School for Designing a Society… and the traces left by it

House Theater Dec. 10, 11, 12, 2009: “The Truth about Injustice Always Sounds OutRageous”

Sounds outrageous and outrageous sounds, brought to you by House Theater and UC-ODDMUSIC. We invite you to an hour and a half “Letter to the Editor” on the system-designed killing of 15-year-old Kiwane Carrington Oct. 9 2009 entwining experimental compositions in sound, dance, and poetry performed in a living, bedroom, bathroom of an Urbana house.

There will be three identical performances. Pick one or several:
Thursday, December 10 @ 7:30p
Friday, December 11 @ 7:30pm
Saturday, December 12 @ 7:30pm

Where: 2106 S. Race St., Urbana (home of Ben Grosser, Kate McDowell, and Jasper)

How much: suggested donation of $5-$10, or pay what you can

Who: compositions by Grosser, Schuessler, Rzewski, Enslin, Simpson, Snow Leopard, Barton, Heathwaite, Parenti, Nix, Michaelis, Lieder, Chynoweth, Cage, Glick, and more…

RSVPs are appreciated but not required.  Drop an email to grosser (at) bengrosser )dot( com.

by Danielle Chynoweth

Thanksgiving, November 26, 2009

We are exploring a pedagogy of desire for four days in a smoggy corner of Milan.

Upon arrival at the location where we will sleep, eat, and teach, we enter a portal emblazoned with the statement Da vicino nessuno e normale, meaning “up close, nothing is normal,” with a broken looking lightening bolt for an icon.

It is a former psychiatric hospital turned youth hostel—a fitting environment for our workshop taught by composers, activists, and clowns.

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City Imagining:

an idea, implemented/able on the scale of a city which:

• offers interesting solutions to common problems
• increases the freedom of city residents,
• decreases power differences, and/or
• helps residents participate in the decisions which affect their lives.

This booklet was compiled by Danielle Chynoweth in 2002 from imaginative descriptions, love letters, false statements, images, and music submitted by 21 people, many of them School for Designing a Society participants.

Download the .pdf (6 MB) in sequenced order for on-screen reading, and/or in booklet form (to assemble, print fronts and backs on legal size paper, then fold in half).

Listen:

My Pre-Existing Condition was No Health Care Access ( source | lyrics )
Jacob - “MC Utterbot” and udderbot
Andrew - “Professor Heathwaite” and 23-tone electric guitar
Rob - “Hello” and drums

source| lyrics

text by Melanie Meltzer and Jacob Barton
film by Rob Scott

How can activism and music composition be resistence AND a contribution? When do either make a difference to society?

When is activism new? When is music new? Composition of activism or sound is new when it resists identity with already-decayed and absorbed activisms/compositions.          Video -WMV | Video -QT

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by Danielle Chynoweth

Genoa rises up from the sea, a chaotic surface of bricks and stone and tangled streets holding several thousand years of memory in the arc of its harbor.

Our first stop is AutAut - a squatted space claimed by protesting students earlier this year, shortly after our discussions with them last November.

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by Rob Scott

I spent a day taping the wierdo champion Chu-uck D as he provided a spanarchist perspective on our little town of Urbana-Champaign. Over the course of the day, several locals received an exposition of da (not the) crucial artz, complete with an arted flyer. Can’t decrypt the deadpan? We were being silly in our seriousness.

Video -WMV | Video -QT

For six months, the school’s office has not sent any garbage to landfills. Organic waste is composted, glass/paper/plastic are recycled, but everything else is now turned into “trash balls”. Trash is shredded, wrapped in plastic bags, then encapsulated in cloth, or painted cardboard/canvas. Pictured is a red sweater trash ball, and a gray trash-buckyball. Other variants including trash blocks, a fun-unlike-soccer ball, and a party ball (!) are now spreading throughout the building. Click for a larger image >>

by AnAndR

At the House Concerturtle in March, AnAndR presented their first draft of a toy piano and banjo piece entitled, “Playing (with) Policy”.
The piece explores a city ordinance on Loud and Raucous Noise.

Video -WMV | Video -QT

The Health Care Design Intensive is ongoing at the American Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore and Mark and Danielle have posted some descriptions on a blog here.