Category Archives : Occupy as Form – February 2012

Occupy as Form: Sara Kimberlin

This entry was posted in Blog Occupy as Form - February 2012 and tagged occupy as form solidarity diversity righteous on January 31, 2012 by arc_berkeley.

“We are the 99%.” The catchy tagline resonates with a diversity of protesters and spectators, calling for solidarity across lines of difference. But how solid is that solidarity?

Who do those who identify as “the 99%” imagine to be the fellow occupants of this righteous percentage? They seem to allow for hipsters and hippies, artists and activists, unemployed millenials and involuntary early retirees… But do they include as one of their own the homeless man who occupied the park before it was Occupied?

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Occupy as Form: Gina Acebo

This entry was posted in Blog Occupy as Form - February 2012 and tagged occupy as form diversity the hood racial equity on January 31, 2012 by arc_berkeley.

As the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement mushroomed city by city in states across the country, the need to make room to expand a vision of racial equity through the participation and leadership of communities of color came to the fore. In early October, OWS participant New Yorker Malik Rahsaan launched Occupy the Hood in order to involve more people of color in the OWS movement.

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Occupy as Form: Scott Tsuchitani

This entry was posted in Blog Occupy as Form - February 2012 and tagged radical occupy as form engaged neoliberal on January 31, 2012 by arc_berkeley.

The word “radical” has more or less become a pejorative in the mainstream, narrowly associated with (senseless?) acts of violence, and consistently applied in this way to marginalize actions, actors, and ideas which would otherwise call into question structures of dominance. It’s become so deeply ingrained that one wonders if truly radical thought itself isn’t on the verge of becoming unthinkable, even among cultural workers.

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Occupy as Form: Andrew Weiner

This entry was posted in Aesthetics Blog Occupy as Form - February 2012 and tagged demands occupy as form autonomy collective on January 31, 2012 by arc_berkeley.

Among the numerous memes, tropes, and forms associated with the Occupy movement is that of a concerted, public refusal to make specific demands. Although advocates of this tactic have seen it as a potent way to argue that the existing political system must be overhauled, rather than accomodated, many liberals have criticized such a position as impractical, while conservative pundits tout this apparent irrationality as proof that Occupy can’t be trusted.

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Occupy as Form: Chiara T. Ricciardone

This entry was posted in Blog Occupy as Form - February 2012 and tagged occupy as form virus parasitic on January 31, 2012 by arc_berkeley.

The Occupy movement is a virus. That is obvious. But the metaphor veers disturbingly into the real—exhibiting the virus’ trademark capacity for metalepsis and contagion—when we think of the lurid stories that broke out in November: “Zucotti lung” at OWS, the deadly canine parvovirus over the bridge at OccupySF. The evictions that followed, in turn, are consonant with what we have known for some time now about the political project of public health.

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Occupy as Form: Amanda Verwey

This entry was posted in Blog Occupy as Form - February 2012 and tagged occupy as form political action ideology injustice on January 31, 2012 by arc_berkeley.

Although the word occupy has experienced new use since the Sept. 2011 occupation of Liberty Park, the real evolution of Occupy does not lie in its political usage but its movement from a transitive to an intransitive verb, in which it now acts as a macro-term encompassing/suggesting many keywords (encampment, occupation, sit-in, protest, etc) without a qualifying place/object. Occupy today is rapidly moving away from its connections to physical space and is no longer limited to a specific political action but functions as an ideology.

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Occupy as Form: Betti-Sue Hertz

This entry was posted in Blog Occupy as Form - February 2012 and tagged occupy as form publics audience on January 30, 2012 by arc_berkeley.

Publics act historically. They are said to rise up, to speak, to reject false promises, to demand answers, to change sovereigns, to support troops, to give mandates for change, to be satisfied, to scrutinize public conduct, to take role models, to deride counterfeits. — Michael Warner 

How do members of gatherings, from theater audiences to protestors, model the potentialities of a civil society? How do publics intersect with site-specificity? How does art shape transformative experience at sites inclusive of concert halls and urban parks?

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Occupy as Form: Kate Mattingly

This entry was posted in Blog Occupy as Form - February 2012 and tagged human interactions consciousness occupy as form architecture on January 30, 2012 by arc_berkeley.

Defined as a way of making visible, of bringing people and structures into relation with one another and with particular landscapes.

Different from keywords that may refer to specific environments — settlement, place — architecture encompasses the design, dissemination, and evolution of structures. It also acknowledges interactions between people and spaces, reciprocal relations and flows. The Occupy movement animates spaces. Bodies and places produce architectural forms that are flexible, generative, and resistant. Architecture is creative problem-solving: floating tents.

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