| The
Lab of ii’s first experiment took place during the European
Social Forum(ESF), the “olympics” of the alterglobalisation
movements, held in London in October 2004.
the
clown army's latest
recruit!
"The
more imagination is liberated & shared, the more useful
the medium." Hakim Bey - Immediatism
Choosing
to work as one of the many autonomous spaces, participants
in the ESF process who had decided to distance themselves
from the main event feeling that its’ hierarchical,
party political and corporate nature was not in keeping with
the spirit of the global movements and the founding principles
of the World Social Forum
The
lab based itself in the extraordinary inspiring squatted Creative
Social Centre ramART, an old warehouse in Whitechapel,
on the edges of London’s financial district . For four
days and nights several hundred lab rats shared, performed
and propagated radical forms of cultural resistance across
London, disrupting and disobeying the everyday rules and behaviours
of this city, that thrives on the boredom of money and consumption.
Every
morning, after having passed through the gauntlet of the Forward
Intelligence Team (FIT) police officers who insisted on photographing
and videoing every lab participant (so nice of them to help
with documentation), we would all crowd into the ground floor
of ramART, sharing a delicious potlatch breakfast and exchanging
skills, documentation and trainings for the days actions.
The warmth and humour of these morning meetings, became a
wonderful example of the Lab’s desire to build convivial
spaces of creativity and reciprocity.
Once
affinity groups had formed to take on the various actions
that participants had proposed, every one did a final collective
warm up, involving stupid clown games or Soma,
(an anarchist therapy), exercises. Warmed up, smiling , inspired
and ready for creative resistance we then trooped out of the
building, back past our resident paparazzi FIT team and took
to the streets. Every day had a different theme and actions
ranged from baffling games of Bingo in MacDonald’s to
urban climbing across the entrances of banks, mass prayers
in Selfridge's temple of consumption to Hexing (pagan curse)
the headquarters of multinationals, absurd beer can orchestras
to games of street tag via department store makeup counters
and an unexpected battle between the Clandestine Insurgent
Rebel Clown Army and the CRAP (Capitalism is Acceptable Policy)
march during a premiere of a Johnny Deep film.
See
the documentation page
for images and video.
To
read what some participants thought of the Lab of ii click
here
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