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'The Heads', as they were known, were first created for the World Economic Forum protests in NYC in 2002. The collective that made them was initially known as 'Vanity Fair', and later as 'StreetRec'. It was shaped by the influences of it's members' other art/activist collectives including Temporary Services, Just Seeds, and SmartMeme. Our group was interested in upping the ante in visual protest strategies, as well as finding new ways to communicate messages and intervene in public space. To that end we experimented with a number of protest technologies and message-deployment systems including 'The Roller' and the 'Throw-Over'.
StreetRec's collective life was fairly short, but you can see some of its traces in the documentary we produced about interventions in the context of the WEF - RETOOLING DISSENT
Retooling Dissent also documents the energy of that time- as the counter-globalization movement transformed itself in the wake of 9/11, the war build-up, and the imposition of the new security state. The film shows a variety of creative strategies that art-activist groups were experimenting with there.
In addition to StreetRec's interventions, the film also documents the Bikewriter/Affectech group from Boston with their modified bikes for printing messages on the street; 'Pret-a-revolter' or 'ready to revolt', the protest fashions and decorative Ya Basta! style shields by the Barcelona's Las Agencias/New Kids on the Black Block; and the 'I-see' web application developed by the Institute for Applied Autonomy, to help users chart the path of least surveillance through Manhattan.
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The Heads, particularly our Cheney "Got Oil?" image, were extremely well-documented in the media, appearing as a centerfold in Newsweek and spreading through the AP/Reuters wire to newspapers in China, India, and beyond. Photos of us holding the Heads, and particularly images of 'Got Oil?', eventually took on a life of their own, spreading wildly as a meme through the internet and being reproduced by people all over the place in protests, postcards, online t-shirt stores and mugs, as well as book covers and art installations. Dara Greenwald has written a nice article called OFF WITH THEIR HEADS, looking at some of the interesting ethical issues around cultural appropriation and ownership that 'The Heads' have raised. StreetRec and Retooling Dissent would later appear in the MassMoca exhibition "The Interventionists", and the accompanying book 'The Interventionists: A Users Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life', edited by Nato Thompson and Greg Sholette. |