Art, food, drink, and the end of November! A festive time to see the famed 17th Street Studios and-- if you're lucky-- buy art from one of its many talented tenants.
Wednesday, November 30th from 7 - 9 pm. The studios are in the attic of
Redeemer Church, 1642 Highland Ave. (37916) at the intersection of 17th
St. and Highland in the Fort Sanders Neighborhood.
The Yes Men are artists/activists who stage media-savvy pranks to draw scrutiny to corporations and institutions putting profit before people, among other sins. Below is a video of Yes Man, Andy Bichlbaum, posing as a DOW Chemical representative and apologizing for the Bhopal Disaster.
The Yes Men are currently hatching Yes Lab, currently described as "...a series of brainstorms and trainings to help
activist groups carry out media-getting creative actions, focused on
their own campaign goals." You can fund the Yes Lab via their kickstarter campaign.
Below is a list of actions carried out by Yes Lab (as quoted from the Yes Men mailing list). Pretty savvy stuff:
General Electric Short-Circuited
Activists US Uncut, with a little help from the Yes Lab, sent out a press release
announcing that General Electric would repay the $3.2 billion tax
credit they received last year despite massive profits. The announcement
was momentarily picked up as true by the AP, and the market, unable to
leave a good deed unpunished, responded by knocking $3.5 billion off
GE’s share price. The result was massive, enlightening coverage of GE’s
tax-cheating ways on everything from local TV to CNN.
Beat Up On Chevron? We Agree.
Chevron decided to launch a $90 million greenwashing campaign with a
street-art aesthetic, and was stupid enough to approach street artists
for help. One of them, Cesar Maxit, promptly leaked Chevron’s plans to
Amazon Watch. The Yes Lab helped Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action
Network (RAN) release a much more honest version of Chevron’s campaign just hours ahead of the “real” McCoy, generating a deluge of media coverage.
Hundreds of user submissions and some amazingvideos from FunnyOrDie further derailed Chevron’s $90 million lie, infuriating Chevron even more—though not quite as much as the $18 billion judgment against them in Ecuador, which Chevron has vowed never to pay. The fight goes on.
Coal Burns Wealthy Neighborhood. Neighbors Nonplussed. Students from Columbia College in Chicago came together with
Greenpeace and the Yes Lab to create the illusion that a new coal plant
was planned in their city—but that instead of going in a poor
neighborhood (like the two coal plants that already exist in Chicago),
this one would be built in a rich one. The plans got a rise out of
residents and the media, and helped focus attention on Chicago’s much-needed Clean Power Ordinance. Canada was the victim of
two Yes-Lab-assisted actions, both targeting the Alberta Tar Sands, the
England-sized mess that has made Canada the worst per-capita carbon
emitter on earth.
Hair Clogs Pipeline
In the first Canadian action, a group of activists had Enbridge—who are
aiming to build a massive pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands through
pristine wilderness to the British Columbia coast—announce “My Hair Cares,” a crackpot plan to sop up inevitable spills along the pipeline route with the hair of volunteers. The resulting press publicized Enbridge’s botched spill cleanup in Michigan, and let Canadians know how stupid it can be to let oil flow through your watershed.
More and More Mordor
In the second Canada-centered action, a group of students, working with Greenpeace, launched a surreal campaign, complete with infomercials, cell phone videos, a tweeting campaign, a Facebook page,
etc. to make folks in Canada think that the new Hobbit film was saving
money on Mordor scenes by shooting them in the Tar Sands. The “news”
went quickly viral and helped to cement the Canadian Government’s
reputation as top-shelf planet-killing bastards.
Canadian War Room Defeated Another Canadian action on the same subject took place way back in
December 2009, before the Yes Lab really existed—but it happened
according to the same model, so the Yes Lab is claiming it. Read about
it here!
France Remains Offensive
An ad-hoc group called CRIME (Committee for the Reimbursement of Indemnity Money Extorted from Haiti) announced,
on France’s behalf, the repayment of €17 billion to Haiti in relief
aid—a payment equal to that which France extorted from Haiti in 1804 as a
condition for their independence. Because of France’s ham-fisted reaction,
the story received global attention, alerting many to the deep colonial
roots of Haiti’s problems. The media attention was also used to launch a campaign that further built pressure on France to do the right thing.
People Bite Apple
It’s a bummer that our shiny tech toys are made using the blood of
people—or, more precisely, the “conflict minerals” that play a big role
in the violence and instability of Central Africa. So a group of
students, together with Friends of the Congo, produced a fake Apple ad campaign touting a “Conflict-Free iPhone,” and calling for the citizen’s arrest of John Paulson, whose company finances some of the worst extraction practices. The project received hundreds of media hits worldwide.
Unnatural Gas
Students and local activists launched a campaign to cover Manhattan with
stickers warning residents that if a ban on hydraulic fracturing is not
extended in New York State, they’ll soon need to test for their water’s
safety by trying to light it on fire. The project communicated viscerally just what’s at stake if gas companies are allowed to drill in New York’s aquifer, as the companies are demanding.
Shell Game Uncovers Oil Slick In the Hague, activists impersonated oil giant Shell and publicly
apologized for devastating the Niger Delta each year with oil spills
larger than that of the Exxon Valdez. The action generated hundreds of stories—all highlighting Shell’s atrocious record.
