Unlimited edition.Cross-posted to The Data Stream.]

Bijou Theater
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa

October 25 – 7 pm
COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS
Directed by Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew McCleod

Produced by University of Iowa professorKembrew McCleod, Copyright Criminals is a documentary that poses the question: Can you own a sound? The film traces the history of sampling in the music industry and the increasing government regulation on the practice, featuring interviews from music legends like Chuck D, George Clinton, and Clyde Stubblefield.

Q&A session with producer Kembrew McCleod following the free screening.
Also showing in DC at the JCC.  More here.

[text from Bijou mailing. Cross-posted to Signal Fire.]

Recycle LACMA

On January 14th, 2009 the Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced that it was deaccessioning more than 100 items from its costumes and textiles collection. Once carefully collected, catalogued, and cared for, these items have now been cast back out in to the world. What will happen to them? Like any other useless item, they will need to be recycled or disposed of.

Recycle LACMA is a project of Los Angeles-based artist Robert Fontenot. At three separate auctions he purchased over 50 items deaccessioned by LACMA and is now trying to find new uses for these otherwise unwanted items.

Although each item has not yet been used, each item can have a use.

Recycle LACMA blog

NPR Weekend Edition Story

[Text and graphic from Recycle LACMA blog. The photograph displays a Korean Girl's Hood recycled as a sling. Cross-posted to The Data Stream.]