QUOTE OF THE WEEK
[In New York] Bloomberg controls public advertising and the commercial press - and the police have the assignment of making "peaceable gathering" impossible - but they can't stop people from meeting each other and sharing opinions in public space. We can still do that. We can find each other. The cops were always a step behind us yesterday
Billy Talen 05/13 2009
Talarstenen Puhujakivi Speaker's Stone
Säg vad du vill i Ekenäs!Puhu suusi puhtaaksi Tammisaaressa!Speak your mind in Ekenäs!View recorded speeches and comments:
Talarstenen Puhujakivi Speaker's StoneLOCATION:
Galleri Elverket
Gustaf Wasas gata 11, Ekenäs, Finland
This installation was active from 5th of February to 15th of March 2009: You will still find the stone in the courtyard next to Galleri Elverket. Previously, you heard a bull and by that, knew you had arrived. However, now, look under the blue lamp.
This project was part of Pia Lindman's retrospective at Galleri Elverket 5.2 - 15.3 2009 and funded in part by Pro Artibus, Finland
For more info visit
Pro Artibus or check the blog
Talarstenen
Old quotes of the week
But my experience with that is that if you look at the abolitionists, the suffragists, the labor movement, civil rights movement, in the end, the change always happens when good people break bad laws and accept the consequences, that some people actually have to engage the law through the grassroots movements of nonviolence.
Father John Dear, Anti-Nuclear Activist
Democracy is not an absence of disagreement; it gets its virtue from its love of dissent
Spinoza rephrased by artist group Freee
A true exercise in democracy. If only the opinion of every individual could be considered on a national scale, on every major issue, in the form of daily referendums.This would be active democracy - the evolutionary progression of representative democracy. Theoretically impractical? With the advancement of modern computer technologies this should not seem so unreasonable
sarpedonia on October 29 2008
Democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner
Don Shappelle at 2:10pm September 29 2009
First day of Democracy in America, The National Campaign at the Park Avenue Armory NYC
Soapbox Event opened again with Democracy in America, The National Campaign exhibit at the Park Avenue Armory, NYC this Sunday 09/21/08. We kept the boxes going from 11AM to 10PM!!
This was an energizing day with many interested and interesting minds, works, and speeches coming together. Thank you Nato Thompson, for this bold, much needed, smart, inspiring, and fun show! Thanks to Creative Time for taking on this risky and bold endeavor. Thanks also to all the enthused and helpful volunteers!
Personal thanks to Soapbox Production Manager Janine Slaker and Speaker Agent Loren Allston, who stuck it out all day long. You gave me strength.
At the bottom of this page I have uploaded recordings of the speeches: check out
The Missile Dick Chicks video below for something hilariously burlesque and the unplugged off-the-cuff Victor Sheely.
You still have a chance to participate! Welcome to the Soapbox Event next Friday and Saturday (09/26 from 12 to 3PM and 09/27 from 3PM to 6PM) at Park Avenue Armory!
Scroll down to the bottom of this page to find more videos.
Please post comments and speeches, and check in again.
Pia Lindman
THE SOAPBOX EVENT
THE FIRST EVENT WAS AT
FEDERAL HALL NATIONAL MEMORIAL
26 WALL STREET, NYC
SATURDAY APRIL 5TH FROM 2 TO 5 PM
Pia Lindman thanks everyone who showed up at the Federal Hall in April; volunteers, speakers, film crew... you helped create a truly energizing event!
41 speakers delivered speeches almost non-stop. We will post excerpts of these recordings here shortly.
If you have any questions or would like to contribute to this project by volunteering or otherwise, please contact Pia by email, piuska@mit.edu. If you want to contribute by writing to this blog click on the link for instructions to participate.
In Soapbox Event, Lindman pares down the structure of democracy to the elemental forms of free speech: human bodies, live voices, and space. This performance investigates the construction and breakdown of collective structures, and how they influence individual expression in democratic decision-making. The event highlights the relationship of embodied speech to the bare life of an individual, in the context of increasingly mediated communication.
GROUND RULES FOR THE SOAPBOX EVENT
- each participant will be given one soapbox
- with the soapbox, each participant is also given one minute of free speech
- participants may form coalitions
- the soapboxes of the members of a coalition can be stacked together to create a higher speech podium
- a representative of a coalition may speak as many minutes as there are stacked boxes (members in the coalition)
We will not be using microphones or any amplifiers. Obtaining greater height serves to elevate a speaker and have their voice project better into the space.
Wednesday evening 09/24/08, students and faculty of Eugene Lang College of Undergraduate Studies, New School of Social Research, debated about race in America. Mark Larrimore invited Pia Lindman and Soapbox Event to stage an "intervention" in the traditional forms of a panel discussion. Students were asked to use soapboxes to step up and speak, and to thus rearrange the social dynamics of the space. In this blog, we will post speeches and comments pertaining to this debate. You are welcome to continue the debate here!
