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 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

Please join us at The Change You Want To See Gallery this Thursday at 7:30pm for a workshop on mobile SMS (text message) encryption.

The number of mobile phone users is expected to exceed the 4 billion mark by the end of this year – that’s more than two thirds of the world’s population. And the number of text messages is expected to reach a whopping 1.8 trillion in 2010.¹ From the U.S. to Moldova to Iran to Uganda cell phones have facilitated all kinds of activism. While mobile phones bring many benefits to social movements, it is important to be aware of the digital data trails they leave behind.²

This workshop has two parts:

First, a general introduction: why encrypt your SMS? Oli from CryptoSMS, based in Hamburg, will discuss the open-source project’s history and current state.

Second, you’ll have a chance to get your inner hacker on with a hands-on workshop. We’ll install the encryption software on our cell phones, initialize them, exchange keys, and send encrypted SMS messages.

ABOUT CryptoSMS
CryptoSMS.org is a GPL (general public license) open source application for cell phones running J2ME (Java for mobiles). It runs on a lot of phones. CryptoSMS provides public/private key encryption, key generation and key management. It sends and receives encrypted SMS and public keys, encrypts and de-encrypts files, offers key verification via fingerprints and provides a secure login.

On June 18, 2009 internet theorist and author Clay Shirky joined us for a talk on the concepts of fork and failure in the open source process, particularly in the context of activism and creative practice. This event was part of the monthly Upgrade New York programming series, co-produced by Not An Alternative and Eyebeam. Part 2 below the jump.

Upgrade NY: Clay Shirky on Forking, Failure, and Open Source (Part 1) from Not An Alternative on Vimeo.

"Subversive Tech and Burma's Struggle for Democracy" involved a presentation by Digital Democracy on the use of technology inside and along Burma's borders, footage from the Sept 2007 Saffron Revolution, where mobile phones and the internet allowed protesters to coordinate and publicize the largest protests seen in a generation, and a Q&A with "Stanley", a Burmese computer programmer and chairperson of the All Burma IT Students Union.

This was the inaugural event of the 2009 Upgrade New York art and technology programming series, pertaining to open source activist and creative practices, co-produced by Not An Alternative and Eyebeam.

Subversive Tech & Burma's Struggle for Democracy (Part 1) from Not An Alternative on Vimeo.

Thursday June 4, 7:30 pm, free
@ The Change You Want To See Gallery in Brooklyn, NY
and streamed live at http://www.livestream.com/notanalternative

This Thursday evening artist and activist Martin Krenn will present his work that ranges from co-operative, socially committed and participatory projects to politically symbolic, provocative actions. Based in Vienna, Austria, Krenn is an artist, curator, filmmaker, and activist whose work focuses on strategies and methods of resistance to the governing relations of power. He uses different media such as photography, video and the internet to develop projects that are realized in exhibitions, the web and in public space. His talk will give insights in his newer projects where an extended concept of art, subversive techniques and testing the so-called 'freedom of art' are deployed mostly strategically.

Krenn is the Chair of the Austrian Artists Association - IG Bildende Kunst and since 2006 has taught Interventionist Art at the Department of Art and Communicative Practice/University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Current projects include "In between the movements - an ongoing video project about global justice movements", "Normality in [the] Crisis", "Democracy and Welfare for All" and "On the Tectonics of History" which can be seen in the ISCP-New York in Brooklyn till June 28.
http://www.martinkrenn.net

This event is co-produced by Not An Alternative and Pond: art, activism, ideas.

This Sunday survivors and activists from Bhopal will join us for a special screening of The Yes Men Fix The World (dir. Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, Kurt Engfehr, 2009), a new film in which they appear.

The Yes Men Fix The World follows a couple of gonzo political activists as they infiltrate the world of big business and pull off outrageous pranks that highlight the ways that corporate greed is destroying the planet. The film begins with the Yes Men's famous 2004 impersonation of a Dow Chemical spokesperson on BBC World News. In a broadcast that reached 300 million people, they took responsibility for the world’ largest industrial accident, causing Dow's market value to drop $2 billion in less than a half hour.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal Disaster. More than 23,000 have died as a result of the catastrophic gas leak and ongoing water contamination. To this day, residents and allies around the world continue fighting to force the company responsible to make amends. Key organizers from Bhopal will lead a Q&A about the campaign after the screening. This will be their first occasion to watch excerpts from the film in which they are featured.

Sunday, May 10, 6-8pm, free
The Change You Want To See Gallery
http://www.thechangeyouwanttosee.org
84 Havemeyer St, at Metropolitan Ave
Brooklyn NY 11211
(Directions)

ABOUT THE FILM