Artivisme and media

Discussion run by Mathieu Bietlot, philosopher and political scientist (Secular Brussels), will be followed by a performance by Valérie Cordy about the Tarnac case.

Both activist and artist at the same time ; artivists continually reinvent the forms and techniques of political protests : a mixture of civil disobedience, of carnivals against the capital, of collective games such as revolutionary explosions. Dadaist inheritors, situationists, the Provo, the Yippee ; artivists use art, poetry, experimentation, imagina- tion, impertinence and humor as weapons of resistance.

In this galaxy, there are the Yes Men, the Guerilla Girls, JR, Zevs, Critical Art Ensemble, Reclaim the Streets, Steven Cohen, Reverend Billy… they overthrow and reinvent the world, and create their own weapons : guerrillas media stunts of spectacular action and photogenic happenings against the mainstream media-manipulations, sabotage or ownership of the means of production. So many forms of media disobedience.

We invite you to a joyously subversive meeting about the creative forms of resistance and their ‘strategies’ of aware- ness and mobilization within the media.

We will be joined in this discussion by :

Yannick Kergoat : active member of the “Observatoire des Médias Acrimed” (Action – Critique – Médias) and filmma- ker, with Gilles Balbastre, of the film Nouveaux Chiens de garde

John Jordan who organizes creative and direct actions such as Reclaim the Streets, Climate Camp, Clown Army and Bike Bloc. He was one of the cameramen on the film The Take by Naomi Klein, and co-led the book We Are Everywhere. The Irresistible Rise of Global Anti-Capitalism (overleaf). With Isabelle Frémeaux, he was the founder of The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, a collective that allies art, activism, creativity and resistance.

Isabelle Frémeaux : conference leader of Media & Cultural Studies at the Birkbeck College-University of London. Her research and actions explore mainstream education and the creative forms of resistance. With John Jordan, she created the book and film Les Sentiers de l’utopie (Edition Zones/La Découverte), which explored utopic communities in Europe.

Cyprien Lepoivre : the initiator of the Artivist Collective. Theatric eruptions, non violent direct actions, unexpected scenarios, media inquiries, Belgian activist network stren- gthening, DIY, videos, photos, parties, workshops, are all techniques that the collective uses to spread the fun re- volution (the right wing demonstration “Daring austerity” incursion into Greenweek, the Clowns Brigade on the bat- tlefield of GMO, etc..).

Philippe Dutilleul : documentary director and journalist for RTBF (Strip Tease, Sale temps sur la planète). As an admitted imposter, he directs the real fake news reports “Bye Bye Belgium”.

Ben Borges : As a public reporter and a media-activist, he is actively involved in the protest movement that saw the light at the time of the Fukushima catastrophe, in the “Indignées” and “Occupy” movements around the world.

Valérie Cordy : Digital artist, director of Fabrique de Théâtre and organizer of the afternoons dedicated to “Digital resistance, crises, revolutions and artivism and hackivism networks”

An initiative by Julie Van der Kar from Gsara, an association for Media Literacy Education. Gsara creates informational and awareness campaigns. For example : “La Copy Party” (Happening/debate about the question of copyright, in the digital age, 2012), “OuiShare” (about collaborative consumerism and sharing economy, 2012), “Farewell to the internet as we know it today?” (about the issues of Net neutrality, 2011), “Facebook is collecting data on you, don’t ignore it” (2010). The awareness campaign “Artivism and media” is formed as a reflection of media education in order to better understand the setting of the story of the political opposition and its representation.

Flagey, Filmer A Tout Prix, Gsara