On October 12, the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley and the Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts are partnering to host a live-streaming of the Creative Time Summit, an annual conference in New York that brings together cultural producers–including artists, critics, writers, and curators–to discuss how their work engages pressing issues affecting our world. To jump-start the conversation in advance of the event, attendees have been asked to submit a paragraph on a keyword associated with one of the summit themes: Inequities, Occupations, Making, or Tactics. This posting is by Forrest Wang, American Cyberculture student at UC Berkeley.
Keywords: Inequities, Translation
While it is no secret that the United States, and many nations throughout the world, face various inequities, it is interesting how inequalities in wealth, income, economic opportunities (as well as opportunities in general), and many other issues are dealt with. One such example is the Occupy movement, which not only demonstrates a method of combatting issues, but also demonstrates the evolution of the method of protests.
Although widely known as one of the major democracies of the world and used as an example of a modern-day democracy, the United States continues to be confronted by numerous problems, unresolved by voting, that are met with protests and demonstrations. Profusely used throughout the country, the adoption of protests, both violent and nonviolent, has permeated the country since the beginning of its history till even now in the present; since its initial use however, the balance between violent and nonviolent protests has begun to shift. This curious fact presents an interesting point as to why this change has occurred. The problem of the effectiveness of the two types is called into question: although nonviolent demonstrations appear to be championed much more often in present times, are they really more effectual than violent ones?
However, regardless of the mode through which demonstrations are carried out, maybe it would be more important to translate the actions of the Occupy movement, into policy and discussion. Furthermore, given the lack of coherency and size of the Occupy movement, translation may be the needed next step in order to elucidate the pressing inequalities that need to be addressed.