Events

Thursday, September 3, 7:30pm

The Change You Want To See Gallery is pleased to host another installment of the Upgrade! NY series on open source as it relates to activism and creative practice. This month we'll explore how changes in technology and social convention affect music, software, and culture in general.

We'll start the evening with a conversation between scholar and DJ Larisa Mann, and developer and open source advocate Karl Fogel. Their discussion will examine how Jamaican music has developed in the absence of an effective copyright regime, how technological and social conditions affect the music and musicians, and how this compares to the open source movement of today.

Afterward stick around for a party and DJ set by Larisa Mann (aka DJ Ripley). Ripley was voted "Best Dance DJ of 2008" by the readers of the SF Bay Guardian.

Not in NY? Tune in to a live stream of the discussion at 7:30pm EST at http://livestream.com/notanalternative

The Change You Want To See is hosting the Open Planning Project's FixCity Bike Rack Hunt on Sunday, September 20th from 2:30pm - 6:30pm. The event is part of the 2009 city-wide Conflux Festival.

Want more bike parking in Williamsburg and Greenpoint? FixCity.org is an online platform that communities can use to map desired bike rack locations. The site is a partnership between the Open Planning Project, the Transportation Alternatives Brooklyn Committee, and the Livable Streets Initiative with NAG (Neighbors Allied for Good Growth) as the community partner for the first phase of the site, focused on Brooklyn Community District 1, Greenpoint and Williamsburg. The goal is for CB1 to submit 300 potential locations to the Department Of Transportation so they can order and place the new bike racks in bulk.

Arrive prepared to scour the streets for possible new bike rack locations and BRING A CAMERA or phone with camera capabilities. There will be some extras on hand if you don't have one.

Thursday, September 24, 7:30-9:30pm
@ The Change You Want To See Gallery
and live-streamed for remote participants at http://livestream.com/notanalternative

Please join us this Thursday for a talk by award-winning writer, documentary filmmaker, and scholar Douglas Rushkoff. This event kicks off our Fall series on Symbols, Branding, and Persuasion. Rushkoff will discuss concepts he explores in the PBS Frontline series The Persuaders and Merchants of Cool, as well as his latest book Life Inc.. We’ll also screen clips from Life Inc. the Movie.

Corporatism didn’t evolve naturally. The landscape on which we are living – the operating system on which we are now running our social software – was invented by people, sold to us as a better way of life, supported by myths, and ultimately allowed to develop into a self-sustaining reality. It is a map that has replaced the territory.

Each year, legions of ad people, copywriters, market researchers, pollsters, consultants, and even linguists spend billions of dollars and millions of man-hours trying to determine how to persuade consumers what to buy, whom to trust, and what to think. We are swimming in a sea of messages.

The Untold History of Controlling the Masses Through the Manipulation of Unconscious Desires

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized." - Edward Bernays



Sunday, September 27, 4pm - 9pm
Screening Parts 1-4 of "The Century of Self"
The Change You Want To See Gallery
http://thechangeyouwanttosee.org

Please join us this Thursday, October 1 for a presentation by author, historian, and media/culture theorist Stuart Ewen.

The intersection of semiotics and psychoanalysis has proven fruitful terrain for PR professionals, advertisers, politicians, and other types of leaders. Over the course of a century those whose job it is to persuade the public have increasingly abandoned appeals to rationale in favor of appeals to emotion. Instead of trying to persuade with text and reason, they use imagery and symbols to appeal to instinct and emotion.

Ewen will tour us through the history of "spin", propaganda, and the role of images in consumerism, mass psychology, politics, social movements, cultural attitudes, and consumption. PR is a battle to define reality, and how people see and understand that reality. In this presentation, we will explore what it means to do battle armed with the tools of persuasion.

Thursday, October 1, 7:30pm (free / by donation)
@ The Change You Want To See Gallery
And live-streamed at http://livestream.com/notanalternative for remote participants