BEACON 2011

A TACTICAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEM FOR OCCUPY WALL STREET

the bridge

I was arrested and held for ten hours for standing on a bridge the NYPD told me to walk on to. The “hand-cuffs” were white plastic bands. Earlier, we had been told to link our arms and feet. If we were separated, we were told to crouch into the fetal position with one hand over our necks, almost like we were crashing in an airplane. When we saw the orange barricades and steel vans marked “police,” we linked arms. I'd never put my body before the baton before, before the canister of mace or before the boot. I almost didn't go to the protest. I went because a friend texted me, told me I should go. I thought it would only be a few people holding up signs, irrelevant. They weren't. Their numbers had doubled since the week before.

the project

Delta_Ark developed The Beacon as an on-site installation for Occupy Providence. During Delta_Ark’s numerous visits to the encampment, Delta_Ark noticed that passers-by continued to remark that they did not understand why the protesters were there. The movement was not a single-issue movement, like ‘end the Vietnam war’; the movement highlighted many of the ways in which an oligarchic faction of the country (the ‘1%’) were gaming the political and economic system. Some protesters were protesting because they had been foreclosed on, others because their health insurance had refused to reimburse them and others still because of crippling student debt. There were many reasons people were occupying; you could see how this could be confusing for someone walking by the encampment for the first time, looking at all the different signs and stations. To remedy this problem, Delta Ark created a communication system that allowed protesters to communicate their reasons for being at the encampment, one clear reason at a time.

phases & sites

Eventually, the system was iterated upon three times: (1.) The system that was originally generated at the Providence Occupy Encampment was refined and deployed at the New Hampshire Republican National Primary. (2.) As the Occupation continued, Delta Ark’s understanding of the dynamics of the camp became more nuanced. Delta_Ark produced a second version of the project that was more poetry-focused in order to highlight the other aspects of the occupation (psychological dynamics within the camp). (3.) The installation tracked a similar economic message from the United States back towards Europe, incorporating photographs of the austerity protests as well Peter Vermeersch’s poem, “The European Constitution in Verse.” Theoretically, the project could have been iterated on endlessly; although the Occupy movement itself petered out, its confrontation with income inequality and oligarchic control remain vital issues to this day.

the map

The following map shows the locations of each iteration of the project.

communitas

Why am I here in this Tent? I could complain. I could say it's cold, but it actually isn't. It's warm. I've got two sleeping bags given to me at a discount by a taxi driver. I've got companions. People I didn't know a week ago. J., a blue eyed writer, who has taken it upon himself to clean the park. T., who at the mere threat of something going out of hand, grabs his guitar. R., who likes to be called, "Gray Wolf," the man who understands how to work the generator, the generator that powers our media station. There's something happening here. What it is exactly, that's hard to say. I know that it has to do with this word: communitas, a feeling of union as the result of a temporary leveling of hierarchy.

(#1) occupy new hampshire

The occupiers set up the encampment in the middle of Manchester, New Hampshire. “The Beacon” was one of the top twitter trending tags for the vent. Delta_Ark interviewed protesters over three days, collating their reasons for occupying and broadcasting them on the tent. The Beacon acted as a focal point for information about the protest, providing a clear sign as to the reasons why people were there. The following video shows the process of interviewing as well as what it looked like during the evening, when the Beacon was illuminated.

Ambient Psychosis

At a certain point, the psychological atmosphere of our encampment became untenable, we dubbed it, “the ambient psychosis.” Everyone's energy was being poured into taking care of the encampment itself, as if it was some kind of magical talisman that would guarantee our larger success. It had been what had catapulted us to such profound media attention. It had shifted the media dialogue to inequality. It had opened up a rupture in American society where we were finally able to speak about things we had never spoken about before. Wasn't the encampment the most important thing? It wasn't. I remember, at some point, being astonished that there was no “policy” or “reform” working group within our site; this became the most clear evidence that the collective agenda had completely turned its back on mainstream society.

(#2) OCCUPY Interrupt

Interrupt was a digital language festival held at Brown University in the waning months of the occupation. Delta_Ark presented another iteration of the Beacon for this event, specifically focused on how the camp was falling apart, internally; the encampments were useful up until a point, as a mechanism of making a powerful statement in the urban environment, but after time Occupy Providences’ particular encampment began to exhibit some of the behavior of ‘a leaderless cult.’

(#3) OCCUPY Transatlantic

After the dissolution of the movement in the United States, a very similar movement became energized in Europe around austerity and sovereign debt. Interestingly, the Occupy Movement in the United States was very inspired by and directly informed by the Indignatos Movement in Spain, so the re-activation of the protests in Europe seemed like the completion of a circle. Months after Interrupt, Delt_Ark was invited to participate in the Transatlantic Film Festival in Poznan Poland. The Beacon underwent a final transformation in order to participate. The walls became a slide show (different on each wall) of photographs of the austerity protests, along with lines from Peter Vermeersch’s poem “The European Constitution in Verse.” During the festival, Delta_Ark interviewed participants about their conception of European Identity, as it related to national or European governance.

Little miracles, little promises

This is the last bill I can afford. On the front is a water charge for $42.43. I have $47.00 to my name. I make $7.25 an hour. Minimum wage is $8.00. But lucky for me, I make 10 cents commission per sale which makes my wage legal. I have $65,000.00 in student loan debt because I was told it’s the only way to get a job. I graduated with a 3.87 GPA. Next month, I’ll be homeless.

Occupy inequality

The Occupy Movement’s great success was elevating the meme of the 1% into the popular discourse. Inequality suddenly became the focus of more mainstream political campaigns in the US (Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, etc.). The entire discourse of the democratic party became a battlefield between the far left and center. Many books and articles describe how we arrived at the current oligarchic state of affairs (e.g. the documentary Inequality for All) as well as how to exit this state and return to democratic rule (e.g. the book Viking Economics). These battles played themselves out over the course of the next decade (and still continue to play themselves out, both nationally and internationally); furthermore, these struggles are beginning to become more and more interwoven with others, particularly the struggle against climate change. What’s clear is that the neo-liberal version of capitalism is coming to end and something else will have to take its place.