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A taste of dissent
Current TV & Indymedia's citizen journalism. Banksy's urban-insurgency. Adbusters Magazine. Culture jamming & subvertisments' reorientation of corporate advertising. The blackspot sneaker factory. Mark Thomas' comedy slash activism. Two million people marching through London and engaging in sit-down protests at major intersections. The Yes Men's coup of international news programming. Two million free Rough Guide to a Better World books. James Caulty's Blackoff Post-Terrorist Xmas Gift Shop. WorldChanging and Treehugger's online lifestyle guides.
The importance of activism
Some of these entities are more mainstream, some more politically-charged, but all are equally essential. Whether grassroots direct action, activism and civil disobedience or high-budget programming aimed at mass audiences - all of these have vital roles and must co-exist in healthy symbiosis before the battle for equal empowerment can commence. Mainstream dissidence infuses us with passion, motivation and inspiration; and street-level conflict arms us with the desire and belief to follow through our intents.
"As you leave the theatre, you enter what is essentially the movie you just saw, and it's up to you whether you're going to continue the movie." - film director Michael Moore, 2004
The visual/ physical relationship
The combination of visual and real is essential; neither functions to its full potential without reference to the other. Television and film have no relation to our world. They're disconnected. We are accustomed to crossing to a diametric state when we switch on the TV or walk into the cinema. A link needs to be drawn in our physical environment to be of any relevance to the visual environment from which we are all educated. This is easily seen in a war zone, such as at the Ramallah Film Festival, where the films shown have an obvious relevance to their surroundings - and it's for this reason fundamental to turn our own towns into battlegrounds of visual dissent and direct action.
"Ultimately it is in the streets that power must be dissolved: for the streets where daily life is endured, suffered and eroded, and where power is confronted and fought, must be turned into the domain where daily life is enjoyed, created and nourished." (www.reclaimthestreets.org).
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