is

INDIVIDUAL: Peter Miles Bergman 
GROUP SIZE: 11
NATURE OF GROUP: Residents of 10 addresses in Freemont, Nebraska and 10 addresses in Newport, Rhode Island, selected at random from a collection of phone books on microfiche, who happened to be home when we showed up at their door
INCIDENCE: An Address

An Address from Institute of Sociometry 

Though this is one of IS’s oldest reports, it has, until now, only existed in the form of this 36-minute VHS documentary, produced by Peter Miles Bergman and directed by Siri Noel Wilson in 1995.

In 1993 the Geisel Library at the University of California San Diego, named after Dr. Seuss and famous for its cameo as the spaceship in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, had one of every city and town’s phone books in the US on microfiche. Reaching blindly into the library catalog drawer of phone book microfiche films, name out of a hat style, I plucked a microfiche for Freemont, Nebraska and one for Newport, Rhode Island, both towns that appeared to be in the 20,000-30,000 population range, and wrote down the first 10 names and addresses in each that caught my eye.

DUPLICATE – Two years of postcards, letters and Christmas cards

On a subsequent trip to Europe to visit agent 002 Siri Noel Wilson, I wrote postcards to the residents at each of these 20 addresses – from Bologna, Italy; Paris, France; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; and, when I returned to the US, from San Diego, California. I signed each card with my name and mentioned that I lived in San Diego, but I did not provide a return address. Each time I wrote the cards, I did so in one sitting and in the order of the addresses on my list. By the fifth postcard, I’d usually lost sight of the actual human on the receiving end and was essentially writing to the faceless and hypothetical audience I’d assumed would be enthralled by my puerile art prank. Each batch of cards followed the same arc. The first few were awkward but sincere, the next few were fluid and confident, halfway through they became a little sarcastic, toward the end the tone was wholly flippant or abstract, and I closed out the 20 with a few that were poignant and contemplative. Here’s an excerpt: “Hi Wayne! Hi Vicky, I have returned from my travels. That’s a little bit of Euro snobbery I picked up. Really though, I’m going back. It all went by way too fast. In fact, there are whole blocks of time I don’t remember a thing…”

Over the next two years I followed up with homemade Christmas cards and long-form handwritten letters (click to enlarge):

Excerpt: “Hello Mr. John Brooks. This is Peter M. Bergman. I am attempting to take our friendship to the next level by writing you this letter… Some days I want everything to make sense on earth. I want all my activities to mean something. Days like today I realize how dumb that is. So if this doesn’t make sense then it must not be dumb. Does that make sense? … Do you know what entropy is? Entropy is the measure of disorder in a closed system. Entropy always increases and available energy always decreases in a closed system – such as our universe. Isn’t that neat? … I think you getting these letters from me is a sort of disorder in your life. But it’s good because now we are friends! To get your name and address I just picked a phone book from the library and viola! … I think I’m going to have ‘Evidence of Entropy’ on my tombstone. It’s good to think of these things now you know. You never can tell when that sneaky ol’ entropy is going to mess with you!”

In the spring of 1994 all of the addressees on my list received a postcard written in Sharpie with some form of, “Good news! Siri and I are coming out to visit you this summer!”

This “Ariel view of Mission Bay with Sea World” postcard (and 19 other in this tranche) notified Thelma and all the other recipients in Freemont, NE and Newport RI on our impending  visit.

Freemont, Nebraska highlights:

Siri and I had no idea what we had gotten into as our Greyhound bus pulled into Freemont, but we were thoroughly prepared to document it with a micro-cassette recorder, 110 film camera, and Siri’s two super-8 movie cameras – one with sound! After we got situated at the Ranch Motel, a motor lodge across the highway from the bus station, we found a phone book with a town history. Named after General John C. Frémont, “The Pathfinder,” Freemont was a Mormon Trail stop, then a Telegraph town, then a railroad town, a highway town, and ultimately a bedroom community for people working 35 miles away in Omaha. The phone book also had a map, which we used to begin charting out our visits.

Our “Weekly Rental” – The Ranch Motel in Freemont

Our first visit was to Thelma Surface. Thelma lived in Nye Square, a retirement community with the slogan, “Be In Charge of your Life.” This was the first of many unexpected hurdles in our quest for immediate and authentic face-to-face encounters. The receptionist seemed to be on the lookout for us, explaining her trepidation about our visit since Thelma was living in a place where she was protected from “people on the outside.” After asking us a long series of suspicious questions, she buzzed Thelma’s room. Thelma hesitantly came out to greet us, right around the time the Freemont police showed up. We all had a pleasant conversation in the lobby area of the retirement community about Freemont and the social norms and customs that Siri and I didn’t quite seem to understand. The police, after ascertaining that we were no more harmful than the typical idiotic twenty-something Californians, offered us a ride back to our hotel – which we declined.

The next day we asked directions from, and subsequently made friends with Brent Harnish, a home-for-summer long-haired college kid close to our age who was happy to drive us around during the rest of our stay, hang out with us, and generally praise us as the only cool thing to happen all summer.

The home of Wayne E. and Vicky Sund in Freemont

Wayne E. Sund, who lived on the edge of town in a subdivision, was in front of his house washing his car and his boat. When we walked up the drive and introduced ourselves he chuckled with a subtle no-no-no head motion, strode forward and shook our hands. When we asked him about his reaction to the cards and letters he said, “After a while I thought, well you know… If I KNEW when he was coming I’d have my 12-guage at the back door. But apparently he’s harmless. I don’t know, I don’t KNOW! It was like, who the HELL is this?” Wayne was a funny guy who appreciated the random nature of our encounter. He had his young kids come out to meet us in a “you’ll want to remember this day so I can tell you this story over-and-over as you age” kind of way.

Wayne Sund – in retrospect our visit to Wayne was a highlight of the early 90’s for IS. In many ways it has never quite worked out as intended in such spectacular fashion since. 

The young woman who answered Kathy Sherman’s door told us that Kathy was home, unhesitatingly invited us in, and announced in a super excited loud voice that Kathy had visitors. We guessed that our greeter had Down syndrome. Another roommate, also with Down syndrome, came out of the back room. We figured out quickly that it was a group home. We put away our camera. When Kathy came down the stairs her roommates clapped and cheered. She was beaming. Though we were naïve and inexperienced as documentarians, we did understand that this situation had transcended the authenticity we were seeking and had the potential to go straight to exploitation. Though Kathy was very excited to have us visit, she had zero recollection of ever having received any mail from us. I’m sure the cards and letters did make it to her, but on the afternoon we visited, she wasn’t able to connect me to the cards, which I had sent several months to a couple of years prior to our visit. It didn’t matter. We had a great time visiting and talking about life in the group home, about Freemont, who we were, and where we were from. There was never a question about why we came to visit. Reflecting on the experience outside, I had the first inkling of my own boundaries when working with real live people as an art medium. Siri and I could have easily filmed our entire visit to the group home, and even received verbal consent on camera, but that consent could not have been anything more than a technical acquiescence to be filmed. Aware that the group home residents did not understand that our project was a prank and that their names and images could be used for decades to make people laugh and scratch their heads, we determined that there was no ethical way to use any footage. More importantly, the moment was so genuinely human that worrying about capturing it would have simply distracted us from living it.

George O. Suydan wasn’t home. When we explained to the bewildered woman who answered the door that we were Pete and Siri and had been sending mail to George she lit up and exclaimed, “Oh Bergman! Yea! I’m his daughter in law. Nice to meet you after all this time. I’ve seen you in the pictures. Dad goes ‘WHO IS THIS’ and I said, ‘I don’t know, somebody friendly!’ He really appreciated and got a kick out of all the cards you sent!” Over lemonade on the porch, she told us George unfortunately had been relocated into an assisted living facility in Omaha. When we offered to start writing to him at his new address she replied, sadly, “He’s not all himself.”

Felix Unger’s son answered the door and went to get him.
“Hi! I’m Pete and this is Siri.”
“Oh yeah?”
“We’re the one’s who’ve been sending you postcards.”
“You the one sending postcards? Oh yeah? What are you guys doing here?”
“We’re just breezing through town and thought we’d visit and say hi.”
“Oh yeah?” (chuckles) “Well that’s weird ‘cause I was wondering where they were coming from. You know I get these in the mail and you don’t know what’s going on so basically I file 13 most of ‘em”

I’d given each recipient the name of someone else in their town I was writing to. I’d given Felix John Vecerra’s name – as it turns out someone he saw every day at work. “I talked to John Vecerra yesterday at work, or on Friday. When you said on the last one about your vacation to talk to John Vecerra. So I went and asked him. He said ‘I don’t know the guy either!”

The only piece of correspondence with a drawing – sent to John Vecerra of Freemont.

We caught up with John when he was on the way out of his apartment. When we introduced ourselves as Pete and Siri, the people who’d been writing him postcards, he seemed apprehensive. “Oh yeah? That was you? How did you pick me?”

“Out of the phone book. We picked ten people out of the Freemont phone book.”
“Oh yeah? What was the reason for that?”
“Just, I don’t know… To meet some different people…”

He invited us to breakfast the next morning at McDonald’s out on the highway. Over Egg McMuffins that John described as “not too exciting, but a way to start the day,” he told us about some area history and labor politics at the Hormel Factory where he worked with Felix Unger and was high up in the union.

John Vecerra outside of his address.

Scott Strouf’s house was about a mile out of town, but he wasn’t home. Riding back in the bed of a farm truck we’d hitched a ride from, Siri and I reflected on our visits. A few of them hadn’t panned out. People were no longer living at the addresses on my list or no one answered. The phone book on microfiche I’d grabbed may have been outdated. The addresses that were good, however, were really REALLY good. The people of Freemont had been openminded and either glad to meet us or very good at masking their anxiety.

Freemont Nebraska – Summer Crazy Days!

Newport, Rhode Island lowlights:

We did have one highlight in Newport. One of our first encounters was with a young couple, David and his girlfriend “Sweets,” who lived in an apartment building previously occupied by David Del Nero, who we had been writing to. After some confusion about having the same first name as our addressee, they became intrigued by our explanation of why we were lugging film cameras around Newport knocking on strangers’ doors and invited us back for dinner. Later that night in their apartment, David predicted we wouldn’t have as much luck in Newport as we reported having in Freemont. David described Newport as “pretty, but kind of a blue velvet pretty.” It is a town inhabited by a transient population of second home owning vacationers, Navy sailors and rotating faculty at the Naval War College, tribal New England fisherman, and the mega rich.

A case of mistaken identity! Dave and Sweets of Newport.

Newport was home to the monumental summer mansions of the Vanderbilts and other agriculture, railroad, and banking barons of the 19th century. Though life in the mid-1990s was considerably less opulent, many of Newport’s residents were still quite well-off, biding their time between Newport, New York or Boston apartments, and their boats. They were still heavily vested, philosophically if not outright financially, in a patrician East Coast class system.

Most of the addresses in Newport that were on our list were no longer inhabited by any occupants I’d written to. After a couple of days knocking on the doors of current inhabitants, ignorant of, or having purchased the home from, our addressees, we clued in that the Geisel Library’s phone books on microfiche were over a year out of date. We knocked on Ruth Erickson’s door, but it appeared to be an uninhabited house. Disappointed but resigned, we moved on.

Later that afternoon we caught up with Wilfred J. Buckley Jr., a fifty-something man who was out painting his porch. Wilfred had received some of the most sincere letters. Here’s an excerpt, “Wilfred, I want to share something with you. I want you to get a glimpse of what I’m like and have it make you happy. I want you to smile when you get a letter from me. That’s all I want. Sometimes, however I think people are just afraid of things like letters from strangers. I guess that’s just how it is…”

Wilfred Buckley Jr. of Freemont – a circa 1995 video still of a 110 photo reshot on a copy stand and then photographed while playing on a television of someone who never wanted their picture taken in the first place!

“Are you Wilfred?”
“Yeah”
“Hi, I’m Pete and this is Siri. We’re the people who’ve been writing you those you postcards.”
“What was that all about?”
“Just for fun, kinda’.”
“You know you scared the hell out of a little old lady! Ruth Erickson? She’s about 85 years old and she got so damn scared with the cards that she moved out of her house and moved in with her daughter.”
“Really? Oh NO!?”
“Yes! And the daughter has gone to the police about it.”
“Well that’s certainly not what we intended.”
“Well I don’t know what you intended but it was strange and that’s what happened.”
“Did they upset you?”
“Uh, I really didn’t know what the hell they were doing and they upset me because up until August 1st I was on the road. My job put me on the road quite a bit and I would leave my wife here. She didn’t know what the hell to make of it.”
“Well we didn’t know…”
“Well… That’s… Doing it to a 20-year-old couple is different than doing it to an 80-year-old lady.”
“We had no idea, that’s why.”
“I didn’t particularly care for them to be very truthful.”
“We didn’t say anything threatening, or anything”
“No, they really weren’t that friendly either. They were kind of strange cards. In fact we still have the cards and letters in the house. That Christmas card you sent was kind of weird.”
“That’s too bad it was taken the wrong way but…”
“Well, I’m serious you had that woman really, really upset.”

Though Wilfred was hostile, he was measured. He didn’t threaten us, he scolded us – and rightly so. We packed up the next day and silently boarded the Greyhound out of town.

The East Coast in a nutshell. 

There is a time in the life of every antisocial, sarcastic, and angry young art punk when they reach this fork in the road. If they’re sober enough to make an informed decision, they can choose the right path by reflecting on the actual humans their shenanigans have targeted and avoid the path of nihilism and a life-long war on the happiness of everyone around them, and lastly but most importantly, themselves.

Though late 20th-century American ‘society’ deserved a good deconstructing, the unsuspecting individual civilians who comprised it did not deserve to have their lives upended for simply being listed in the phone book. Learning about Ruth Erikson’s reaction to my cards and letters caused me to realize, albeit a bit too late, that the unwritten rules of the art/life symbiosis dictate that it’s not appropriate to antagonize someone for artistic value if they themselves have not thrown some chips into the game… After the visit, I never sent another card or letter to anyone from Freemont or Newport.

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A version of An Address premiered at Sociometry Fair ‘96. The final edit, a 36-minute VHS documentary, produced by Peter Miles Bergman and directed by Siri Noel Wilson in 1996 (available at the top of this report) won Best Documentary at the Denver Underground Film Festival in 1997. 

This report was written by agent Peter Miles Bergman and appeared for the first time in is EMANCIPATION a 130 page book with 2-color letterpress covers printed and hand-bound with a Japanese stitch in an edition of 200 (use the code ISAGENT for 11% off). is EMANCIPATION is a 21 year anthology of art intervention and prank collective The Institute of Sociometry edited, designed, and partly authored by Peter Miles Bergman and edited by MCA Denver Curatorial Associate Zoe Larkins. 

INDIVIDUAL: Old Glory Condom Corporation – Worn With Pride
Country-Wide, President Jay Critchley 
GROUP SIZE: Approximately 100,000 
NATURE OF GROUP: The cumulative number of AIDS cases reported in the US in 1989 (as of 2006 the cumulative number of AIDS related deaths is 650,000. Currently, an estimated 11.2 million people are living with HIV/AIDS) 
INCIDENCE: Old Glory Condom Corporation and The Valor Project 

This report was written by agent Jay Critchley – an early IS agent, mentor, and influence on is’s deployment of elaborate pranks as an art form. A version of this report was originally published in 1996 in The Report #1 an Institute of Sociometry zine of incidence reports that was discontinued in 1999 after issue #4 and was exhibited on a tri-fold display at Sociometry Fair ’96 in San Diego. This is also the third report in is EMANCIPATION, a handmade book in an edition of 200, and the official anthology of is at 21.
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Jay Critchley circa 1990 with an Old Glory Condom

“The better part of valor is discretion.” − Shakespeare

Old Glory Condom President Jay Critchley first invoked the words of Patrick Henry at a 1989 press conference of the patriotic condom corporation. At the conference, held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s List Visual Arts Center, Critchley called on President George H.W. Bush to organize an army of safer sex soldiers to fight HIV/AIDS and redefine what it means to be patriotic: to protect and save lives.

The actual business, Old Glory Condom Corporation, which marketed condoms and T-shirts bearing the flag-inspired logo worldwide, was launched on Flag Day in 1990, concurrent with the World AIDS Conference in San Francisco. The corporation filed for a trademark from the US government for its logo and its name, but the Trademark Office ruled, “it was immoral and scandalous to associate the flag with sex” and denied the application. Center for Constitutional Rights lawyer David Cole protested the decision and the trademark was ultimately granted after a three-year legal battle.

The Product…

Old Glory Condoms – Condoms with a Conscience received widespread media coverage, including a front page piece in The Washington Post and a feature story in People Magazine. Senator Jesse Helms, an architect of the culture wars, inadvertently created the first global safer sex commercial by holding up the Old Glory logo and denouncing its trademark in the US Senate, in an episode that was broadcast on CNN.

Condom use remains the essential HIV preventive practice. Despite the draconian anti-sex attitudes of the U.S. government and the Roman Catholic Church, the elementary and effective condom remains the most essential means to control the spread of HIV.

The Valor Project, another safer sex project initiated by Old Glory Condom President Jay Critchley, proposed a simple proposition: collect, categorize, and archive used condoms – including those mailed in, delivered, or gathered from city streets. It was a sex-positive, “hands-on” endeavor that commended people for enjoying safer sex in the midst of the AIDS pandemic.

The Valor Project proposed to establish a collection point where individuals, couples, or groups brought their used condoms and documented their sexual experiences. For this project, AIDS organizations and education and prevention workers who reached out to diverse communities would be invited to participate and help coordinate The Valor Project with their existing efforts. It was through this initiative that IS agents first become pen pals and collaborators with Jay Critchley. After coming across a photocopy of his used condom submission forms IS agents began to collect and mail in their evidence of safer sex. For Sociometry Fair ’96 IS agents, under Jay’s direction and in accordance with the parameters of The Valor Project, created a tri-fold display with a map of San Diego that pinpointed where safer sex practices took place, and an archival display of the condom specimens that were collected in San Diego over the course of six months.

The Valor Project flyer received in the mail in 1995 with used condom submission forms received (and subsequently used for submissions) by San Diego IS agents.

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The Old Glory Condom Company, and the legal battle over its trademark, was reported on from 1989-1993 by: Boston Herald, The Boston Phoenix, The Provincetown Banner, Diamondback, High Performance, Legal Times, The Massachusetts Daily Collegian, New York Woman, Newsweek, People Magazine, The Provincetown Advocate, San Francisco Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.

This report was most recently published in is EMANCIPATION a 130 page book with 2-color letterpress covers printed and hand-bound with a Japanese stitch in an edition of 200. is EMANCIPATION is a 21 year anthology of art intervention and prank collective The Institute of Sociometry edited, designed, and partly authored by Peter Miles Bergman and edited by MCA Denver Curatorial Associate Zoe Larkins. 

INDIVIDUAL: IS agent, I. Vamos with D. Mercer
GROUP SIZE: Currently unknown
NATURE OF GROUP: Employees of both Disneyland in Anaheim California, USA and Disneyworld Magic Kingdom in Orange County Florida, USA
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: Securing Amusement

This report was written by agent I. Vamos – a double agent for IS and The Center for Land Use Interpretation. A version of this report was originally published in 1996 in The Report #1 an Institute of Sociometry zine of incidence reports that was discontinued in 1999 after issue #4. This is also the third report in is EMANCIPATION, a handmade book in an edition of 200, and the official anthology of is at 21.
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Disneyland, 4/25/96:
Conditions: Sunny approximately 70 degrees f.

2:47: Drove into employee’s lot. Waved and smiled like an old friend. Guard passed me through. Parked car
2:55: Coast was clear – scrambled up fifteen feet of chain link, over vines and barbed wire at the top.
2:56: Dropped to ground inside.
2:56: Heard footsteps and grunting. Looked up. Two men ran at me. Older one yelled in radio “WE GOT THE RUNNER!” Younger one confiscated my leatherman tool. Younger one told me not to move. Frisked me.
3:01: Each took me by an elbow and walked me through train tunnel. I was lead into a concealed door and down a hallway that smelled like a government building or maybe a public-school cafeteria during non-feeding hours.
3:05: They put me in a plexiglass cell. Five other chairs plus mine. Surveillance. Waiting.
4:23: Older man struggled with handle. Opened door. Walked me past security offices with video surveillance monitors. Took my New York drivers license. Asked me fourteen questions. I replied. I was a tourist from New York. He left with my ID. Came back. Told me I was barred from Disneyland for two years. If I try it again, there will be a $500 fine, he said.
4:53: Escorted to front gate. Released.

Summary:

Disneyland is well fortified against its urban surroundings. A six-lane perimeter road surrounding the park helps keep pedestrians to a minimum. The fifteen-foot fence combines with a thick hedge to keep gawkers from peering into off-limits areas. Vibration sensors on the fence alert security as soon as a breach is attempted. Staff is trained for immediate action – it is common that people try to hop the fence.

Restraining order doesn’t cover Disneyworld in Orange County Florida…

Disneyworld Magic Kingdom, 5/18/96:
Conditions: Mostly sunny, humid 90 degrees f.

5:25: Drove rental car to Magic Kingdom lot. Told attendant at gate we were going to turn around. Entered and parked. Walked to monorail. Rode monorail to park entrance.
6:30: Walked west of the park entrance to service entrance area.
6:45: Crawled through bushes. Jumped over four foot fence. Ran into staff parking area. Walked toward edge of lot where there were many Disney staff milling about. Looked for someone from security. Costumed band members were warming up. Found someone with an ear phone and radio.
7:00: Asked him how to get to the Magic Kingdom. He looked puzzled. Asked again. He asked what show we were with. Told him we weren’t. He asked if we were guests. We said no. He asked if we were staff. We said no. Told him we had jumped the fence. He said, “OH… YOU’RE OUT OF BOUNDS GUESTS.” We said no. It didn’t bother him. He called a van. He asked where we were parked. Told him out in the lot. He asked if we paid. One of us said no, the other said yes. This did not phase him.
7:26: Made up some lies that we hoped would really incriminate us. The van didn’t come. He had to give a cue to the marching band. He brought us through a concealed doorway, into the magic Kingdom tourist area and gave a cue to the band after consulting with a film crew. He left us standing and talked to them about fifty feet away
7:41: He came back, walked us out the front gate, and said have a good day.

Summary:

Disney World keeps out unwanted visitors using a combination of natural and constructed geograpical features. The swampy landscape is impassible except via the park’s own roads. The divided highways are the only conduit to the 28,000-acre facility. Orlando is over 20 miles away. Each of the four theme parks comprising Disney World is surrounded by a moat which serves the dual purpose of drainage and security. Unlike Disneyland’s tall and secure border fences, Disney World’s are small and unassuming, with no advanced surveillance technology around the remote perimeters. Security staff almost refused to acknowledge that we were even doing something wrong.

Findings and Final Report:

Neither Disneyland nor Disney World proved to be the experience we expected. The rumors about honeycombs of underground tunnels, secret nerve centers, and the little people who really run the place still remain unsolved despite our hands-on research techniques. This leads us to believe that additional research methods must be explored. Disguises or mock fights, for example, might prompt security personnel to take us down a different path through the entrails of Disney. The foregone conclusion from all our data (like any empirical science), is that there are more questions.

While our survey of park security systems came up short, we did prove the viability of our research methodology as a general tourist practice. In the era of extreme sports, and that oxymoron “eco-tourism,” it seems only natural that one should develop parasitic tourist experiences that feed upon the existing infrastructure of amusement parks. These experiences might adequately be summed up as “transgressive.” The “transgressive tourist” goes to popular destinations just like everyone else, but then peels away the veneer to find out what lies underneath. In many ways, a transgressive tourist experience has advantages over the front-door approach. Amusement parks are meant to be sites of distilled fun and excitement. They lack, however, a degree of unpredictability often associated with thrill seeking. After paying fifty bucks to enter the Magic Kingdom through the front gate, the guest experiences a predictable simulated world, sometimes entertaining, curious, or exciting. The transgressive tourist (the out-of-bounds guest or runner), however, spends no money jumping the fence and finding out what lies in the real heart of the parks: the off-limits service areas. One can entertain an unpredictable, adrenaline filled visit, while at the same time learning valuable information about how these things work.

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This report was most recently published in is EMANCIPATION a 130 page book with 2-color letterpress covers printed and hand-bound with a Japanese stitch in an edition of 200. is EMANCIPATION is a 21 year anthology of art intervention and prank collective The Institute of Sociometry edited, designed, and partly authored by Peter Miles Bergman and edited by MCA Denver Curatorial Associate Zoe Larkins. 

INDIVIDUAL: agent Carrie Galbraith (of SF Cacophony) 
GROUP SIZE: Several dozen circa 1995, over 30,000 annually in 2016
NATURE OF GROUP: Adults at play
INCIDENCE: The Cacophony Society (You May Already Be a Member) 

All photos provided courtesy of Carrie Galbraith, though shot by various Cacophonists. 

In the 1980 into the 90’s The San Francisco Cacophony Society pioneered many of the actions now collectively known as Culture Jamming; flash mobs, media hoaxes, fake protests, building climbing, ad busting, and billboard liberation (seen here), and started several alt-culture phenomena – Santarchy (now SantaCon), Burning Man, and the concept of the Art Car.

The Cacophony Society was hugely influential on the formation of the Institute of Sociometry. Chuckles The Clown – a member of LA Cacophony – was also an early is agent and got what was to become the is Compound on the mailing list for Rough Draft the newsletter of San Francisco Cacophony and The Zone the newsletter of LA Cacophony. In a pre-internet world, reading about Cacophony’s hijinks, pranks, performances, and philosophy exposed up early is agents to new urban tactics and fellow travelers.

It was an honor to have Carrie Galbraith, a co-editor of the recently released Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society pen this lead off report for our Institute of Sociometry anthology is EMANCIPATION.
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May 1996 Issue of Rough Draft – the newsletter of SF Cacophony
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Cacophony was not conceived as an art movement. Many members did not self-identify as artists, although there were some noted artists among the members, and many Cacophonists and their fellow travelers would go on to successful careers in the arts. Others would find that their identification with the unselfconscious creative nature of the group and its actions would lead them inevitably to a life in the arts.

Neither was Cacophony political or spiritual, although some of the better known events hinted at a political agenda, and the experiences of the group had consequences that surely lifted the human spirit. It was far too mystifying a concept for any single ego to claim and too slippery a legacy for anyone to actually own. It never offered the slightest tangible profit, although its intangible profit was vast.

A loose aggregate of personalities definitely came together to play, in ways as ingenious and unprecedented as possible; Cacophony brought the concept of playing in the world as adults into mainstream consciousness, through hundreds of events organized by members over twenty years. Cacophony also partnered with other groups of pranksters, performers, and artists, sometimes for one event, or sometimes to produce an annual event over time.

An early Art Car on the road. The Art Car was an invention of Michael Mikel AKA Danger Ranger who found his green Oldsmobile Cutlas partially crushed, but otherwise fully functional, after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. Mikel’s presentation of his natuarall augmented ride as an “Art Car” at the first Burning Man in 1991 led to what is now a fully fledged folk-art movement.
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Cacophony championed a creative philosophy of fun, stretching the parameters of what could be seen as entertainment, with a basis in unorthodox ideas and direct engagement with the world and people in it. What constituted fun was left entirely to each member’s generally vivid imagination.

There were many kinds of events, some so bizarre as to defy a category. Others fell into discernible types, or combined different kinds of activities in the creation of a single event. Pranks, urban explorations, literary events, theatrical or musical endeavors, costume parties, urban games, and the mysterious Zone Trips were just some of the categories to inspire collaborative play. Some event agendas included preliminary meetings to make props or prepare a chosen location for the group activity to come. Other activities were not premeditated, but happened spontaneously when friends gathered. Some sub-groups of Cacophony concentrated on specific goals, like The Billboard Liberation Front’s clever improvement of advertising messages in the urban landscape.

A cacophonist at The Fantasia Protest, the brainchild of Dwayne Newtron, which protested the 1990 re-release of the animated Disney animated feature based on its inclusion of genital-less satyrs, obese hippo ballerinas, and Mickey Mouse’s “licentious squandering of precious water resources”, among other transgressions. The protest caught the attention of TIME magazine which ran an expose on it as part of their article on whining as an American epidemic.
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Pranksters executed ideas with such finesse that they could fool mainstream media. One notorious prank was the Fantasia Protest, which gathered faux protesters to object to aspects of the famous Disney film. Time Magazine featured the prank in an article about the growth of whining as a national obsession. Groups were invented to march in the annual parade in Berkeley, such as a pro-carnivore posse called People Eatin’ Them Animals (PETA), and the Undead Homeowners’ Association. The Salmon Run pranked the city’s annual Bay-to-Breakers l2k with people in salmon costumes running upstream against the other runners. Let Them Eat Cake gathered a group of people fantastically costumed as l8th-century French aristocrats to give away cake – to the homeless and other willing recipients – in front of San Francisco’s City Hall on Bastille Day.

The city was Cacophony’s playground, and urban exploration plumbed its options. Some events, like the late-night walking tours of the area’s sewers and storm drains, plumbed quite literally. Enter the Unknown newsletter entries and calls for Midnight Walks summoned interested parties to meet at a designated place for a guided ramble through undisclosed terrain.

Literary events were highly popular and took many forms. Some events had a distinctly theatrical flair, and at some of these, the only witnesses to the production were the players themselves. Urban Games used the city streets, hotels, and other locations to stage games usually reserved for the more logical turf of a court or a field. Almost all Cacophonists loved costume parties and wouldn’t settle for limiting them to Halloween. Perhaps the most mysterious of the events were the Zone Trips, calls to venture to a distant and unknown location for an undisclosed purpose. Adventurers willing to show up might find themselves in a place like Los Angeles or Covina or perhaps the most famous of Cacophony’s Zone Trips, The Adventure of the Burning Man, which took Cacophonists to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. Cacophonists returned to the Black Rock Desert annually, and over time, this Zone Trip grew into an international event attended by thousands of people each year.

Cacophonists jamming on the first Zone Trip to the Black Rock Dessert which in 1991 became the new home for an annual ritual that had been previously held on San Francisco’s Baker Beach where Cacophonists lit up a human effigy – an event knows as Burning Man.
—

While Cacophony played for its own amusement and with little self-consciousness, its ideas live on in it’s progeny. Burning Man is the most visible and successful pop culture phenomenon that was developed with Cacophony know-how. This massive event still claims a philosophy that has its roots in Cacophony’s mores, such as “Leave No Trace” and “No Spectators.”

While Cacophony encouraged others to expand their horizons of creative play, other groups and individuals influenced Cacopohony just as much. Principal among these was the legendary Suicide Club, which developed in San Francisco in the 1970s. A secret society, the Suicide Club eventually suffered from insularity and an inability to draw in new members. When it disbanded, in l983,  former members who missed the club’s innovative source of play reorganized under the new and inclusive umbrella of Cacophony.

The society also found influences and ideas in countless other sources. Novels, movies, history, myth, family stories, urban legend, and folk tales all influenced the group and provided ideas that became events, when filtered through the imaginations of the members. They also found inspiration in historical figures, people who would become beatified in the eyes of many Cacophonists. Two of the “saints” in Cacophony’s cosmology were the self- proclaimed Emperor Norton – a notorious l9th century San Francisco eccentric – and Alfred Jarry the l880’s Parisian writer and legendary enfant terrible.

Like its heroes, the Cacophony Society espoused behaviors thought slightly mad and questioned the values of the bourgeoisie, the ever-burgeoning power of industrial and manufacturing giants, the power of advertising to employ classic conditioning in the shaping of human choice, and the increasingly mediated society that is lulled into complacency by passive entertainment. As with all things that occur in real life as opposed to that depicted on the flickering screen, Cacophony was not merely fun and entertaining. It could be scary, dirty, dangerous, and even exceptionally stupid at times.

The Car Hunt – a collaboration with the anarchist collective People Haters in which a remote controlled Oldsmobile station wagon full of luggage and populated by a mannequin family was chased across a northern Nevada playa with a jihadi style “technical” – a small Toyota pick-up with machine run mounts and trigger happy warriors riding in the back.
—

Cacophony rose to the challenge of the mediated life and encouraged others not to ignore the potent power of play. Unconsciously, it reflected the wisdom of philosophers from ancient Greece to contemporary America. Plato wrote, “Life must be lived as play.” The 20th century American philosopher George Santayana said, “To the art of working well, a civilized race would add the art of playing well.” And Carl Jung wrote that, “The creation of something new is not accomplished through the intellect, but by the play instinct.” Through its championing of play for adults, Cacophony played a vital role in turning the consciousness of contemporary culture away from passive entertainment, and toward a more vital, creative, and innovative concept of what it means to be entertained.

Atop each Cacophony Rough Draft newsletter was a reminder to readers: “You may already be a member.” The Cacophony Society, never the most competent of “organizations,” remains, to this day, primarily a philosophy, steeped in the tradition of Dada, and geared to living and playing in a world created, in part, through the collective fantasies of its members.
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This report is by agent Carrie Galbraith – a double agent for IS and The SF Cacophony Society, and editor of Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society – which was and is hugely influential on is.

This report was originally published in is EMANCIPATION a 130 page book with 2-color letterpress covers printed and hand-bound with a Japanese stitch in an edition of 200. is EMANCIPATION is a 21 year anthology of art intervention and prank collective The Institute of Sociometry edited, designed, and partly authored by Peter Miles Bergman and edited by MCA Denver Curatorial Associate Zoe Larkins. 

INDIVIDUAL: A good neighbor
GROUP SIZE: Undetermined, possibly in the thousands
NATURE OF GROUP: Long-time residents and homeowners, new residents and home owners, real estate agents, investors, developers, architects, city and urban planners, local government officials, demolition crews, contractors and day laborers, local newspaper journalists, and anti-gentrification activists
INCIDENCE: The Good Neighbor’s Lamentation Society

It broke our hearts to leave you,
But you did not go alone,
For part of us went with you,
The day God called you home
– From the shrine for 3115 West 19th Avenue 

3115 West 19th Avenue – on life support

3115 West 19th Avenue – in memoriaum

Dear Friends, we are gathered to celebrate and remember the lives of our good friends and neighbors 1815 Grove Street, 3115 West 19th Avenue, 1925 Hooker Street, 1935 Hooker Street, 1821 Irving Street, and 1828 Julian Street. I came to know these neighbors through frequent walks around our neighborhood as I nodded hello, remarked either to myself or my companion about their appearance or allowed my dog to curiously sniff their landscaping (or lack thereof). Over the years, our relationship never grew close but instead yielded to a comfortable familiarity – like that of a good neighbor.

Over the years, as new residents moved in and old ones moved out, each neighbor stayed true to their humble beginnings. Sure, some may have added a satellite dish, a chain-link fence, a swing set or a stained mattress over the years to enhance their external appearance but as their other neighbors fell prey to the whims of fashion these stalwarts remained true. They may have received a fresh coat of paint from time to time (or not) but they never lost the sense of who they were. Our neighbors were homes where children played, where families laughed, where tuckpointing was neglected, and yard work went undone. And they weren’t just our neighbors but they were also part of the larger Denver community who had largely overlooked our neighborhood until very recently.

First came the “Coming Soon” or “For Sale” signs. Memories of the last recession were still fresh in our community and we blithely laughed at the idea of our neighborhood becoming “an urban oasis right in the center of it all.” Then came the tiny plastic flags and unintelligible spray-painted symbols in front yards. The previous inhabitants would move out yet, strangely, no one else would move in. Next came the plastic orange mesh fences. That is when we knew the situation had become dire. The new owners, investors and developers mostly, did what they could to make our neighbors comfortable. They removed garbage and glass, boarded up windows, and even in some terminal cases excised trees, but at this point we knew our neighbors were just a shell of their former selves. There was nothing more that could be done. It was time to prepare for the end.

Just as we shall never know the hour God will call us home, so it is with Denver demolition crews. Without warning, where once your neighbor stood, a home was now rendered unto dust.

Some feel our neighbors’ lives had been lost too soon and believed that their aging bones and sagging foundations still pulsed with vitality. They could still see their beauty, even in their last years of neglect, when others could not. Their grief was raw but understandable. Some are moved to organize and form movements to prevent future losses. Others accept these losses as merely a part of urban life. Others still just complain. In these varied reactions what is universal is their pain. Together we all grieve. This is why, we, The Good Neighbors Lamentation Society, have chosen to memorialize our neighbors. May our memories give us strength and these shrines bring us peace.

1815 Grove Street – in memoriaum

1821 Irving Street – in memoriaum

Findings and Final Report:

Metro Denver’s population growth has outpaced national growth rates since the 1930s. By 2020, Metro Denver’s population is anticipated to increase from 2.8 million to more than 3.3 million. Large tracts of the city are undergoing wholesale urban renewal, which is especially pronounced on the city’s West Side.

The Good Neighbor’s Lamentation Society performed services for six demolished houses in the gentrifying West Colfax neighborhood. The neighborhood’s rapid change raised many concerns among long-time residents and activists alike. At the core of the controversy is the rezoning and redevelopment of residential lots that result in many older, single-family homes being demolished. Concerned residents and activists argue that this wave of redevelopment has threatened the character of their neighborhoods and erased the history of old Denver. Developers and pro-growth residents argue that the redevelopment has allowed long-time area homeowners to cash out on an inventory of largely unexceptional, 1950s starter homes, many of which were in disrepair. The demolition of these original structures opens up large urban lots perfect for building high-density, multifamily townhomes that cater to the tastes of affluent home buyers who are increasingly flocking to urban areas.

As longtime neighborhood residents, members of The Good Neighbor’s Lamentation Society have mixed feelings watching their neighborhood change so dramatically. While our sympathies lie with displaced residents and we abhor the slapped together, Brutalist box-like architecture of new Denver, the activists who are decrying change often fail to acknowledge how rundown and, dare we say, undesirable the neighborhood has been for years – often due to the neglect of those very same displaced residents and derelict slumlords.

As artists, we have not sought to make a loud political statement but have instead sought to create a quiet and contemplative memorial. The purpose of activism is to get the largest number of people possible behind a unified message. The purpose of art is to elicit an emotional response from a singular viewer that may engender critical thinking and pose questions instead of answering them. While The Good Neighbor’s Lamentation Society was formed to memorialize properties – not proselytize against change – our sincerest hope is that all of our neighbors, new and long-time residents alike, are able to have a safe and affordable place to call home.

And when I go and prepare a place for you
I will come again and will take you to myself,
that where I am you may also be.
John 14:1-3
– From the shrine for 1828 Julian St. 

This report was written by Heather Link-Bergman.
All photos by Heather Link-Bergman

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A version of this report was featured at is EMANCIPATION, Sociometry Fair 2016, in Los Angeles, California and was originally published in is EMANCIPATION The Institute of Sociometry at 21. This report was also published in Raw Fury #4.

INDIVIDUAL: ABATOR
GROUP SIZE: 11 – individuals fronting vast corporations with hundreds if not thousands of additional individuals. This is an estimate due to individuals deploying dummy phone numbers and possibly even aliases.

ABATOR in a SoHi alleyway, Denver 

NATURE OF GROUP: Eddie Mowrer, Hunter Hinson, Seth Taylor, Benjamin Olssen, and a half dozen unidentified agents representing the following corporate entities; Networth Realty, SWT Management, REcolorado, Move Out Move On, We Buy Ugly Houses, and MD Home Acquisitions. This study group is comprised of front men using an off-grid advertising scheme of hand-lettered yard-wicket signs in the west Denver neighborhood of South Highlands (SoHi), even masquerading as local yokels, to offer cash for houses or investment properties for sale, presumably to developers. The property investment corporations behind these men are looking to snatch up cheap single family homes on large lots. Dozens of lots in the study area have been, are being, (or are vacated to eventually be) scraped and replaced with densely packed 500k three-story town houses.
INCIDENCE: #ABATOR #corporate #graffiti #abatement”

“They buy ’em cheap and stack ’em deep.” 
– SoHi resident Heather Link-Bergman
on the developers who are scraping and
rebuilding her West Denver neighborhood.

Seth Taylor signs – 1700 Federal Blvd.

Denver is adding 20,000 new residents a year and projecting one million more residents in the next ten years. Housing demand is being met by infilling industrial and vacant lots and scraping houses in economically depressed areas to make way for multi-unit buildings. SoHi, the study area for this report, which includes parts of the West Colfax, Cheltenham Heights, Jefferson Park, Hallack Park, and Sloan’s Lake neighborhoods, is immediately west of downtown and south of the affluent Highlands. A hundred years ago this part of town was a Jewish ghetto and the childhood home of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. The long-demolished “largest Synagogue west of the Mississippi” is now the site of Mi Pueblo Market and an 80% abandoned derelict shopping plaza. For much of the latter 20th century, until the current property boom, it’s been a barrio of Juarez transplants. The commercial sections of Federal and West Colfax are dismal, peppered with gravely, weed choked vacant lots, B-list fast food spots, flop-house hotels, and stucco taquerias.  

Mi Pueblo Market, 3200 W. Colfax

The development of abandoned St Anthony’s Hospital on the shore of Sloan Lake, is projected to accommodate an additional 25,000 residents to just this neighborhood! That’s a year’s supply of new Denver residents! A new west light rail line is driving city planning around increased density parallel to West Colfax. Adjacent neighborhoods are undergoing rapid in-fill and wholesale urban renewal. Slum lords barely up on their property taxes, unsold foreclosures from the recession, and longtime residents looking to cash out are feeding a frenzy of property speculation and slap-dash construction.

A massive duplex is being built on a former vacant lot ten-feet from an El Azteca, North Side Mafia safe-house that’s regularly monitored by undercover Denver detectives. A squalid brick row house with five 1-bedroom units and kids toys spilling out onto the lawn nestles in a canyon between massive 3-story buildings with six 450k condos being nail-gunned together in great haste. A longtime resident with a DIY cinder block fence and a large corner lot, who likes to day-drink 24-packs of Bud Lite Límon with his buddies out front listening to accordion and polka jams, has his 3-bedroom oak-and-brass barrio jewel on the market – with the house next to it included – for 650k.

Joe, aka Move Out Move On Inc., 2500 W 26th Ave., Denver with a bonus Hunter Hinson sign

The yard-wicket signs used by the front men are a way of cutting through the clutter of traditional advertising and communicating in a high-volume cash business where opportunities are fly-by-night. Some signs have a fictitious personae, “Joe Buys Houses As-Is” or they cut the pretense with “I Buy Houses Any Condition CA$H”. Some are aimed at an internal audience of other brokers and developers, “80% ARV ALL IN”. Some of the listed phone numbers have people on the other end – the men named in the study group. The number often goes to a voicemail for one of the named corporate entities. All are able to buy your property “as-is” in cash. “As-is” can mean gutted and boarded up with all the copper plumbing stripped out, or with a plume of abandoned mattresses and furniture erupting off the porch, into the yard, all buried in snow.

“As-is” condition house

“Starting in the 500’s”

Many of the corporate entities and named individuals seem to have tenuous contacts to Denver – a satellite office, a recent transplant with a minimal online presence. Signs list multiple google-voice numbers with default-setting voicemail greetings. There’s Hunter Hinson’s almost perfect unintentional self-parody and/or fake facebook page of duck-faced selfies and white BMW snaps (facebook.com/hunter.c.hinson). Seth Taylor has a confident headshot and title on his LinkedIn, “Foreclosure Servicing, Property Preservation, Realtor”. There’s circumstantial evidence of actual residence in Tennessee or Houston. These men are not out placing the signs – that is outsourced to minions. This agent observed an owl faced man in a driver cap placing several signs at Colfax and Irving at 7am on a Wednesday morning.

Individuals in the study group comprise a community with it’s own language, signifiers, and public hand-lettered communications. Not unlike gang or graffiti tags, these signs advertise territory. Six figure transactions in cash arranged with sharpies. $500 worth of ad space on the adjacent bus bench for a $20 blank sign from Ace Hardware. They have developed a method of off-grid advertising by utilizing corporate graffiti.

2380 W Colfax and 5200 W 17th Ave.

Into this group-dynamic sashays ABATOR – a west side vandal with a lot of flat gray primer. Beginning in late fall and now into spring ALL of the yard-wicket signs in the SoHi study area have been abated on a weekly basis. This agent has photographed 24 distinct sign abatements. During this time several broker agents have resorted to affixing signs onto wood telephone polls 9ft off the ground – requiring a slight change in tactics.

ABATOR is an shadowy figure, never adding any commentary aside from a 15 second helium-voiced instagram statement and hashtag manifestos, “#ABATOR #declareswar #recolorado #broker #benjaminolsen http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ben-jamin-olsen #fixandflip #yardsigns #westside #gentrification #denver #corporate #graffiti #vandalism #abatement.”

3300 W 29th Ave.

An abated sign picture which got a heart from @cityofdenver and a comment, “#denver is where it’s AT” were met with a responce that give us a window into the mind-set of this vigilante-vandal:

“@cityofdenver thank you for your comment on my photo. Unfortunately Denver is no longer ‘where it’s AT’ for low income residents of Jefferson Park, West Colfax and Cheltenham Heights who are being forced into Lakewood by rapacious property development. We need more affordable housing on the west side – not a race to replace every modest single family home with four 400k luxury town homes! But yea – glad you commented on my photo of abated fix and flip signs so we had this chance to talk. #ABATOR”

ABATOR changing tactics. 

———-

ABATOR is not on the internet but she does borrow our burner to instagram her abatements @is.press. This report was originally published in Raw Fury #3. 

For more art-interventions surrounding the gentrification of SoHi see the This Could Be Here, and Area of Change reports.

INDIVIDUAL: West-side tagger in their threatened native habitat
GROUP SIZE: Estimates of up to 20,000
NATURE OF GROUP: New residents in the market for homes starting in the high $400s!!
INCIDENCE: Area of Change 

///// UPDATE 03.13.14 ~ scroll to bottom ///// 

Trails of taggers wind like tentacles through SoHi, a traditionally working-class neighborhood off of West Colfax, as the condo curtain descends from the north flattening homes all the way to 17th Avenue. Scrappy two-bedroom bungalows in the low $200s with huge yards, Wal-Mart trampolines, and eroding dog-couches, are being razed n’ replaced with four-per-lot town-homes starting at $450k.

See all tags and properties on a map!

1700 Hooker St., From google earth, image from approx. summer 2013

1700 Hooker St.,winter 2014

Starting in the $440’s. (The house in google earth would be approx. $200k.)

Architecturally rendered block-row buildings with Sketchup drawn Porsches out front anchor splashy banners with real-estate agent numbers. Pre-Sale Available! 

In January of 2014 neighborhood tags were photographed, re-drawn in vector, skewed on a perspective grid, and cut into sticky-vinyl. The faithfully rendered tags now deface the vinyl-banner walls of this rendered utopian future. Coming soon!

///// UPDATE 03.13.14 ///// 

YOU AINT KREUU FEULL

The sign at 1820 Julian that was adorned with vinyls of our IS tag, and an appropriated NVSK tag and bubbly SL throw-up was called out by tagger SKULZB – “YOU AINT KREUU FEULL”, with an adjacent NVSK tag.

Our interpretation of this message is multi-tiered; NVSK is clearly a crew as opposed to an individual, and they are calling out IS for stealing their tag without being in the crew (an offense punishable by punching and stabbing). SKULZB correctly crossed out our IS and the appropriated NVSK but left the SL – apparently there’s no beef with SL. On a deeper layer, SKULZB, as a representative of the NVSK crew, has further defiled the utopian dream of the $400,000 townhouses coming soon to 1820 Julian by completely bombing the hypothetical building with implicit threats. More importantly, SKULZB has followed our established precedent by mapping their personal and crew tag onto the architectural perspective of the building drawing.

Now that NVSK has been alerted to the interloper on their streets we suspect to see more cross outs and tags on the other coming soon signs that were modified during round one. To draw a metaphor, it is as if we strewed chum in the waters surrounding this luxury yacht and it is starting to attract sharks.
———

ThIS report was originally released in the form of  4×4 ft info-collage at
Contact the MSU Denver Art Faculty Show
Center for Visual Art, 965 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, CO 80204

INDIVIDUAL: New York pedestrian on 14th Street between 3rd and 7th avenues on the weekend of October 18th 2013
GROUP SIZE: 2 to 6
NATURE OF GROUP: IS agents asking New York pedestrians to stick their faces into white image reflection boxes during Art In Odd Places 2013
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: Opportunity for Reflection

IS additional images.
If this IS not your first visit, scroll down for our Final Incidence Report: 

is agents and Opportunity for Reflection docents Handsome Jim and  mISs IS engage a pedestrian.

Opportunity for Reflection was inspired by the visceral and often oppositional identity forming reflections that key numbers, such as 911 or 1%, instill in the culturally and politically diverse population along 14th Street in New York. Over the weekend of October 18th 2013, six IS agents invited pedestrians to take the the opportunity to look into a reflection box and see their face inset into the above-shoulder portraits of variable faceless personas related to a number on the side of each box.

The boxes contained an adult face size oval front opening, an interior back mirror for reflection and two interchangeable mounted images on the inside of the face opening. When a viewer looked into the box they saw a reflection of their own face inset into the image. Pulling one image out via a top tab revealed an image of opposite or contrasting character for a second reflection.

The view inside the boxes. Your face goes here ^ 

For example, 1% will showed either Romney or an outlaw biker. A contrasting motif, ∞ (infinity) used multiple mirrors and lights to create an infinite cascade of reflections. A core team of agents, m[i]le[s], mISs IS, and Handsome Jim, built the numerically labelled boxes representing the numbers  1 – 69 – 7-11 – 911 –1984 – 1% – ∞.

Final Incidence Report:

Despite the reputation of New Yorkers as being gruff, hurried, and hard as nails with no time for strangers and their peculiarities, the boxes drew people in, sometimes in lines three deep, likes moths to a bright light. In this case, New Yorker’s level of desensitization and lack of a need for personal space encouraged participation. Kids in particular delighted in seeing their face with funny hair styles, a hijab, a uniform, or on money.

Some of our favorite incidents:

Agent Risa corralled in a man who, after initial reluctance, was so moved by seeing his face inset into a rotund hispanic 7-11 clerk that he decided to forgo his lunch and invite his cousin he hasn’t seen  in a long time to a movie.

Agent Handsome Jim’s waxed mustache attracted a comparison to Salidor Dalí from a man claiming to be his former chauffeur adding, “That man never gave me a NICKEL!” The disgruntled driver looked into the 1 box before telling Handsome Jim he has the worlds only human skull signed by Dalí.

Agent Manny Green talked for over 30 minutes with two forty-something men about the connections between private prisons and Chicago violence after showing them the stick-up robber in the 7-11 box.

Agent m[i]le[s] got a primer on telepathic communication with Dolphins and the concept of twin-flames from a gold-jeweled German woman after she looked into the 1% box.

Agent mISs IS was cautioned that they are tracking us with infrared, and that the drone program in Pakistan is merely a harbinger of what’s going to happen domestically by a short white American lady in a hijab, pajama pants, and flip-flops who had just looked in the 911 box.

Agent Weiss counseled several harried New Yorkers ranging in age from six to ninety through a meditation exercise counting the lights in the ∞ box.

A sketchy looking underweight 20 something girl looked in the 7-11 box and said, “oh – that’s me. I work at 7-11.” Pulling the clerk card out, agent m[i]le[s] asked “Well then, have you ever seen this?” looking back in at the gun in her face from the robber, she calmly withdrew from the box and non-chalantly said, “Oh yea, we keep a $20 out of the register just for them.” She grabbed every info card, a sticker, and a balloon from the give away box.

A man with curly gray hair and flamboyant clothes including a silk stars and bars shirt, a female condom worn as a necklace, and a yarmulke decorated with puff paint cam and found us all three days, leaving with, “You’re going to have beautiful children”

 A serious looking man in a dirty t-shirt and cap approached agent m[i]e[s] wanting to talk about Sociometry. A psychiatrist, the man had trained with the founder of Sociometry Jacob Levy Moreno and had participated in mass Psycho Drama exercises in the early 1970’s. While he seemed a touch disappointed to find out we were engaging in Guerilla Sociometry which is similar in focus but doesn’t conform to the rigorous standards of math or science, he did agree that we were engaging in a core principle of Psycho Drama – acting out your problems in front of large groups.

It was our desire to use this opportunity to introduce the relative nature of identity and memory as it relates to numbers. The Opportunity for Reflection was intended to let viewers experience their face within the bodies of people who embodied both sides of a dialog. Ideally, the experience provided an interesting Opportunity for Reflection that caused further thought about the relative nature of identity and memory as triggered by numbers.

Despite a word of caution about performing on the streets of New York from the Art In Odd Places staff, we found the pedestrians along 14th St. to be the most engaged, chatty, and unafraid of odd art patrons we’ve come across in two decades of guerilla public art pranks. When we were packing up the boxes to ship from Denver we were joking about the one person who we were going to talk to. Instead, much to our surprise and delight, we lost track of the interactions within the first hour.

One not-so-surprising in-hind-sight observations: for every single retired art history or sociology professor (or Salvador Dalí chauffeur) well versed in art issues or current affairs and wanting to have a “serious” discourse we encountered dozens of fellow odd-balls who recognized us as a captive audience for unloading their own crazy theories and tall tales.

mISs IS mISsion accomplished!

———-
Opportunity for Reflection process images:

———
ThIS report documents Institute of Sociometry’s contribution to Art In Odd Places 2013 : Number 

INDIVIDUAL: The deceptive Grey
GROUP SIZE: 6,974,000,000
NATURE OF GROUP: current era humans of the planet earth

INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: STW – the Spread The Word discernment and resistance movement

 Grey aliens, the most frequently cited and described perpetrators of alien abductions of humans, are a controversial phenomena. Obviously the parent controversy is whether or not they actually exist, followed by whether their existence is physical or psychologically manifested, whether they are extra-terrestrial sentient beings who have arrived on earth through intergalactic travel or whether they are humans from the distant future coming back to our time through inter-dimensional or time-travel to modify their present through genetic banking or influencing of events, whether they are our brothers in arms in an inter-dimensional war with universally reviled reptilian aliens or merely our allies in an enemy-of-my-enemy scenario, whether they are in-cahoots with black-ops factions of the shadow government, and lastly whether they are ultimately benevolent and acting in the interest of current-era humans, despite actions seemingly to the contrary, or whether they are deceitful and acting in their own self-interest at the expense of current-era humans.

Ghana | all images reposted from STW

In the early 90’s, during a surge in DIY mass-stickering campaigns – anyone remember Andre the Giant Has a Posse? – IS came into contact with agent V2 and their group Spread The Word who distributed free round stickers of the globally recognized grey alien face with the red circle/slash NO symbol overlaid on it. Initially interpreting the image as a non-sequeter “fun” graphic campaign, IS took advantage of the generously large free sticker packs that would arrive in the mail from the return address PO Box 911 in Stanwood Washington for redistribution in our own Special Agent Kits.

Egypt | all images reposted from STW

Over twenty years later, STW continues unchanged. The same graphic on the stickers, the same PO Box (augmented now with the enviable domain freestickers.net), the same anonymous special agent in charge – V2. While many other graphic sticker campaigns have come and gone – some, like Andre The Giant Has A Possee, morphing into graphic art empires – STW remains steadfast in it’s mission of spreading the word through free stickers. It’s difficult to estimate the sheer volume of stickers distributed but it is safe to say millions distributed to every corner of the globe.

IS came to understand several years into our postal relationship that STW’s longevity of mission derives more from an ideological purity than an mere appreciation for graphic campaigns and mail art exchanges. STW really IS oriented around spreading the word about deceptive alien entities. One of our founding IS agents – stationed in Washington state attempted to make face-to-face contact with V2 in the late 90’s and was politely declined. To paraphrase, V2 told our agent that due to the nature of their crusade they had a firm policy of anonymity and no face-to-face contact. Although they were pretty certain they could trust an IS agent there was no underestimating the level of deceptiveness deployed by the Grey’s in pursuit of their evil agenda and no one outside the STW core-cell could be trusted.

T-shirt at Stonehenge | all images reposted from STW

To attempt to codify the belief system driving the campaign; the Grey’s are physical extraterrestrial beings, likely in cahoots with or in control of a shadow government, that if at all involved as allies in a struggle with other entities are doing so in their own self-interest exclusively but are more likely to be floating a mythology about an intergalactic war as cover for their own evil agenda, that they are abducting humans, spreading psychological fear, and banking genetics as part of an insidious plot that is in no way beneficial to humans who are either their enemies or at best collateral damage. Most importantly to the mission of STW is the belief that Grey’s can be thwarted in their agenda through simple awareness, discernment, and resistance. They are effective only through their use of fear and intimidation and like every school-yard bully the Universe over can be thwarted with a firm and brave resistance. Their intrusion into our lives, psyches, and genetic lineage can be resisted by standing up with-out fear to say NO to their deceptions and intimidations. The stickers remain unchanged after decades because they are the perfect encapsulation of the message. Just say NO to deceptive alien entities.

Mexico City | all images reposted from STW

For free stickers and further education on the topic of deceptive Grey’s please visit STW at freestickers.net or on their Facebook page.
—–

STW hase been a contributor to ALL FIVE Sociometry Fairs going back to 1996 including the most recent iSFair 2O12  in San Francisco.

INDIVIDUAL: Agent Brian Dick tag-team alternating with Agent Christen Sperry-Garcia
GROUP SIZE: two or three at a time, sometimes up to ten, collectively hundreds over a decade
NATURE OF GROUP: unsuspecting art fans and/or uneasy museum managers
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: The Nation Wide Museum Mascot Project

NWMMP at MOMA

Though the origins of shamanism are cloaked in a Joseph Campbell style myth-mash and/or ivory-tower navel gazings, humans have been putting on goofy animal costumes and accosting strangers since the paleolithic era. Though the practice exists close to it’s original form among arctic Inuits and in the highlands of Borneo and Burma, it’s experienced in the arena of western society in the form of mini-tramp front-flip slam-dunks from an anthropomorphized cartoon jersey-wearing panther or a waddling purple dinosaur leading a trail of children pied-piper like into to flabby arms of television-aided consumer-capitalism. Costumery that was once a holy vessel for a divine messenger is now bouncing and waving from an Ford-land tent-sale commercial.

above and below: NWMMP at DAG

Around the turn of the 21rst century performance and prank artist (and upper echelon IS agent) Brian Dick wanted to get some fresh faces off the street and into a San Diego performance art space. Recognizing that there IS nothing better than a mascot to disarm and draw in the passive consumer, The Museum Mascot project was born. Shortly after, Brian, and ‘artner Christen Sperry-Garcia started seeking permission to “mascot” venerable art museums such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Though met with the type of snobbishly paternalistic stonewalling tactics typically deployed by the permission granters at such public art institutions, they decided to just show up in costume and see what happens. Something about the benevolence of the mission – convincing the passer-by that art is fun – and the bad-p.r. security takedown of a friendly dancing manimal surrounded by a gaggle of happy kids lead to tacit permission to do their thing.

NWMMP at SFMOMA

Developing a found-object and improvisational approach, the pair typically hits town a day before the gig to scrounge neighborhood dumpsters and garage sales for spent piñatas, children’s imprinted sleeping bags, and county-fair size stuffed animals to frankenstein together a mascot costume with multicolored duct-tape. By pulling together cast-offs from the community they create a character which mediates the low-culture of a city neighborhood with the high-culture of an art institution much in that way shamans use masks to communicate the concerns of an earth-bound culture to the spirit realm.

And the kids love it! And, the “Fine Art” patrons find it terribly awkward…

NWWMP IS fun indoors and out!

In 2012 the duo crowd-sourced funding to take the Nation Wide Museum Mascot Project coast-to-coast with a 50/50 invite vs. guerilla target list tour of 21 acronym institutions – including MCASD, MOCAD, OCMA, MOMA, SFMOMA with a stop at iSFair 2O12 along the way.
—–

The Museum Mascot has been the official mascot of Sociometry Fair 2008

… and iSFair 2O12.

INDIVIDUAL: Jim Kiel
GROUP SIZE: 677 – possibly thousands
NATURE OF GROUP: People executed by the death penalty world wide in 2001 (Amnesty International) 
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: A Gift For You!

Jim Kiel, of Aurora Colorado, sent a letter to the editor of Denver’s Westword newspaper in which he advocated a 100 point criminal justice system resulting in capital punishment. (See Pg. 8 of Westword Vol. 35, #15). His home address was easily retrieved from a simple google search.

“Assign point values that increase with the seriousness or violence of the crime, and when your convictions total 100 points, you’re executed” – Jim Kiel, Aurora

Almost a year later, every day for the month of October (National Crime Prevention Month, and including Oct. 11th World Day Against The Death Penalty), thIS agent mailed Jim Kiel clippings related to the death penalty around the world, starting with photocopies of two letters on the topic Jim Kiel had written to local newspapers, then initially a series of seemingly pro death penalty clippings, segueing to clippings on the death penalty internationally – mostly focusing on China and Iran – before concluding with a series of anti or educational death penalty articles.

An Innocent Man’s Tortured Days on Texas’s Death Row – ACLU

All of the clipping were mailed in identical envelopes with a letterpressed return address for the Institute of Sociometry partially obscuring the pre-printed gold-ink “A Gift For You!” vintage stationary and addressed to Jim Kiel with a typewriter. No personal information was included in the letters – only the photocopied clippings.

File copies of 31 death penalty related clippings sent to Jim Kiel. 

 No response was received to the letters. The 31rst and last planned letter, postmarked on Halloween was returned to sender marked “not deliverable as addressed”.

“NOT DELIVERABLE AS ADDRESSED” – USPS. Apparently the preceding 30 letters were fine with the same address.
———

ThIS report was originally released at iSFair 2O12.

INDIVIDUAL: IS agent Wendell M. Kling
GROUP SIZE: Looking to grow the ranks
NATURE OF GROUP: Flyers of the black flag
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: Old Black Dickies. New Black Flags.

Your black Dickies got you through high-school hazing, multiple mosh-pits, summer community-service at the animal-shelter, and looked pretty good washed and ironed for your Aunts funeral. Now, knees shredded from skateboard-slams, ass worn thin from the leather of your bike-seat, and pockets blown from too much spare change, they lie clean-and-folded at the bottom of your IKEA bureau.

How to memorialize your “wasted youth” in black dickies? You can’t toss them out with the baby diapers – because you have a laundering service for the re-usable nappies. You can’t use them to change the oil in your tan Aerostar because you have that done at Eco-garage™. Now that you’re a permaculture dad, how do you up-cycle this durable fabric into a functional reusable item for the enjoyment of you and your family?

Send them to IS agent Wendell M. Kling and he will sew and send back a hand-crafted black flag!  !¡!¡

Hands OFF the Outback parking pig!

You can proudly wave your black flag at the next NO-GMO rally with the wife or to put it in that unused flag holder out in front of your home to let The Man know they’d better think twice about putting that street-sweeping ticket on your 2006 Outback! And… when night falls and your gated-community security-guard leaves his white CRV idling outside the Albertsons you can demonstrate to your teen son how the complimentary 1.5″ flag dowel penetrates a windshield like a hypodermic through a birthday balloon!

Get your black flag TODAY! Here’s how:

———

Black Dickies flags and solicitations for more black Dickies were distributed at iSFair 2O12.

INDIVIDUAL: IS agent JK
GROUP SIZE: Approximately 238,035,525
NATURE OF GROUP: English speaking Women of the Earth
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: I Dare You

Grace Kelly, Ellen, Jacky-O, Frieda Khalo, and Jennifer Hudson

The word cunt is often seen as a vulgar, harsh, disgusting way to put a woman down. (The Urban Dictionary definition of cunt.) This word has acquired a power all it’s own that is intended to hurt the women it’s directed at. Most of us just call it “the c word” feeding into the hold this four letter word has against emotions and self worth. It’s no secret that if a man wants to put a women in her place or emotionally hurt her, all he as to do is call her a cunt. This word above all others, above bitch, hoe, tramp, etc. holds such a power over a majority of women and this has to stop. It is another way to create the gap between the sexes, to “knock us down a peg or two” – a battle all too familiar for women.

Women’s rights have been in the spotlight for quite some time now. A major example of this is the ERA, or Equal Rights Amendment, which was put up to congress in 1972  but not ratified by the states, expired in 1982, and has yet to be put back up for a vote. The ERA was supposed to give equal pay to men and women along with other ways to make the sexes equal. Women’s rights have been an uphill battle since we were given the right to vote – long before the ERA was proposed. From unequal treatment in the workplace, to the idea that we shouldn’t be able to make decisions about our own bodies, this issue seems to never get resolved and is pushed back into the recesses of society. That is until the idea of women’s rights becomes useful, like in times of a presidential election.

Katie Couric inviting you to Forever 21 at the mall.

The concept of I Dare You is to draw attention to this lack of equality, to the power we are giving away. Allowing anyone to use a word to emotionally harm us is something we have control over. In order to get this idea across I choose to use the desensitization approach, place the word on women of all types, shapes, color, and political stances, but all iconic, and make it big. In order for this approach to make the biggest impact possible and evoke emotion from the viewer., it needed to be bold and in your face. The variety of women selected for the posters is diverse. Some of them might be described as a cunt by some and not by others and vice versa. The idea behind this is to get the viewer to think “why would I call Hillary Clinton a cunt, but not Zooey Deschanel?” The dialogue that is created is the first step in realizing that cunt is just a word. If women can take that power back from the word, it can no longer be used to keep us in the box society has placed us in.

Through this project I hope to bring attention to many things; the power a word has that it shouldn’t, gender issues and roles, as well as problems in society. By creating a dialogue between the message of the posters and the public that views them, I am hoping to make a difference in how women view their own worth. Your importance cannot be determined by your sex, your self esteem cannot be hindered by a word, and your worth as a person should have nothing to do with your anatomy. Far too often successful women are labeled by the people underneath them, or they aren’t taken seriously, however, there is no male equivalent to the word cunt, and if you call a man that, it doesn’t hold the same power.

Hello Barbara Walters!

The beauty of language is we are able to make it grow and change as our society does. Words that once held heavy weight, such as whore, or bitch, no longer hold that same power. As a society, we have taken those words and desensitized them, made them less threatening. The origin of the word cunt “quna” in several African languages was used to identify a woman as a queen. In other parts of the world today the word cunt  it isn’t seen as bad at all. It’s used in New Zealand and Australia to describe a person as stupid, and in Britain it may be used with a positive qualifier such as good or funny. The cunt is a part of female anatomy, nothing bad about it at all. However, in American society today it is seen as the most derogatory word a woman can be called and labeled as the only word left to still cause genuine shock when used and is called a vulgar word.

Women have the capability to choose to not let this word hold this power. We can take it back and take away the negative connotations it has developed and make it a word of the past, one that no longer shocks and offends people. This poster campaign is my way of contributing to this movement and the movement of gender equality.

~ IS agent JK
———

Documentation of thIS wheat-pasting spree was first exhibited at Render in Denver Colorado, on idareyou-21 and was on display at iSFair 2O12.

INDIVIDUAL: John Q. Public
GROUP SIZE: Estimated in the thousands, actually in the tens
NATURE OF GROUP: Recreate 68 - a group of permitted protestors at the 2008 Denver DNC
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: BEWARE SHEEPLE! SPAGZ LIES!

ThIS report titled Covering the media covering the media covering the protestors protesting the protesters at the DNC was originally published in five daily posts on the now cached Blog of Lumpen and IS a spin-off of an print article Art Attack! Artist’s Prank Punks Re-create 68, Other Activists in Denver’s Westword newspaper.

#is May, 1968 – August, 2008
Those who try to recreate history are doomed to bumble it.

The Barnacle Protester Picketing Recreate 68 | (See All Photos here)

On the night of May 10th, 1968 striking teachers, students, and a cadre of young trade unionists took to the streets of Paris’s Latin Quarter under the battle cry “End the Police State”. After swelling their ranks to over 50,000 barricades went up throughout the left bank to prepare for pitched battles with truncheon wielding police in what has become codified in the annals of radical activism as “The Night of the Barricades”. Amidst clouds of chlorine gas, the riot swelled over the next three weeks to include close to half-a-million. A general strike of nine-million workers in support of the students brought the de Gaulle regime to its knees.

A principal force behind 2008’s DNC protests was “Recreate 68”. The name, according to the groups de-facto leader Glenn Spagnuolo a locally notorious professional protestor, refers to the spirit of mass political participation of the late 1960’s. Despite, or perhaps because of, such effective branding, Recreate 68 was forced to defend a barrage of media spin painting the group as violent reactionaries intent on goading the administration of Denver’s quirky leftist Mayor John Hickenlooper (now Govenor) into a rehash of Daily’s 1968 Chicago DNC gestapo Tactics.

Refusing to change the name of his coalition in the face of negative spin, or to specifically disavow violence as a (defence) tactic, Spagnuolo and Recreate 68 weathered through a disassociation and some acrimony with other major permitted protest groups such as Tent State, a nationwide organization of college-student activists attempting to erect a tent city on the Platte, and Code-Pink a crack squadron of pink-costumed anti-war ladies in the 35 to 55 social demographic.

One of the only groups who continued to attend Recreate 68 working meetings leading up to the DNC was Unconventional Denver, a disruption focused squad of Anarchists who, in subscribing to an autonomous action philosophy, don’t quibble the details.

In a bizarre twist, Spagnuolo even acquired his own personal protestor, a lone man adorned with a sign that reads “Beware Sheeple SPAGZ LIES.” Identifying himself to the Media as “John Q. Public” – but better described by local Westword scribe Jared Jacang-Mayer as “The Barnacle Protestor” his mission is to, “latch onto any other demonstration or event, get press and make everyone uncomfortable.” (See the caricature)

Recreate 68 pre-DNC working meeting with The Barnacle Protestor barely visible in the background.

Spagnuolo, in addition to Denver Copwatch spokesman Evan Herzoff, Unconventional Denver spokesman Clayton Dewey, and a host of other local activists, were also the victims of a divisive and quasi-threatening prank by a local “anonymous artist” and “utopian anarchist” who may-or-may-not-be-or-be-related-to the Barnacle Protestor. In early June they received a flyer reading “WE BEAT YOU THEN! WE’LL BEAT YOU AGAIN!”, which appeared to be from a rouge Denver Cop threatening to recreate the 1968 spirit of mass police mayhem and wanton head-cracking. An hour before a press conference called to demand an Internal Affairs investigation into rogue cops, the “artist” outed the entire thing as a hoax through the local media. (See the Flyer and read the article) 

It was in this climate of (dis)organization, negative media hype, and protestor-on-protestor-protesting that the Denver activist community steeled itself for…
—–

#is Sunday August 24th, 2008
Day of the Protest Permits

9:00 am:1968 this is not. Denver radicals aren’t afraid of the sun and people are not sleeping in.Over at Tent State crusty eyed college kids are lined up for the Rage Against the Machine free concert ticket lottery like cattle queuing up at the dorm cafeteria trough.

10:00 am: Recreate 68 exercises its first officially permitted radical action by entertaining a crowd of seventy or so on the steps of the State Capitol. A slate of hip-hop acts and radical speakers froth everyone up for the 11:00 am march to the “Freedom Cage” – the DNC’s fenced in free speech zone. The crowd is energetic but slight and comprised of the usual suspects; black-hoodied anarchists, Critical Mass bike punks, Green Party yuppies, earnest teenage hippies, and The Barnacle Protestor holding a sign that reads R68 SPREADS FEAR with an amazing whirligig device which animates four inch high wooden cutouts of two 60’s era white beat cops kicking and night-sticking a crouching brown man every time the wind blows.

11:15 am: Everyone rolls out for the Pepsi-Center leaving behind a small crowd of international and out-of-town media asking each other where the parade route is, (just follow the parade!?) and The Barnacle Protestor watching his back while smoking a cigarette. This presstester walks over to try to get a statement and untagle the mess of conflicting reports tying him to the WE BEAT YOU prank.

m[i]le[s]: Pretty amazing device. Did you make that?
BP: No an artist named John Fitchen made it. Its one of fifty – one for every state.
m[i]le[s]: Did you make that flyer? (Pointing to the WE BEAT YOU THEN flyer screen printed onto his T-shirt.)
BP: No I picked it up at the Gypsy House Cafe. (Where Recreate 68 was holding their working meetings.)

At this point The Barnacle Protestor goes into a first amendment diatribe that seems to be the pre-cursor to a rambling stream-of-conciousness speech.

Fifteen feet behind The Barnacle Protestor, languishing in the grass under the protective shade of three 250lb. plus body guards, Ward Churchill – the infamous University of Colorado Professor and American Indian Movement activist who referred to the World Trade Center victims as, “Little Eichmans” – observes and listens to The Barnacle Protestors First Amendment rant.

m[i]le[s]: Mr. Churchill can I get a picture?
Ward: I guess if you were a cop you wouldn’t ask.
R-68 Security (stepping in): You’re with him!!! (Pointing to The Barnacle Protestor). NO PICTURES!”

This agent gives The Barnacle Protestor my number, and a request to keep me updated on his schedule and heads off to…

12:00 Noon: Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission is dug in on the corner of Colfax and Broadway in between the swirl of Official DNC booths at Civic Center Park and R68, Ward Churchill, and the slate of off-the-charts-left squawkers on the Capitol steps.

An earnest Code-Pink demographic lady is giving a Code Red-White-and-Blue eulogy of her son Mark – a Navy Seal killed in Ramadi. Mark stood up in the line of fire three times to cover his comrades in a roof-top fire-fight before laying down his life. She turns to address the Capitol and the now dissipated throng of Recreate 68, “My son died for your freedoms… Mark was not an officer, but he was a leader!”

Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission and Media covering Media.

Moist eyes all around, signs reading “Don’t Feed The Leftists” and “General David Petraus, American Hero” are pumped in the air to rousing patriotism.

1:30 pm: Over at Tent State disgruntled College kids who drove in from all over Colorado are told that the Rage Against The Machine Ticket Lottery has been suspended until 4:00 pm to encourage participation in..

2:00 pm: Tent State’s Funk The War costume dance party and march leaves Union Station headed East up the 16th Street Pedestrian Mall toward the Capitol and Civic Center Park with a crowd of approximately two hundred. Plain-cloths protestors are interspersed with ten foot carnival puppets, Tent State college kids pushing beat blasting PA carts, banner wielding human-rights activists, a small squad of black-n-orange flag Unconventional Denver anarchists, Code Pink ladies on immaculately decorated bikes, nostalgic hippies, convention tourists, Recreate 68ers on loan from the Capitol rally, and media media media media, are all accompanied by fifty, motorcycle, bike, and traffic cops, halting cars and politely trying to keep everyone on the sidewalk.

Tent State Puppet, Funk the War

Code Pink bike soldier.

Stopping for occasion red-light dance parties, the procession marches ten blocks up to California Street where the crowd begins to stagnate and dissipate. The Recreate 68ers continue on to the Capitol, the black-n-orange Anarchists turn around and began marching against the current, the plain-cloths protestors and convention tourists relegate to the sidelines for souvenir snapshots, and the Tent Staters begin heading back to their river-side lair.

Red Light Dance Party

3:00 pm: Those remaining confusingly fall into line and begin to march back to Union Station. At Stout Street marchers, cops, and media media media, are flanked by a side-street-surprise-attack of close to two hundred fifty previously unseen Unconventional Anarchists led by the initial black-n-orange color guard and an advance cavalry of track-bike punks.

Spread out curb to curb in the face of brakes-jamming traffic, and radio barking cops, they march up to and take over the pedestrian mall, absorb Funk The War, and turn east toward the Capitol yelling call and response.

WHO’S STREETS?
OUR STREETS!
WHO’S STREETS
OUR STREETS!

Our Streets, The Anarchists take over.<

Two blocks further east the riot cops began to manifest from nowhere. Thirty line the mall with night sticks, then fifty at the intersection with rubber bullet and pepper spray guns, then fifty bike cops coming up from the rear, then thirty on horseback, then multiple SUV’s with a dozen hanging off the side of each keystone cops style, then middle age men in khaki’s and blazers with Obama lapel pins RUNNING at a dead sprint while barking into discreetly sized handhelds.

Turning the corner at 16th street onto Broadway, the Anarchists make an attempt to shut down the city’s main intersection, Colfax and Broadway – right down the hill from the Capitol. Now in Battalion Force and operating-on-a-dime, the cops push the Anarchists onto the sidewalk of Lincoln Park, the one block greenery separating the official DNC fest at Civic Center Park and the Recreate 68 rally at the Capitol, effectively separating the Anarchists with a riot squad buffer from the DNC folks shilling Obama t-shirts. The cops make an example of a twelve-year-old Hispanic Teenager who tries to break the barricade by cuffing and stuffing him – much to the consternation of the crowd and the delight of the media media media.

Clayton Dewey, Unconventional Denver’s spokesman, walks to the front line, throws up his arms and yells, “HEY DEMOCRATS!! ARE YOU GOING TO LET THEM ARREST THIS KID? IS THAT WHAT YOUR PARTY IS ALL ABOUT?”

After half-an-hour the Anarchists melt-away to battle another day leaving behind the now incensed daily denizens of the park. Lampin’ Gangsta’s, down-and-outs waiting for the #15 bus, and inebriated hobos. One honkey-G starts yelling, “Man this is bullshit! The DNC is bullshit. Yo! Fuck tha’ Police! Democrats are Bullshit.”Eventually the crowd of stragglers stroll off to their respective haunts revealing The Barnacle Protestor. He stands alone, toes hanging over the curb, faced by a remaining battalion of fifty or so riot cops, casually spinning the windmill on the whirlygig and animating the little wooden beat-down for the media media media as they cue up behind him to take turns getting The Shot.

Whirligig by John Fitchen
—–

#is Monday August 25th, 2008
Right Makes Might

12:30 pm: To go for fair-and-balanced approach I’m tagging along with The Barnacle Protestor to the Minutemen Civil Defence Corps’ “Massive Anti-Immigration Rally.”

A handful of wanna-be tough guys in green safety vests guard approximately sixty octogenarians with DIY signs and homely couples in folding camp chairs. All are attentively listening to presidential candidates and off the charts right-wingers Bob Barr, Alan Keys, and Chuck Baldwin.These folks love the whirligig. The depiction of cops subjugating a brown man combined with fine wood craftsmanship is enough to knock the liver spots right off any toothless patriot.

The Barnacle Protestor is telling his story to some minutemen, flipping his shoulder strapped sign book through a series of declaratives; SPAGZ LIES, Honk for the Puppets, PUPPETS MAKE PUPPETS.

While protesting their working meeting a Recreate 68 “hypocrite” named Jill told him, “I don’t give a fuck about the first amendment” and called the cops on him for protesting their protest – trying to violate his right to assemble (by himself). Glenn Spagnuolo (SPAGZ) lies to the media, has made personal threats against him, told him to “up his meds” and that “the group doesn’t advocate violence but I do.”

When he offered Glenn a shirt with the flyer printed on it as “something to remember me by” Glenn told him, “I’ll take that t-shirt and shove it up your ass.” Apparently the emperor wears no clothes.

After honing his story on the minutemen, and an independent photographer, he’s now in front of a full documentary crew in matching outfits.

SPAGZ LIES!

2:00 pm: The Barnacle Protestor’s repeated claim that he is not the “anonymous artist” who sent the threatening email and flyer just gained some credibility with the posting of this article by Michael Roberts, who penned the original Art Attack article.

The Barnacle Protestor is, however, apparently in collusion with the now (un)anonymous artist a “Pete Bergman”, as he makes an official statement in the communique.

5:30 pm: Recreate 68’s attempt to Levitate the Denver Mint a la Abby Hoffman is a lackluster affair. Sparse attendance – well attended by riot cops – and a distracting right-on-right shouting match that erupted between Fox News correspondent Michelle Malkin and New World Order conspirist Alex Jones, left behind a sole dejected wizard, Recreate 68’s Mark Cohen, making a media statement.

If I only had my other cap on I could have levitated it!

6:00 pm: Code Pink has called out the full force to spell Make Out Not War on the banks of the river across from Tent State.

Give me an O!

Over the bridge, The Barnacle Protestor is socializing with a squad of fifteen riot cops. They’re taking turns having their picture snapped with the whirligig. He’s handing out WE BEAT YOU THEN flyers, referring to them as right wing fascist propaganda, and a flyer titled The Haymarket Issue, a photocopied screed about murdering the cop inside yourself, referring to it as left wing anarchist propaganda. He whips out a shirt with the WE BEAT YOU graphic and the cops start clambering in their wallets for five spots, or business cards if their short of cash. A proud recipient of the shirt declares, “I’m going to wear this to work.”

Amen Brother!

6:30 pm: Unconventional Anarchists at Civic Center Park are making their first salvo in the opening battle on the DNC. Tying on the bandanas, locking arms, and shouting “Our Streets!” a dozen Anarchists charge headlong into a line of Cops – who immediately douse them with pepper spray. Mayhem erupts as a couple hundred Anarchists sweep up a hundred innocent bystanders and charge. The adjacent Sheraton – a delegate hotel – goes on lock-down. The cops corral the now battle ready hoard into the Civic Center. Approximately two hundred fifty Anarchists and unfortunate bystanders are herded into an underground parking garage.

Back at Tent State, The Barnacle Protestor launches into a fifth media showcase of his story for 5:00 am drive-time New Orleans radio correspondent Kasper Bohne. I fully transition from journalist to presstester by recounting his now memorized mis-information to a camera-man who had been patiently waiting his turn in the waning light. He asked me what I was doing to wit I replied, “Covering the media covering me while I cover that protestor protesting the protestors.”

As of Blog time – Midnight Monday – Anarchists are being released from the garage one at a time based on a vindicative police viewing of the instant replay. Many black hoodies are still drawn up against the walls of the parking garage, bandanas pawing at stinging eyes.
—–

#is Tuesday August 26th, 2008
Send in the clowns

(See all photos here)

11:11 am: Four elderly members of Falun Gong sit motionless on fifteenth street – backs to racing taxis and rented Escalades.

The only truly peaceful protester in Denver 

11:30 am: In Civic Center Park Glenn Spagnuolo, SPAGZ, is barnacle protesting banner wielding homophobes who are in turn barnacle protesting Recreate 68’s park protest permit. Glenn has a bull-horn and is sporting a borderline incitement t-shirt that screams DEFEND DENVER over the silhouette of a cocked Kalashnikov.

Che Spagnuolo Barnacle Protesting the homophobes.

11:40 am: A brewing melee between Recreate 68 and the homophobes is interrupted by nearby cries of:

WHO’S STREETS?
OUR STREETS!
WHO’S STREETS
OUR STREETS!

A small squad of as-yet-unincarcerated anarchists is facing off with a police line at the western edge of the park. Media media media media jogs across the grass in heels and top-siders for a follow up shot to last nights street sweep.

The homophobes (sorry can’t help but editorialize there) are left open for comment. Ruban Israel, from Los Angeles, silenced on a macro scale due to his recently crumpled bull-horn, carefully stipulates that the group is comprised of “nondenominational street preachers NOT protestors”. When asked if there were any Catholics in the mix he replies, “We’re Christians.” The group hails from “LA, Jersey, Utah, Wisconsin, Arizona, Florida, And Norway.” They’re concerned with the whole pantheon of religious-right issues but all agreed that “homo-sex” would be a good hot button issue to push for the DNC.

I tell Ruben that the Radio Shack on the pedestrian mall is running an eighty dollar special on bull-horns and move on to check out the…

12:00 noon: Procession of Future Puppets. The puppet parade – organized by a group called Backbon Campaign which is also traveling to St. Paul for the RNC – rolls out onto west Colfax absorbing anyone center-right leftward, including a Code Pink battalion, Tent Stater’s, convention tourists with kids, media media, and the cops who lead the procession with a golf cart flashing the alternating sign, “Welcome to Denver,” and “Follow Us.” (See more images)

We…

The People…

1:00 pm: Back at Civic Center Park the 911 Truth Commission is out in force co-opting the more paranoid leaning members of all groups right to left. A Tent State organizer (or is he Code Pink) yells “911 was a lie! The truth will come out!” into his bull-horn in a confusing convergence of protestations. Media media media looks dejectedly around for Alex Jones so they can get a sound-bite and break for lunch.

I’m approached by the documentary crew in matching outfits – Todd Cassetty with HiFi Fusion from Nashville – for a comment on the Barnacle Protestor.

Since I’m obviously not “sticking to the facts”, I decide to break another journalistic credo, “don’t become the story,” and pimp-out Todd’s documentary with some mis-information of my own.

Taking a cue from the Barnacle Protestor’s left-wing anarchist propaganda flyer, (see the text of The Haymarket Issue) I come at Recreate 68 with an oblique left. In the heat of critiquing their backward-looking permitted-protest mentality from an Ontological Anarchist stance I decide it would be really over-the-top to identify myself as “Pete Bergman” the “anonymous artist” and claim the WE BEAT YOU flyer as an act of Black Propaganda…

2:30 pm: The rest of the afternoon is spent in clown training on the grass at Tent State with Captain. Cookie Chaos and Pvt. Spud Peel of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army. Formed in the UK in 2003 to protest the G8, CIRCA now has gaggles of clowns all over the world; Israel/Palestine, all over Europe, Peru, Oaxaca, and now Denver. The clowns, like Code Pink, interject themselves between hard-core Anarchists and lines of cops to diffuse violence with humor and beauty. When the police chant, “BACK UP! BACK UP!” the clowns will demonstrate how to “back-it-up” Mary J. Blige style.

Private Spud Peel of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army.

The Barnacle Protestor makes a late appearance on his bike with the whirligig, helmet and pads, the SPAGZ LIES sign-book, a back-pack full of shirts, a camel-back full of god-knows, a bull-horn, a Hawaiian lei around his neck, and a medic bag full of his yin-and-yang left-right flyers.

JoJo, with Adam Jung organized Tent State, approaches him to inquire about the WE BEAT YOU flyer, which Adam also received in the early June email missive. While disclaiming authorship of the flyer, he does take the opportunity to malign SPAGZ and Jill from Recreate 68. JoJo responds with her own story of being physically threatened by Jill because she asked Glenn to quit spreading malicious lies about Adam!

5:00 pm: I head out on bikes with Pvt. Spud Peel and The Barnacle Protestor to Civic Center Park on a SPAGZ hunt. Denver’s citizenry, convention tourists, and cops are mesmerized by the whirligig. Now reaching the status of quasi-celebrity, I hear the phrase “Barnacle Protestor” float across the air from spectators. One cop points to the whirligig and exclaims, “I heard about that!” Another, ten blocks up the street, meekly protests after the passing whirligig, “Wait come back… I haven’t gotten to meet you yet…”

Glenn is in Civic Center Park eating a paper plate of Food Not Bombs lentils. Upon seeing Barnacle buzz by with his SPAGZ LIES sign, he stammers something to the effect of, “Uh.. hugh.. you… again!” To wit The Barnacle Protestor replies, “Have fun Glenn. Be safe!”

The Barnacle Protester, IS he a Special Agent?
—–

#is Wednesday August 27th, 2008
This is what Democracy looks like

(See all photos here) 

11:00 am: The line for the free Tent State Music Festival with the Flobots, Jello Biafra (speechifying), legendary anti-war protestor Ron Kovic, and Rage Against The Machine is still snaking out into the parking lot despite an 11:00 am show time.

“Tickets” were administered through a lottery system. Hopeful fans signed up on lined notebook paper at Tent State. Winners who were emailed last night receive two tickets at will call.

Frantic texting from “ticket” holding fans inside the Colosseum to their ticket-less friends with no cause to wake up reveal that the lottery was in fact a brilliant exercise in social engineering. No tickets exist. No ID’s are checked. At the front of the line fans are rubber stamped and issued a wrist band. “Ticket holders” who managed to show up to a rock show prior to 10:00 am (a major logistical hurdle) are issued what amounts to a VIP floor pass.

12:30 am: All fans waiting to get in, ticket holding or not, are now sheepled-up at interior lines, waiting to hair-the-dog with a $7 domestic draft or suit up with a red “Battle of Denver” t-shirt. Late comers walk right in. No one is turned away. The “ticket” charade has prevented an angry mob from gathering outside trying to exercise their “right” to a free concert. The Colosseum is at a comfortable 85% capacity. Anyone who wants a seat can find one.

12:45 pm: Ron Kovic is wheeled out on stage, burnishes his credentials and issues an emotionally arresting call to action, “I’m a Vietnam veteran against the war. I’ve been in this wheelchair forty years because of the Vietnam war. I’ve been arrested in this wheelchair twelve times protesting war. This is our country. They’re not going to shut us up. They’re not going to shut us down. We WILL NOT BOW! … We will STAND TALL. We will march. We will END THIS WAR! We will bring all the troops home. … We will do this non-violently. We will do this with dignity in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, in the spirit of Nelson Mandella. We are going to make history in the streets of Denver today!”

(See the sideways video)

2:30 pm: Rage Against The Machine is burning up the stage. Tom Morello looks like he’s having a prolonged seizure. Zack de la Rocha, who has taken to wearing (red) button-ups now that he’s in the 35 to 45 social demographic, puts about twelve miles on the pedometer sprinting back and forth across the stage. Wayne Kramer of the MC5 comes out in a white jumpsuit and star spangled guitar to pour gas on the fire with Kick Out The Jams.

(See video clip)

Take The Power Back

3:30 pm: Rage rips through an encore of I Think I Hear a Shot and Killing In The Name, eliciting a raucous sing along of;

FUCK YOU! I WON’T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!
FUCK YOU! I WON’T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!

Kasper Bohne, a center-right radio correspondent for Mancow and WIST New Orleans, who gave his nonexistent second ticket to The Barnacle Protestor, discerned that we had all just gone through a text-book indoctrination.

4:00 pm: Approximately seventy percent of the six-thousand concert attendees fall into line behind Ron Kovic, Tom Morello, and two disciplined marching squads of twenty five uniformed Iraq War Veterans Against The War and head south down Brighton Blvd. for the three mile march to the Pepsi Center.

A mile into the march a Recreate 68 activist, who had made some quasi-threatening remarks to The Barnacle Protestor at Sunday mornings Capitol Rally, ends up shoulder to shoulder with him.

BP “Oh… Hey.”
R68 “What are you doing here?” (Noticing The Barnacle Protestor left all his SPAGZ LIES gear and the whirligig at home.)
BP “Supporting the Iraq War Veterans Against The War.” (i.e. inclusive as opposed to parasitic protesting.)
R68 “Me too bro…”

When we’re admonished over the bull-horn to stay behind the banner unless we are veterans, The Barnacle Protestors informs me that he was in the Navy for 4 months, 19 days, 9 hours, and 12 minutes.

Hold The Line

Several thousand marchers enter downtown.

6:00 pm: Whittled down to about fifteen-hundred, the marchers gather at Auraria Campus, directly across the street from The Pepsi Center. We’re all coached on the procedure. The non-veterans will stop at the border of the “free-speech zone”. The Veterans will march forward into the demilitarized zone to present a letter with three demands to the DNC.

If a second Order to Disperse is issued to the crowd, the third order being issued in conjunction with a area wide moistening of pepper spray, the veterans will sit down. If invited by the veterans, marchers willing to commit civil disobedience and risk arrest may move forward and sit behind the veterans. All others are to disperse peacefully and immediately.

The march reaches the border of the “Free Speech Zone” at The Pepsi Center

Back in the crowd, a young marcher approaches The Barnacle Protestor

ym “Your The Barnacle Protestor! I heard your crazy!”
BP “Some say crazy, some say genius.”
ym “I haven’t heard genius.”

After the kid walks away The Barnacle Protestor shows me his Mensa Card and tattoo. To join Mensa pledges must take both standard IQ tests while being observed by a Mensa proctor. You can only take the test once. Based on the test results Mesa accepts “people from every walk of life whose IQ is in the top 2%.”

7:00 pm: Rumors of the first Order to Disperse and stonewalling from the DNC – someone quips, “This is what happens when you negotiate with the Democrats” – result in an abrupt call to attention and about face.

Unconventional Anarchists, Code Pink activists, Recreate 68ers, Tent Staters, concerned citizens, and media media media media media fall into line behind the vets to march around the campus to a more strategic position. In an eye-moistening display of cultural unity the Unconventional Anarchists take position behind the vets begin to yell,

They’re our BROTHERS!
They’re our SISTERS!
We support WAR RESISTERS!

Support Our Troops! !? !

7:45 pm: After circling around through Auraria campus to a more aggressive position at 15th and Stout, well outside the designated protest zone, and at the front entrance to the Pepsi Center blockade, the protestors are divided by Tent State activists into those willing to be arrested – in a tight pod of approximately a hundred fifty – and a swelling crowd across Speer Blvd. in the pre-designated safe zone.

True Heros #1: Tent State activist and Iraq War Veterans Against The War.

True Heros #2: Code Pink Activist and a professional Denver Police force.

Media media media media meida media wander like grazing cattle amongst the fully geared riot police sporting full-auto pepper-ball guns, re-positioned vets, and remaining protestors. A call through the bullhorn from Tent State encourages all onlookers, thrill seekers, and media media media to, “Stop for a minute! Look around! Realize where your standing!”

A bike-taxi driver transporting a pant-suit wearing mom and two blond children under ten tries to breach the police barricade by ringing his handle-bar bell. Ding Ding… Ding Ding..
.

Getting the shot… or about to get shot.

8:00 pm: Former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes comes out of the Pepsi Center to accept the Iraq War veterans letter. Former Marines Jeff Key and Liam Madden, in dress uniform, are escorted onto the convention floor for a Denver PD, Iraq War Veterans Against The War, Secret Service, and Obama Campaign negotiated meeting with Phil Carter, head of veterans affairs for the Obama campaign.

8:45 pm: The At Ease command is issued to the vets. Ron Kovic and the vets all noticeably relax. The announcement is made to the crowd through a bull-horn that the Obama campaign has agreed “in-principle” to the Iraq War Veterans demands; , “Immediate withdrawal, full veterans benefits, and reparations for the Iraqi people”.

The crowd chants Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! to the vets. The vets announce to the crowd, “Thank you for standing with us.” They fall out, the crowd peaceably disperses almost unable to believe that tonight in The United States of America WE THE PEOPLE actually effected CHANGE…

Born on the Fourth of July. Enforcing Change today.
—–

#is Thursday August 28th, 2008
Si Se Puede:

(See all photos here)

10:00 am: We Are America, an affiliate of The National Mobilization for Just and Humane Immigration Reform, has shut-down east-bound Colfax. A gaggle of now familiar Unconventional, Recreate 68, Code Pink, and Tent State activists are engulfed in a sea of Mexican Grandmas, sassy chicana teenagers, clean cut Service Employees International communists, Guatemalan laborers, and large nuclear families.

Finally! Some normal people supporting a cause that directly affects them! 

The March Against Borders has clearly defined ones. A definite sense of ownership by the Hispanic community, and specifically by first generation immigrants, keeps everyone respectfully in line. Anarchists are admonished for covering their bandito faces. Hijos e hijas are shooed off the sidewalks with bull-horns ordering them back onto the street.

Miss Atzatlan 2008.

At Lincoln Park Abuelito y Abuelita sit in folding chairs watching Aztec dancers. Hispanics of all stripes scrupulously avoid the Food Not Bombs free burritos. A lone Hmong Immigrant with a placard respectfully reminds everyone that some people of the world have no homeland and must choose between fighting in the jungle or surviving a transcontinental shipping-container journey in hope of western asylum.

Life in the barrio.

12:00 noon: At a dismantled Tent State a lone Anarchist is passed out on the grass. Placards are piled onto blue tarps for reuse at Denver’s next major political event… Or for perma-storage in a basement apartment laundry room.

1:00 pm: A pasty guy with hiked up white socks and a kid with Insane Clown Posse grease-paint-induced-acne point the way to the 911 truth commission encampment. The conspirists are sorting out the yin and yang of having a permit for Gates Crescent Park – directly across the freeway from Invesco Field where Obama will make his keynote address in seven hours.

Rob Weiland of We Are Change Colorado sits cross legged in the grass at the entrance to the parks open field trying to unravel the legalise of his Denver Parks permit. Four of his colleagues are out in the field erecting an awning with IMPEACH and IMPRISON on one side and Obama BAMBOOZLE on the other.

When logic and reason fail, try a branding campaign!

The State Police stopped by in the morning to eject The 911 Truth Commission from the park. Rob was able to successfully fend them off with a cooperative attitude, an official parks permit, and the repeated mention of civil liberties and ACLU lawsuits.

The park is theirs for now – pending review by The Secret Service. Their officially permitted parking lot, however, is adjacent to the Stadium and consequently barricaded. Rob’s car is stuck inside. Vehicles with more 911 conspiracy themed helicopter photo-op props are barred entrance. Sympathizer and Independent US Senate candidate for Colorado Buddy Moore woke up this morning to a conspicuously absent campaign RV – towed with no notice by THE MAN.

As Rob reads the fine print out loud, “Denver Parks and Rec. and Denver Police reserve the right to limit, change and or revoke the venue of the users permit…” two bike cops cruise by and ask when the volleyball net is going up.

Denying these people a parking lot is akin to, pardon the tasteless metaphor, flying a 747 into the side of their conspiracy. Denver Parks is practically begging for Alex Jones to show up with a 50,000 megawatt bull-horn to drown-out Obama with a logic-leaping screed about the Bilderburg Group cabal secretly controlling the world through the incorporation of NAFTA.

2:00 pm: Various Groups cluster into issue affiliation pods back at Lincoln Park to take turns marching on Invesco Field; ashen white medical Marijuana protestors on power chairs, Food Not Bombs gutter punks, No Obamanation Hillaryites For McCain, and a thugged up doo-rag sporting Recreate 68 security detail.

Not the best argument for the effectiveness of Medical Marijuana

Only fifty or so hardcores are left; girls with beards, black button-up wearing Anarchist prison ‘zine distro publishers, a lone space-case on the bongos, stuffed animal back-pack sporting drama-club ravers, a honkey-G tween with a placard that reads, “The World Needs a Bong Rip”, an earnest east coast sociologist working up data for the doctorate thesis, and this last agent of the FREE PRESS.

Your Presstester : You’ll Never See My Face in Denver

Though SPAGZ is undoubtedly planning his final entrance, and Jill is assuredly mussing her hair over and over again and trying on different nouveau-boho outfits, there is a conspicuous absence of The Barnacle Protestor.

He could be crouched behind a dumpster along the parade route prepping for one last whirligig buzz-by. Or he may have decided not to quit his day job. Or, perhaps his journey through the belly of the wail at last nights march has led him to reconsider his Barnacle tactics. OR… maybe he’s clinging to the chasey of the Backbone’ Campaigns bus Cape-Fear style as it rolls across South Dakota on its way to the RNC with a PUPPETS MAKE PUPPETS placard clenched between his teeth.

As for “Pete Bergman” the “anonymous artist”, he has yet to show his face around Denver. Many of the players talk of meeting him. Evan Herzoff accepted a personally delivered custom letter-pressed formal apology letter for the WE BEAT YOU THEN flyer. Clayton Dewey of Unconventional Denver, refused a similar communique on the non-chalant grounds of, “I don’t really care about that.” JoJo of Tent State received a verbal apology, and was told of a formal letter for her Tent State co-chair Adam Jung. There is even rumor of a letter for Glenn Spagnuolo.

Though there is this evidence of contrition on the part of the anonymous artist there’s a stronger likelihood that he IS an agent provocateur, melting through crowds, flashing fake press credentials, snapping point-and-shoot pictures of the front lines, and gathering evidence on all the players.
—–

The following IS a prequel to the above 2008 DNC report. ThIS report, BEWARE SHEEPLE! SPAGZ LIES! was originally published after the events above in Lumpen #110.

Tuesday May 04, 1886
Workingmen Arm Yourselves and Appear in Full Force! 

Broadsides are posted outside factory doors and along the blood soaked gutters of slaughterhouses throughout industrial Chicago. Printed in English and German blackletter, the flyer calls for a, “MASS-MEETING TO-NIGHT, at 7:30 o’clock, at the HAYMARKET.”

Under a light rain approximately 1,500 workers gather at The Haymarket to reassert support for a the eight-hour day. As the evenings events wind down, and police order the crowd to disperse, a well lobbed pipe-bomb kills beat-cop Mathias J. Degan. The Police opened fire into the crowd, and each others backs, leaving eleven dead and a hundred wounded

Spring, 1986 – Spring, 1995
The Haymarket Issue
Broadsides published under the pseudonym Hakim Bey appear on the streets of New York. The following year they are compiled with a second series of broadsheets titled “COMMUNIQUES OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR ONTOLOGICAL ANARCHY” into a book published by Autonomedia under the anti-copywrite credo of “May be freely pirated & quoted – however the author would like to be informed.”

Communique #3, “The Haymarket Issue” implores Ontological Anarchists, in the spirit of Louis Lingg – an alleged Haymarket conspirator who dynamited himself to cheat his death sentence – to, “blow up the monument inside us … When the last cop in our brain is gunned down by the last unfulfilled desire – perhaps even the landscape around us will change.”

Ontological Anarchy is derided by “establishment” left-political anarchists as hedonistic and irresponsible in its call for bypassing oppositional politics in favor of a liberated lived experience not beholden to rhetorical debate.

Wednesday July 14th, 2004
A Preview of coming attractions
Page 23A of Denver’s Rocky Mountain News runs an image from a Denver Copwatch rally on the steps of the City Hall of a man who’d been circling the rally with a whirligig mounted on a bike trailer that animates wooden cutouts of, “Police officers hitting someone on the ground.”

Saturday June 14th, 2008
Rally Against Reality
To the befuddlement of two Ukrainian masons sitting on a hoist adjacent to The Haymarket memorial in Chicago’s west Loop, PRO – a trash-can and banjo wielding classic-rock cover band – counts off the opening bars to Rush’s Working Man. IS Agent pranktivists begin blanketing the memorial and surrounding environs with a photocopy (with custom letterpress augmentation) of Hakim Bey’s The Haymarket Issue.

PRO rips into Ted Nugent’s Stranglehold. The IS agents rush to cover up The Haymarket Issue broadsheets with a screaming headline broadsheet reading “WE BEAT YOU THEN! WE’LL BEAT YOU AGAIN!” This broadsheet depicts a ’68 Chicago cop – smoking a stogie while choking-out a college kid – juxtaposed with a current era riot-cop looking like he’s about to tee-off with his baton.

More Rally Pictures

Thursday July 10th, 2008
“Anonymous Artist Punks Recreate 68″
A month before the Democratic National Convention in Denver, a coalition of protest groups including Recreate 68 and Denver Copwatch call a press conference demanding an investigation into the threatening broadsheet they received from, “a rouge Denver cop” reading “WE BEAT YOU THEN! WE’LL BEAT YOU AGAIN!” and, “Want to ‘Recreate 68’? Think your tough HIPPY?”

The balloon of their victim-hood is deflated when Westword newspaper media-critic Michael Roberts reveals in a morning blog post that an “anonymous artist”, created the flyer as a prankish exercise in black-propaganda.

( Read the article It has since been revealed that the “anonymous artist”, In a circle-jerk of news manufacturing, was given the personal addresses of his marks by an “anonymous journalist” with close ties to the artist, recipients of the broadsheet, and Michael Roberts.)

The press conference attendees, including all major Denver networks and dailies, we’re further befuddled by the appearance of a man with a copy of the flyer and a whirligig depicting two white beat-cops truncheoning a crouching brown man. The man identified himself as, “John Q. Public” and insisted that he did not make the flyer but picked it up at the Gypsy House Cafe where Recreate 68 holds its working meetings.

all pictures

Glenn Spagnuolo, dubbed SPAGZ by local media, goes so far as to discretely square off with John Q. Public to tell him, “I think you’re full of shit!”

Cop Watch’s Even Herzoff leads off with a prepared speech about police accountability in a “climate of fear” before admitting that he’d been apparently “punked” by an artist. The manicured Fox News corespondent who broke the story at five am drops her microphone and leaves in a huff.

SPAGZ, the consummate tough-guy with his waxed bald head and wrap-around shades, follows up with a string of bald-faced lies, claiming that he’d received emails he did not receive stating they said they were from Denver cops and that “I received one email that said I was their #1 target.”

(It should be noted here for the record that this agent can verify the non-veracity of SPAGZ claims, and the veracity of John Q. Public’s due to intimate knowledge of “the anonymous artist”.)

In a post press conference interview John Q. Public stated that he had no idea who Mr. Spagnuolo was prior to the press conference. When told of SPAGZ’s false claims John’s response was, “That guy just nominated himself as my #1 Target.”

Thursday July 17th, 2008
BEWARE SHEEPLE! SPAGZ LIES!
At Recreate 68’s working meeting the following Thursday SPAGZ along with the core Recreate 68 organizers, Mark and Barbara Cohen and Jill Dryer, are posing for a media portrait in the grass across the street from the Gypsy House Cafe.

As SPAGZ delusions of grandeur are reaching a pitch, John. Q. Public appears in a motorcycle helmet and full leathers in front of the Gypsy House with a sign reading BEWARE SHEEPLE on one side and SPAGZ LIES on the other.

After the Recreate 68ers are done debating John, I abandon my surveillance post for a debrief. As I approach he repeats a gesture he’s been making to anyone and everyone. Extending a copy of the WE BEAT YOU THEN flyer in his right hand he asks, “Would you like a right-wing fascist propaganda flyer?” Followed by his left clutching a copy of The Haymarket Issue, “Would you like a left-wing anarchist propaganda flyer.”

Under my breath, “What did SPAGZ say?”
SPAGZ says, “Up your meds bro.”

Thursday July 24th, 2008
I Don’t Give A Fuck about the First Amendment!
John Q. Public waits until Recreate 68 is safely ensconced in the basement of the Gypsy House and sets up on the corner in a floppy hat, flip-flops, and t-shirt with the WE BEAT YOU THEN broadside screen printed on it.

John now has an air-horn and multiple signs mounted on ring binders allowing him to flip through a series; SPAGZ LIES, honk for the puppets, PUPPETS MAKE PUPPETS, honk for the first amendment, honk for the disabled. Motorists pass and honk. John blows his air horn – repeatedly.

One of the cafe proprietors, an authentic Gypsy, comes out and unleashes a barrage of blush-inducing explicatives followed by what sounds like a native-tounge curse.

SPAGZ and Jill Dryer come out. John extends a WE BEAT YOU THEN shirt, “Glenn, I made you this t-shirt to remember me by.”

“I’ll take that t-shirt and shove it up your ass!!” Then getting in close, “The group (Recreate 68) doesn’t advocate violence but I do.”

Jill, a demure looking feather-weight forty year old, chimes in with, “I’m calling the fucking COPS!” SPAGZ stalks back inside, Jill waits indignantly on her cell.

John tries to explain to Jill that he’s merely trying to exercise his First Ammendmen…

She snaps, “I DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THE FIRST AMENDMENT!!!!”

Two Denver Police cruisers roll up. Jill, who had taken refuge in the foyer of the cafe runs out, “I’m the one who called you! This man is threatening us! He’s blowing his horn and making threats.”

The officer looks at John in his flip-flops and rolls his eyes. “What are you doing and why are you doing it?”

“I’m disrupting the working meeting of Recreate 68, just like their planning on disrupting the working meeting of the Democratic Party.”

“OK. Stay on this side of the street and don’t blow off the air-horn. Those are only to be used in the event of a boating accident. Ma’am,” he turns to Jill, “He is on public property exercising his first amendment rights. There’s no violation here.”

Unfazed by the hypocrisy of protestors calling them to harass someone who’s opinion is different than their own, the cops roll out.

Thursday July 31rst, 2008
I’m a media whore!
Recreate 68 gathers in the park across from the State Capitol. Ostensibly they’ve moved their meetings to get people used to the space where they are holding their rallys. The sequestering of John Q. Public onto a distant corner, out of earshot from his now increasingly confident first amendment rant is only a fringe benefit.

SPAGZ, possessor of the sole folding-chair, goes over the agenda with a media microphone four feet away. Other members of the media are out photographing their DNC quota and the 68ers are glowing. Jill put a lot of thought into her outfit; a form fitting jean-skirt, strapless black top, sandals and hair in pigtails. Classy but proletarian.

A teenager walks by carrying an Obama shirt. “Hey, anyone here for OBAMA?” His exuberant inquiry is met with literal hisses and an anonymous “Keep walking!”

“You could try being a little NICER!” now incensed, “You get a lot farther with honey than with vinegar!”

Returning to the agenda SPAGZ interrupts himself and points at me, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“Pete Bergman, Lumpen Magazine Chicago.”

Jill excitedly cranes her neck to see me behind her, “I’ve read Lumpen magazine! Are these pictures going to be in Lumpen Magazine!? Will you let us know if their published by emailing info@recreate68.org??”

Across the park, John is trading a WE BEAT YOU THEN t-shirt and a Haymarket Issue broadsheet for the kid’s Obama t-shirt.

Thursday August 7th, 2008
Your Living Bill of Rights
John changes it up with a drive by. The sign is on a shoulder strap. The whirligig is mounted on a bike trailer holding a car battery and a Fisher Price record player spinning an thrift-store album titled “Your Living Bill of Rights”. He rolls by the working meeting at four miles an hour mad-dogging SPAGZ.

Thursday August 21rst, 2008
The Barnacle Protestor
The current issue of Westword contains a “Guide to Protestation Nation.” Author Jared Jacang-Meyer and Illustrator Nate Stone caricature ALL the protestors converging on Denver for the DNC; The Nostalgic Hippie, The Angry Hillaryite, The Upper-Middle-Class Radical, The Street Theatre Wierdo, and holding a sign that reads “SPAGZ LIES” is a drawing of a floppy hat wearing, whirligig wielding, unhinged figure dubbed “The Barnacle Protestor“.

SPAGZ and crew have a lot of business to cover in their final working meeting prior to the DNC. Unfortunately for them John, taxonomied as The Barnacle Protestor, has been emboldened by his sudden celebrity status and is four feet away from SPAGZ delivering his now polished first-amendment screed through a mega-phone.

The Barnacle Protestor has added two professionally printed signs to his quiver. One depicts SPAGZ giving the thumbs up with reading, “SPAGZ Sayz, Up your meds bro, I’ll take that t-shirt and shove it up your ass, I think you’re full of shit, (and) Recreate 68 doesn’t advocate violence but I do.” The second is a blow up of an incriminating surveillance photo of Jill, The Barnacle Protestor, and a cop reading, “Jill Sayz I DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THE FIRST AMENDMENT!”

Media, now in full saturation, is zeroing in on The Barnacle Protestor. He’s a better photo-op than SPAGZ on his folding-throne. The meeting clearly can’t commence over the din of John’s mega-phone. SPAGZ facing the inevitable, approaches him, flips through the signs with sick fascination, and attempts to engage John in a “debate” that quickly devolves into a talk-off between SPAGZ trying to merely comprehend what’s happening and The Barnacle Protestor first amendment speechifying while passing out of right-wing fascist and left-wing anarchist propaganda flyers.

In an effort to prove there’s one reasonable person left in town, a lady from the Recreate 68 approaches The Barnacle Protestor, nudges Glenn aside, sticks out her hand and declares, “I don’t agree with you, but I support your right to be here. I appreciate what your saying and I want to shake your hand.”

Photo: Elisha Mustoe
—-

Final Communiques – A copy of open letters sent to interested parties.

Dear Glenn and Jill,

Per Jill’s request I’m writing to notify you that a picture I took with your consent is in Lumpen Magazine.

By now you may have put 3 and 3 together and realized that in addition to covering the DNC for Lumpen in an observational capacity, I have also been unethically “manufacturing news” since early June when I sent you the WE BEAT YOU THEN WELL BEAT YOU AGAIN flyer.

I am not the man known as The Barnacle Protestor who picketed you personally. I did not put him up to his activities – I merely documented them.

On a personal note, eschewing the misinformation and trash-talk that goes with our respective jobs (politics and “art”) I would like to apologize for making what I now realize was an in-poor-taste personal threat. I have a hand written formal apology for you. I can mail it or courier it to a location of your choosing.

Until the infocsalypse,

Peter Miles Regenold Bergman

——

Dear Mr. Hakim Bey

Per your request I’m writing to inform you that I photocopied (with custom letterpressed augmentation) your broadside titled The Haymarket Issue. The photocopy was distributed along with a second flyer (see enclosed) in both Denver Colorado and Chicago Illinois. Also enclosed you will find a CD with images documenting the distribution, a printed out email, two issues of Denver’s Westword Newspaper, and the current issue of Lumpen Magazine. You can also read further documentation related to the distribution by accessing the Blog of Lumpen, clicking on the August tab and accessing posts #1 – #5 of Covering the media covering the media covering the protestors protesting the protesters at the DNC.

Thank you for your anti-copywrite designation and the subsequent inspiration,

IS agent m[i]le[s] & IS agent John Q. Public

——

ThIS report was a joint venture of Lumpen and The Institute of Sociometry.

The Players – in order of appearance:
Recreate 68
Tent State
Code Pink
Unconventional Denver
Come Up to Denver
The Westword Newspaper
Denver Copwatch
Ward Churchill
Families United For Our Troops and Their Mission
Denver Police Department
Minutemen Civil Defence Core
HiFi Fusion (Documentry crew in matching outfits)
Kasper Bohne
Falun Gong
Official Street Preachers (The Homophobes)
Backbone Campaign
911 Truth Commission
Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army
Food Not Bombs
Rage Against The Machine
Ron Kovic
Iraq War Veterans Arainst the War
We Are America (Pro Immigration)
We Are Change Colorado (Anti New World Order)
Citizens for Safe Access (Medical Marijuana)

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ThIS report was featured on not one but TWO tri-fold displays at iSFair 2O12.

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INDIVIDUAL: Agent Nima*
GROUP SIZE: Approximately 2.1 Billion
NATURE OF GROUP: Muslims (through the Shias and more-so Sufis could probably care less.) 
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: Malcontent #4 – 10 Hottest Prophefits!

*Name IS slightly altered to protect the wantonly reckless.

In 2010, while working in my day-job and agent cover as an art and design academic, I served in an advisory and contributor capacity on Malcontent – a ‘zine authored and détourned together by IS agent Nima – operating in his cover as a design student.

(Below) A previous project by Nima – which resulting in him being conferred IS agent status. The Typography course assignment was to create large scale environmental graphics and photoshop them onto pictures of billboards. Nima wrote Ahhh Snap! on the outside of my 2nd story office window in post-its. (Note: he had to scale the awning of the campus police station to do so and write the message backwards for correct legibility on the inside of my office). I gave him an A+ (though it was marked down to a C- for being turned in 7 weeks late…)

Malcontent #4 The Prophets & Profits Issue was the culmination of a 16 week four issue spree. Fresh off of #3 The Animal Totems Issue – agent Nima was interested in continuing to explore the dialectic between the physical and metaphysical. He came into my office with thIS pitch for issue #4:

“I want to depict Muhammad.”

For context – here is a brief history of the “Depiction of Muhammad” controversy in the 21rst century:

It is debatable whether Islam prohibits the depiction of Muhammad. The Qur’an doesn’t forbid depictions of Mohammed (Allah was concerned with less petty things at the time) but there are Haddith – supplemental teachings – which expressly prohibit depiction of the Prophet. There is a general prohibition in orthodox monotheisms, including Islam’s prequels Christianity and Judaism, of worshipping “graven images” as a substitute for God. Sunni Islam pretty much toes-the-line on this but Shia Islam (which includes the Sufis who could care less because they’re too busy dancing and chanting) doesn’t seem to mind a respectful image of Muhammad. No one likes denigration of the Prophet in any form. It’s worth noting here that Agent Nima – a first generation Persian-American – would likely ascribe to Shia Islam if he didn’t instead pledge allegiance to good old ‘Merican Fight-Club n’ The Joker style Post-Modern Ontological Anarchy.

The recent cycle of controversy around depictions of Muhammad, crass muslim baiting with retaliatory fire-bombing, started in 2005 when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten began publishing culturally crude but satirically clever political cartoons depicting, among other themes, a borderline racist caricature of Muhammed with a lit bomb for a turban. Ostensibly Jyllands-Posten was making a statement on the self-censorship of media regarding criticism of violence in Islam but more likely they were throwing wood on the smoldering fire of Scandinavian anti-immigrant racism as a way to either editorially sympathize or more likely just to sell newspapers and consequently more full-page furniture outlet adds. The cartoons were reprinted in over 50 publications resulting in a downward spiral protest from Muslims around the world descending from diplomatic and legal challenges to street riots leading to over 200 violent deaths and attacks on Danish and European embassies in Muslim countries.

The ‘Merican sophomoric practically stick-figure cartoon South Park tackled the issue of censorship with their own spin on depictions of Muhammed in the 2010 episode 200, a complex narrative weaving together many pre-existing plots culminating in Tom Cruise spearheading a celebrity class-action lawsuit against the town of South Park that he will only withdraw if the children produce Muhammad. The children do produce Muhammed bit he is kidnapped by the Ginger Separatist Group of fair-haired children prior to being delivered to Cruz. Depictions on Muhammad had a tradition on South Park going back to 2001. He is part of a gout of prophets, including a cocaine snorting Buddha, referred to as Super Best Friends and even cameos in a group shot of the shows credits. Despite the depiction and treatment of Muhammad being largely respectful (especially for South Park standards) and a sub-plot in their vehement take-down of their arch nemesis Tom Cruz, Comedy Central and show creators Matt Parker and Trey Stone were besieged with multiple and humorless death threats.

In 2011 the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo picked up the mantle with an issue guest edited by a charicaturized Muhammad. Their offices were firebombed and reduced to rubble on the issue release date.

In 2012 B-team fraudster and Coptic Christian Nakoula Basseley Nakoula youtube released 15 minutes of a budgetless D-movie titled Innocence of Muslims which depicted Muhammad as a pedophile and simpleton – just in time for the Anniversary of September 11th. The resulting world-wide protests quickly degenerated into violence which culminated in an angry mob and/or terrorists (the jury is apparently still out on this despite the Fox News hyperbole) in Benghazi Libya killing US Ambassador Christopher Stephens.

Back to Agent Nima’s desire to dive into these murky waters:

Considering the cons, (death threats, a Fox News van parked on the front lawn of the Art Building to “defend” Malcontent, being disrespectful to the many observant Muslim students on campus, and loosing my day-job at Politically Correct College) against the pros, (honoring the First Amendment to the Constitution of The United States of America, the philosophy of academic freedom, that after all it’s just a ‘sine, and Agent Nima’s uncanny ability to be patently offensive while riotously funny and likable), I acquiesced after a long cautionary conversation.

 Though given (and taking) carte-blanche, I feel ultimately that agent Nima’s resulting article and it’s neoclassical picture of Muhammed pulled off of google image search would offend Muslim’s more due to him being third runner up in the 10 Hottest Prophefits! to Branch Davidian founder David Koresh and Christ with rock hard abs that due to the inclusion of the graphic.

 “Yep that’s him. Get over it.”

Without further adieu here is the article (click on the image or here to read in PDF format):

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ThIS report was spawned from the Malcontent tri-fold display at iSFair 2O12. 

INDIVIDUAL: The urban camper

GROUP SIZE: “386 members of the homeless community … in the first four months since the ‘Urban Camping’ Ban went into effect on May 28, 2012” ~ Occupy Denver 

NATURE OF GROUP: Homeless, hobos, winos, all night binge drinkers, transients and travelers
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: West Denver Urban Preserve and Trail

During the Winter of 2012, when the Occupy movement was in full swing, a small cadre of Denver protestors, and a mix of homeless and soon to be homeless citizens, took up residence on the sidewalk across from the Colorado Capitol building. On May 28th the City Council passed an “urban camping” ban as a likely pre-text for granting Denver Police the ability to quash Occupy’s right to peaceable assembly while stating it was to help the cities homeless by providing a mechanism to move them into shelters and services.

About two blocks south of the IS Home Office in West Denver’s working class SoHi neighborhood, is Lakewood Gulch – an east west chasm bisecting the cities grid. The gulch is a flash flood zone and infrastructure corridor for high capacity power lines that doubles as a bike-trail route, greenspace, and for the homeless prime urban camping sites. In 2008 (accidentally) on National Trails Day IS agents guerilla installed a trail marker system designating a route through the gulch as the West Denver Urban Preserve and Trail demarcating areas along the corridor for unsanctioned use such as graffiti tagging, leashless dog walking, drinking, and of course urban camping. (See WEDUPT // MMVIII)

In 2012 the Urban Camping ban and ongoing westward expansion of light-rail through the corridor presented a double threat to unsanctioned use in the gulch. WEDUPT needed to be freshly installed to draw attention to the endangered habitat for urban camping in the corridor.

After a month of foot research to determine the new route that homeless had established to accommodate the freshly laid light-rail tracks, agents began constructing DIY signs in orange and black to match the copious construction signage in the area. IS agents m[i]le[s], Handsome Jim and DDUB installed the signs in the wee hours of National Trails Day.

At 8am agent m[i]le[s] led a guided walk-through accompanied by a handful or agents and known associates and by reporter Melanie Asmar of Denver’s Westword newspaper. See Melanie’s article for Westwords Latest Word blog “Lakewood Gulch art prank celebrates day drinking, off-leash dogs“ from June 5th 2012.

By the end of August the light-rail tracks were finished, the adjacent landscaping was planted and the last WEDUPT survey stake fell. In conclusion IS feels that the majority of the signage and trail flags lasted throughout the prime urban camping season and the mouthpiece of Denver’s Westword was significant in increasing awareness of the endangered habitat for clandestine urban campers. Now that a four year cycle has been established from the first incorporation in 2008 and the second in 2012 we have marked our calendar for May 2016 for a third incorporation of the West Denver Urban Preserve and Trail.

Supporting documentation:
WEDUPT v.01 2008 MMVIII
WEDUPT Spring Research
WEDUPT Summer Research
WEDUPT  Process
–
WEDUPT Trail Map + Guide
WEDUPT Walk Through: Section 1
WEDUPT Walk Through: Section 2
WEDUPT  Walk Through: Section 3
WEDUPT  Walk Through: Section 4
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Different versions of thIS report was originally published on tumblr in June of 2012, and in two articles on Westword’s Show And Tell and Latest Word blogs. IS’s final WEDUPT report was prominently featured on a re-engineered tri-fold road barricade at iSFair 2O12, our quadrennial exhibit of reports generated between 2008 and 2012.

For this census MAN MADE across Wyoming was tagged, mapped & photographed.

Despite a lack of physical presence in the area, humans have scattered the organic landscape with an unfathomable amount of MAN MADE ranging from infrastructure to detritus. Fences, blazes, trails and roads. Gas wells and flight markers. Salt licks and a huge bowl of kibbles. Signs with rotting type. Rust etched garbage melting into the desert.

The infrastructure maintained on the census route often performed a control function. Way finders, harnessers of resources, containers, blockades. Though aesthetically out of context the logic of their place in the landscape was incontrovertible.

Much of the detritus was straight trash, though some of it presumably had a function in the past. (i.e. There were no blatant instances of intentional sculpture.) The harsh environment of central Wyoming continually reclaims any MAN MADE, breaking it down until even its function is eroded. Bereft of a meaningful context abstract forms begin to clutter the natural environment – an exact inversions of weeds growing through cracks in the driveway.

In the depopulated zone along Wyoming’s continental divide, MAN MADE and the organic landscape perform a continual dialectic: the attempt at one way control and the cyclic entropy thwarting it. (See diagram below.)  Man fills unpopulated space with functional infrastructure and a hidden scatter of debris. Anything unmaintained is either consumed by the harsh environment or takes on a battered sculptural form. By tagging notable MAN MADE, this census aimed to heighten an aesthetic and psychogeographical awareness of our footprint in a place we rarely tread.

Supporting documentation:
All 111 MAN MADE images
Agent Cyberhobos report and route map
Typeset Report (printable version)
Download a MAN MADE sticker sheet!  
Related Incidence of Sociometry: PaCT
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ThIS report was originally published on flickr in August of 2009, after the initial survey. IS’s reposting as MAN MADE prominently featured on a 6’x8′ tri-fold display at iSFair 2O12, our quadrennial exhibit of reports generated between 2008 and 2012.

 
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INDIVIDUAL: Suburban bus commuter
GROUP SIZE: 205,368
NATURE OF GROUP: Daily bus commuters accessing Denver RTD buses via one of 10,129 active bus stops.
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: This bus stop commandeered by: IS

This report was originally published on a tri-fold display 
at Sociometry Fair 2008 in Chicago.   

After a winter snow storm this IS special agent and suburban bus commuter found IS-self standing ankle deep in slushy brown snow-plow spray, unable to sit on the likewise fetid bus bench. I thought to is-self, “Why don’t they shovel off this bus stop!?”

After several minutes of cold contemplation (the #20 bus isn’t always on-time on snowy days), I wondered, “Who are THEY?” I use the stop, why should I expect someone else to take care of it? The RTD provided a great service – driving me downtown on a fairly reasonable schedule for $1.75. I realized it was unreasonable to expect them to also come shovel my bus stop for the same rate.

So, I procured what in the art industry we call “In Advance of a Broken Arm” and took it upon myself to clear off the stop after each storm – to the benefit of myself and the dozen or so of my neighbors who used the stop.

See all before and after photos

After several storms it occurred to me that I could officially adopt the bus stop. I began to look around at other bus stops for comparables. Adopted bus stops are unceremoniously adorned with a 6 inch square white placard with

ADOPTED BY:
(Your Name Here)

That is apparently where it stopped. Officially adopted stops weren’t shoveled. In fact they looked no better than my stop. I contacted RTD with an inquirey and received the following RE:

Miles,

First I need you to know that this is a voluntary program only so there is no pay for this. The way the program works is we provide the trash can, bags for the can and a 12 X 12 sign that is attached to the pole and in exchange for doing this we ask that you take the full bag out of the trash can and throw it away with the rest of your trash. You have the choice of either wanting a can or not and we will provide bags either way. You will need to sign an agreement form that states what I just did above and allows you to tell us what you would like on your sign. After we receive the signed agreement form then we will install a can if requested, drop off bags and make up a sign with your information on it. A bus stop is only the stops that have a pole or a pole and a bench but not the enclosed ones which are called shelters and are already maintained. I hope this information helps you. If you need any further information, have questions please feel free to write me at my email address or you can call me at 303-299-6365.

Thanks,
Monica Thomas, RTD-Adopt-A-Stop Program Coordinator

My stop doesn’t have the trash issue endemic to stops in commercial areas. The issue was snow removal and maintenence. It occurred to me that by utilizing the IS guerilla public service technique, I could anonymously commandeer the bus stop and, as a consequence, be unencumbered by any formal commitment or rules of engagement.

After deciding to commandeer the bus stop my level of commitment to its aesthetic value became more intense. I removed the abandoned dirty green JOBS box to both facilitate thorough snow removal and improve the look of the stop.

I had grown to like living in suburban Lakewood partly due to driving past the “Welcome to Lakewood” sign on 26th and Wadsworth. The Lakewood slogan, “We Are Building an Inclusive Community”, really spoke to me. On a recent trip south on Wadsworth I was dismayed to see that someone had amateurishly defaced the sign in a poorly thought-out guerilla modification.

In response I decided to put my graphic arts skills to use and dramatically improve the look of the stop by replacing the ugly RE-MAX advertisement with a guerilla, yet sincere, Lakewood promotional advertisement.

With the new advertisement and the addition of a couple flower bowls my bus stop is now dramatically spruced up and ready for spring. By commandeering, rather than adopting, the stop I’ve been able to actually improve the location rather than taking ownership over the stop in name only.

INDIVIDUAL: Unsanctioned users of Denver Parks
GROUP SIZE: Indeterminate due to the transitory nature of the individuals
NATURE OF GROUP: hobos, recreational binge drinkers, graffiti taggers, and off-leash dog-walkers.
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: West Denver Urban Preserve and Trail

This report was originally published on 2 tri-fold displays at Sociometry Fair 2008 in Chicago. 

WeDUPT 2004 : RESEARCH

 WeDUPT 2008 : ACTIVATION

Four Years after conducting the above preliminary research, is agents activated WeDUPT in a radically changed environment.

WeDUPT All Images 

The entrance to WeDUPT has since been closed to sanctioned users (leash-walkers, outfit-bikers, stroller-joggers). To access the trail register and guide one must start by transgressing a barrier between sanctioned and unsanctioned use of the corridor. The necessity of hikers to cross a literal and metaphoric threshold at the outset of their journey is a seeming victory in the effort to raise awareness of, and increase habitat for, unsanctioned users.

Generally however, the interim four years have seen a wholesale assault on unsanctioned use habitat. A vast tract of section four, The Preserve, was clear cut to make way for sanctioned users. This encroachment cuts deep into an area that in 2004 was ideal habitat for hobos and served as the gateway to a large and now threatened encampment.

before and after 2004 left : 2008 right

West Denver gentrification, flood control infrastructure development and construction in the corridor on a west suburbs light-rail line all highlighted the need for incorporation of WeDUPT.

A trail register, trail guides, and breakaway fiberglass trail markers and a corresponding iconographic decal system were professionally manufactured. Decals deploy a standard slash no-slash system of Forest Service trail markers but incorporate icons appropriate to an urban environment; a tag, a crapping dog, a wino, a cop.

The morning after instal, this agent arrived at the trail-marker for section three prior to 9am. Scores of eager citizens were out vigorously clearing brush! A Parks and Rec crew with a mulcher truck was ingesting it. When approached a young couple explained,

is: “Are you all volunteering or something?”
both: “Yes!”
is: “Why clear all this brush?”
he: “They found a BODY in here! Or something… That’s what I heard.”
she: “Its National Trails Day!”

The trail marker for section three remained in place, lightly buried into soft soil. Citizens swarmed around it vigorously manicuring the park. An adjacent crew, in keeping with WeDUPT’s strict no tagging zone in section three, was painting out graffiti in hunter green – perfectly matched to WeDUPT’s marker.

Back at section one, a small cadre of Hispanic teens were walking along the flood diversion trench passing a joint. As they came across this agent making an entry into the trail register, all pointed at the detourned green newspaper box. Sputtered laughs and “oh shits” were punctuated with a flash of the hand, center fingers crossed – “WEST SIDE!”

At the start of section two a breakaway group of citizens, multicultural tweens with an adult chaperone, walked along the creek banks with trash bags picking up litter. A Hispanic girl in painted on pants looked at the trail marker for section two and proudly poked her friend, “Look! West Side!”

CONCLUSION:

One could argue that the lack of citizen reaction to the marker in section three pointed to a failure. They didn’t see the marker because its aesthetic blended too closely into what was expected in the space. Unlike the tags the section three sign did not read as unsanctioned art. The section one trail register, however, was clearly communicative as unsanctioned as acknowledged by the West Side teens and their stoned camaraderie.

This leads is to believe that the context in which the signs are encountered by the individual frames their legitimacy. The section three trail marker decals conformed to preliminary research showing the area is not advisable for unsanctioned use due to its open terrain and adjacent playgrounds. Citizens engaged in sanctioned use (busy-bodied-volunteerism) encountered a sign reinforcing their agenda; no camping, no drinking, no tagging, no dog crap! In section one the unsanctioned teens recognized a subversive nature in the signs and respond in kind. They saw it as a tag and gave it a shout out. The girl in section two also was drawn to the west side emblem but due to her sanctioned use of the space saw it with a non-ironic sense of civic pride.

The section one trail register was the first item to disappear. Section three’s trail marker followed shortly. Section two lasted a couple weeks. The Preserve’s trail marker lasted over a month. Six months later all trace of WeDUPT is gone. Its hard to say if the signs were removed by Parks and Rec or by unsanctioned art collectors.

The signs transcendental ability to serve as a guide to sanctioned and unsanctioned users in the corridor proves that these two groups can coexist in the space without the need to threaten vital unsanctioned use habitat.

To maintain awareness of this issue is plans a second annual instal and trail walk for National Trails Day 2012.

Continue reading about the 2012 iteration of WEDUPT.

INDIVIDUAL: Employee of Qwest corporate headquarters
GROUP SIZE: 13
NATURE OF GROUP: A crack squadron of minimalist sculptors
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: Qwest Vex

Qwest Vex was originally reported by The Westword and misappropriated by The Egotist. is originally published this report on a tri-fold display at Sociometry Fair 2008 in Chicago along with the video at the bottom by agent Vin Comparetto.

On Monday May 19, 8:50 am, a crack-squadron of 13 agents of the international pranktivist collective Institute of Sociometry (IS) donated an unsolicited “minimalist sculpture” comprised of 576 phone books to the Qwest corporate headquarters at 1801 California Street in the form of a giant phone book. The donated minimalist sculpture “reflected its architectural surroundings and provided an ergonomically designed, functional apparatus for employees to interact with while sitting and enjoying their lunch break.”

In the course of a year, a typical Denver Metro household will receive each of the following: a 2.5 inch thick White Dex, a 2.5 inch thick Yellow Dex, possibly a 1.5 inch thick Yellow Dex A-L, a 1.5 inch thick Yellow Dex M-Z, a smaller format Dex Plus. Also, depending on demographics, the household may receive a combined (white and yellow) suburban directory or Dex En Espanol.

IS agents spent six months amassing 23 separate varieties of phone books in Denver and the west suburbs. These publications had been either left unclaimed for at least one month at apartment or office buildings, or were used by customers for a year and thrown out with the arrival of the 2008 book. Six variants were published by Yellow Pages, Yellow Book, or Verison. Twenty two variants were published by Dex, a division of publisher RR Donnely, which has a contract with the telecommunications company to produce and deliver the phone book.

Prior to assembling the sculpture in the Qwest corporate plaza, IS agents were instructed by squadron leaders to “avoid eye contact with bystanders at all times” and to answer all inquiries from the company’s security with the phrase “I’m just supposed to drop these off.” When the IS squadron began briskly piling the books in front of the Qwest building, they were indeed approached by security and had the following off-script exchange:

Qwest: (sheepishly) So how you guys doing?
IS: (tersely) Alright.
Qwest: So uh… what’s the plan this morning? You guys when your done are you going to clean out everything?
IS: (lying) Uh hugh…
Qwest: That’s fine…

At this point the Qwest personnel walked away with their hands in their pockets, going so far as to actually kick a pebble in a gesture of defeat.

 
Photo agent Rhy Jouett   

After the IS sculptors completed their work and melted away into the Monday morning pedestrian traffic, a man identifying himself as public relations personnel exited from the building and immediately sought out our IS agent who was posing as an “independent photographer.” The agent was asked if he was “from the paper.” When queried, Qwest public relations told our agent that they would surely recycle the books.

Indeed, within ten minutes a small army of Qwest maintenance employees immediately emerged from the towering edifice with large janitorial bins adorned with freshly laser-printed recycle symbols scotch-taped on them. They swiftly disassembled the sculpture and scurried back into the building. IS officially condemns the callous removal of their donated minimalist sculpture. It points to a flagrant disregard for even the basest level of art appreciation!

Watch a time-lapse of the incident!  

Video agent Vin Comparetto 

But while unanticipated by IS, Qwest’s actions indicate a desire to be a responsible corporate citizen by encouraging the use of their plaza as a convenient, centrally located, recycling depository for unwanted phone books.

INDIVIDUAL: One lonely commuter
GROUP SIZE: around 2,500 depending on traffic
NATURE OF GROUP: Other seemingly lonely commuters along the I-25 corridor between Denver
and Colorado Springs.
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: Effecting change in American driving culture
-or- Alone in a sea of zombie drivers.

This report was originally published on a tri-fold display at
Sociometry Fair 2008 in Chicago. This vegan gutter punk is feeling it.

North then south, north then south, surrounded by so many people, yet very alone. This is my reality. I have a long commute, about an hour and 25 minutes one way during peak traffic hours, which is of course, when I need to travel. When I first began commuting this 75 mile stretch of highway, I was relaxed and enjoyed my “quiet time”, my time to reflect on deep subjects. But the longer I commuted the more I began relying on other forms of entertainment like radio talk shows, my ipod, bird watching. But, as with many things, doing things alone can get old, and sharing your experiences with others can make the experience that much more enjoyable.

See all zombie drivers images

With time, I came to the realization that I really was not alone. No. I was surrounded by people. Many times they were just tens of feet from me. But there was a problem. Not only were we separated from each other by the structure of the vehicles we occupied, but there was a certain inattention to the human aspect of each other. As I passed another person, I would not think of them as another person, but rather, a car. I understood that I was apart of a community, a culture, but that this community operates in near ignorance of the humanity of itself. It was rare to see communication within the community members, and when it did occur, it was not complex language, but was in the form of rudimentary light signals or the occasional hand gesture. Something needed to be done.

I began some intense research into the behavior of drivers as well as into the art of communication. In my research I found that The Transportation Research Institute, in Haifa, Israel, has determined that “Each driver is influenced by the collective behavior of other drivers. At the same time, each driver is also part of this collective, and thus influences others.” They also determined that “a small shift in the behavior of [a] few might be amplified or snowball to a much larger effect resulting in a changed traffic environment or a modified culture of driving.” Here I was hit with the feeling of grandeur. Here is the reason I have been made to commute. I was going to change the driving culture.

I started with advice from the manual by Don Gabor: How to Start a Conversation and Make Friends, the revised and updated version. I immediately applied the first of his techniques for nonverbal communication. -Smile- As I made my way north at 6:30 am, I smiled the biggest smile I could (no easy task at that time of day). I continued to smile for nearly 20 miles before I decided that I was not really effecting anyone because no one was looking at me. I determined it must be a visibility problem. I needed a sign. Here’s where I stumbled. There is something about a sign that encourages people to look at it. If I made a sign, people would probably look at it. That meant people would look at me. I was not very comfortable with this. I stalled with the excuse that I really didn’t know what to put on the sign. But in the end I resolved to step out of my comfortable anonymity and proudly display an “I’m Smiling” sign.

Attempt #1: 05/27/08: 6:30 am
I was not excited about my sign. It was not a sign that would make people look and say to themselves, “well, there is an extraordinary intelligent woman!” I felt more like it would be “Lovely, another whackjob on the road.” I failed to put up my sign.

Attempt#2: 05/28/08: 6:30 am
I had decided I was just fine being a wuss, and I didn’t even bring the sign with me. But, I felt guilty half way to Denver and started looking at all the people that seemed to hold this power over me, making me so self-conscious. Who were these people that put so much trepidation into my glorious plan of commuter culture change? Did I know them? Would they call someone and make fun of me? How would I even know and why did I care?

Attempt#3: 05/29/08: 6:30 am
Success. I pulled out of my driveway with the sign installed. I was a little anxious through my neighborhood and into my little section of town where people I know might spot me. But I settled down once I hit the interstate. It was more amusing than embarrassing. Right off the bat I was surprised how few people actually looked. I pulled into the left lane for optimal visibility. I saw people eyeing me suspiciously, or trying to act like nothing was different, like when you are looking at someone with food in their teeth. It was disappointing that no one smiled in return. It would seem that most commuters are not in a friendly mood first thing in the morning. I would try at a different time.

Attempt#4: 05/30/08: 11:00 am
I was heading north of Denver today and my car was loaded with luggage and various paraphernalia. The car was a little heavier and I was not in a hurry so I stayed in the middle lane, only occasionally using the left lane to pass. After passing a minivan being driven by a older woman and receiving a quick glance from her, I realized that other cars were not passing me. There were 10-12 cars stacked behind me in my lane and the right lane. I slowed down a bit to see if they would pass. The right lane crept up but just sat slightly behind me. After several more seconds the car furthest back in my lane pulled into the left lane and sped up. Normally a car would quickly overtake me and continue on. But this car slowed down next to me. I turned and looked with the biggest grin on my face. He was looking, but I couldn’t see his expression. I kept grinning. Finally he sped up and past me. After he past a few more followed suit, passing me very slowly. I continued to smile and other drivers continued to be very cautious when passing me. And still no one returned the smile. I understood that my sign was working opposite of its intended purpose. I was not being seen as a friendly driver. I was being seen as a possible threat that required either careful scrutiny, or complete disregard so as not to agitate me. But overall, most drivers did not acknowledge me at all. Perhaps they were just too oblivious to their surroundings to even notice. There were like a pack of zombie drivers. Lifeless and indifferent. Maybe I needed a bigger sign. Maybe I needed my sign to be more personal, something like “I’m smiling at you” or “It’s nice to drive I-25 with you.” Then again maybe my sign just needs a little more time. Maybe my fellow commuters are shy and just take a bit to warm up.

INDIVIDUAL: John Gonce 
GROUP SIZE: 3
NATURE OF GROUP: Pro-bono guerilla public relations specialists operating under cover as “The Institute of Sociometry”. 
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: Correct John Gonce

This report recently appeared in SHERBERT Issue 6. Download the original article designed by SHERBERT Publisher (and is agent) Dan Weiss.

John Gonce, a Denver Realtor and perennial candidate for Denver City Council District 2, leaves unsolicited newsletters on the stoops and in the mailboxes of south west Denver Residents.

[Gonce] “has sold real estate in southwest Denver for 40 years with no violations in any transaction… He attended Ventura College of Law (he is not a lawyer) and two colleges overseas studying philosophy and political thought. He loves to champion the falsely accused.”

– from The Gonce Times

[The “PUBLISHER, Volume No. Issue No. and Date” of this issue of Gonce times were left at the template default and thus the specific catalog information of this particular issue of Gonce Times was never recorded.]

Each issue of The Gonce Times delves into John Gonce’s personal views on local politics and real estate. “When it comes to finance, real estate, and an understanding of Government John is most knowledgeable. He is a genius as a negotiator and financial areas.”

Unfortunately for John Gonce, he did not seem to have the same level of publishing acumen that he was blessed with in areas of finance. Fortunately for John Gonce, several issues of The Gonce Times slid across the desk of The Institute of Sociometry.

John Gonce’s grammar clearly begged for a copy editor. Ex: “For U.S. House of Representatives, Denver, we have in office Dianna DeGette. DeGette is so far to the left philosophically, if she went any further she would be in Hell. Where is Hell on this earth? For the past 100 years it has been in socialists and communists countries where ownership of real estate is often forbidden.” Since there were no copy editors on staff with The Institute of Sociometry, we assigned an IS agent specializing in design and commercial print publishing production to his file. If IS couldn’t help John Gonce with his message, we could at least spruce up his media.

John Gonce of 4451 South Wolcott Ct. Denver, Colorado 80236 received an unsolicited 12 x 15 mailer:

Our mailer to John Gonce – there is only one listed in the Denver white pages and the address IS in council district 2 – contained the following:

• Three issues of The Gonce Times enlarged to 11 tabloid sized sheets and extensively annotated in red pen with technical design and print-publishing suggestions. Sample:

• A print out with specific instructions on installing a pirated copy of Adobe® In-Design™ v. 1.0 for Windows 95 – 98 – including a clean serial number.

• A CD installer for Adobe® In-Design™ v. 1.0 for Windows 95 – 98.

• A Red 3.5″ Diskette with our redesign of the most recent issue of The Gonce Times saved as an Adobe® In-Design™ v. 1.0 template.

• Hard Copy of the redesigned Gonce Times. < Before & After >

Since presumably receiving the mailer, John Gonce lost his City Council race. No more issues of The Gonce Times have since been distributed. We suspect that when John Gonce has finally mastered the Paragraph Styles Palette we will be seeing The Gonce Times with a fresh new look on the stoops south west Denver.

“RESPECT. REPLACE HATE WITH LOVE” – Tag line of the Gonce Times

///// UPDATE 06.19.14 /////

Though mentions of John Gonce and his perpetual failed bids for city office were quite common in Denver media in the late 90’s into the early 00’s no reports are brought up via google post-dating our report. We are pleased to note that when googling John Gonce our original version of thIS report comes up 4th in the search rankings.

INDIVIDUAL: Parking patrons attending a Denver Broncos game
GROUP SIZE: 2
NATURE OF GROUP: IS agents disguised as parking lot attendants
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: Fantasy Football Parking Lot

By Jared Jacang Meyer
Originally published by The Westword
Published here with N© permission by IS

The Home Team:
The Fantasy Football Parking Lot wins a battle against bureaucracy.

Peter Miles Bergman calls it a drive-by art show. Jim “Handsome” Hanson thinks of it more as vigilante code enforcement. The three kids riding their bikes down the alley have no idea what to think of Bergman’s experiment.

They skid to a stop in the gravel and look up at the two parking-lot attendants in fluorescent orange vests hopping from foot to foot. “What’s this?” one kid asks.

“No parking,” Hanson answers, as he and Bergman wave their official fluorescent-orange flags at the kids as if they were an Excursion, an Accord and an Outback waiting to pull in. “This isn’t a place to park.”

The kids stare at the yellow parking strips taped into three regulation-sized spaces in the oil-stained back lot three blocks west of Invesco Field at Mile High. The orange cones, the flexible plastic posts, the wooden sign inscribed with the word “NO” in two-foot-tall red letters. Then they look at each other, shrug and ride off.

The Broncos-Dolphins game starts in an hour, and the Cheltenham Heights neighborhood is packed with fans looking to circumvent the gouge-fest on Federal Boulevard, where spaces in privately owned lots go for $35 a pop. Legions of jersey-clad football lovers march merrily toward the stadium, thinking they’ve avoided the steep fee by parking in the residential areas neighboring Invesco Field. They’re oblivious to the army of tow trucks and parking-enforcement vehicles lying in wait, ready to haul off any car not displaying the proper residential-parking permit.

The enforcers are so ruthlessly efficient that many of the cars they’ll tow actually belong to residents of this largely Spanish-speaking area, residents who don’t know how to procure a permit or can’t afford the $30-a-year tag, Bergman says. The parking police only come to this neighborhood on game days, according to Bergman’s neighbor, Jesus Gonzales; the rest of the year, they won’t respond if you call them. “It used to be only a $15 fine,” he says of the numerous game-day tickets he’s received over the years. “Now it’s $60. Sixty dollars! They’re robbing the neighborhood.”

Gonzales understands the city’s motives: money. But he and his neighbors don’t have a clue why Bergman and Hanson, the men known simply as “gringos locos,” are turning the rear of Bergman’s home at 1576 Hooker Street into a faux parking lot — and then turning away prospective customers and their money.

Welcome to the Fantasy Football Parking Lot.

As founder of the dispersed art-prank society known as the Institute of Sociometry, Bergman is fascinated by how individuals react to subtle and often bizarre disruptions to the routines of daily life. In the little packet of Institute paraphernalia displayed in Bronco colors on a podium next to the parking cones, he defines Sociometry as “the quantitative analysis of individuals and their relationships to groups.” The Institute’s agents subscribe to “guerilla Sociometry,” he says, which has no allegiance to “the rigors of mathematics or even science!” Or even reason. Bergman’s stunts are subtle to a fault. There’s no method to his madness – just method.

The formula behind this performance piece began last year, when Bergman got a parking ticket in front of his house during a pre-season Broncos game. Because parking was at such a high premium – and because he was unemployed at the time – he decided to sell spots in the back for $10 to $15 one game day. Many drivers were suspicious: “Is it okay to park here? Am I going to get towed?” they asked. Their fears were easily overcome by the hefty savings, though, and in less than an hour, Bergman had made a cool seventy bucks. It wasn’t long before his neighbors caught on and began directing cars to their lots as well.

Then, in September 2003, Denver’s Neighborhood Inspection Services issued an alert, warning game-goers that the area is not zoned for commercial use and that it is illegal for homeowners to sell parking on their property. “If someone flags you over and offers a parking space at a location without a special-event parking sign, it is very likely a scam,” explained Inspection Service Manager Tom Kennedy in a notice to fans. For the rest of the season, inspectors in city trucks patrolled the neighborhood heavily, on the lookout for illegal parking activity. Bike cops would dart into alleyways blaring warnings over their megaphones, sending tailgating Broncos fans and residents alike scattering for cover.

“Were you selling parking?” an officer asked Bergman before a chilly Monday-night game.

“Well, I was,” he answered, “but an officer already told me it was illegal.”

“That’s right, a $1,000 fine.”

“Is there a permit I can obtain to sell spaces?”

“No. This is zoned residential. If you’re selling spaces, that constitutes a business,” the officer told him. Rather than let The Man have the last word, Bergman decided he would simply give the spaces away. He got his then-neighbor Hanson, an official Institute agent and longtime buddy from their days back in Laramie, to buy in on the concept. Initially, they stood at the mouth of the alley leading to the lot with a sign reading “Free Parking,” but they soon discovered that free was not a good selling point. “When we were selling it, parking people here was easy,” says Hanson, “It was really hard to give away free parking.”

Potential patrons were suspicious. Why would someone give away free parking? To rob their cars? When a white Chevy Tahoe finally took Bergman up on the offer, its driver insisted on making a transaction anyway, handing over four Warsteiner Imported Lagers and half a gram of homegrown. But the zoning-enforcement cops were eyeballing the deal, and the next week, as Bergman stood on the sidewalk with his little sign, a bike cop hopped the curb toward him.
“What are you selling, buddy?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Bergman said, holding up the “Free Parking” sign.

“No,” the cop said. “No, you can’t. Not even for free. It’s a special-event parking violation. You have to have a permit.”

“Actually, it’s a zoning violation to sell parking, because it constitutes the operation of a small business unpermitted in an R-3-zoned neighborhood.” Bergman replied, smug in his correctness.

“No! Uh-uh,” the officer responded, then asked Bergman where he lived.

“Up there, where I’m going to park people.”

“Go home. Go back to your apartment and watch the game on TV, or I’ll write you a citation for trespassing.”

“For standing on the sidewalk!?”

“Yes. If I let you stand out here, you’ll be flashing your sign as soon as I leave.”
Bergman balked.

“Go back to your apartment and watch the game on TV!”

Bergman finally acquiesced. But he didn’t watch the game on TV. Instead, he decided to take his concept to the next level. And what’s the logical step up from free? Pure prank.

So on the Sunday of the Broncos-Dolphins game, as the tow trucks rumble past in succession and the roar of the crowd begins to fill the sky, Bergman, surrounded by $267 worth of catalog-ordered vests, stripes and flags, waves his “NO” flag. Two women in a black Jeep Cherokee with silver rims roll up. Bergman and Hanson are waiting.

“Where’s your lot?” one of the women asks.

“There’s no parking,” Bergman says, approaching the vehicle with a friendly smile.

“Is it fifteen dollars?” she asks.

“No, you can’t park here,” he says, handing them an Institute packet.

“Well, why are you waving the flags around and stuff?”

“Oh, well, to let people know they can’t park here.”

The driver’s forehead crumples in confusion for a moment before her passenger begins to laugh at the absurdity of it. “Okay. No parking! Whoo!” The women speed away, cackling, and the no-parking attendants stand at the end of their dirty alleyway and wave their flags triumphantly.

—–

Update 2014: the 2004 full-page Westword article, and this subsequent detailed letter to then district 1 City Councilman Rick Garcia about the strain that game-day parking and code-enforcement put on his low-income constituents, resulted in lasting change.

After a full-press enforcement of alley parking during the 2004-05 season, the 2005-06 season saw a dramatic deescalation of threats and stalking of neighborhood residents by code enforcement personnel. Ten years later, one pre-season home game into the 2014-15 season, there is still no sign of code enforcement. Neighborhood residents are routinely seen on neighborhood corners flying cardboard and sharpie signs for $20 parking and all the alley lots are full. The six car lot behind the IS home office, however, remains empty. Though being an agent of change in the ability of our neighbors to do what they will with their private property, our position remains firmly one of NO PARKING.

INDIVIDUAL: A “Skater”
GROUP SIZE: Anything from around 1,000 on up to 10,000,000 +
NATURE OF GROUP: Citizens of towns or cities who fund, through taxation, state, county, or city funded and operated skateboard parks.
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: False Sense of Security.

This report was originally printed in The Mobernist Issue #3, in 2002 by agent Cracklens for Mob in Germany

A SKATEBOARD IS:
A means of creative expression.
A piece of athletic equipment.
A mode of transportation.
A potential weapon.

Three is Agents installed two signs reading “Restricted Area No Thoroughfare” (see above) at entrances to the Denver Municipal Skate Park, Denver, Colorado, U.S.A

AN INCIDENCE OF TERRIBLY MISMANAGED SOCIAL CONDITIONING:

A pastime is allowed to develop that, because of its unique combination of qualities, attracts societies most promising youth, hones their creative self expression, keeps them in peak physical condition, allows them complete freedom of movement, and arms them with clubs. Society is, in turn, allowed to continually eject the pastime participants from public and private property, cite them, arrest them, and deride them as noisy, dangerous, and destructive.

Additionally three simulated security cameras were installed. Views from each are pictured. All were removed by the city.

SKATEBOARDING IN THE UNITED STATES ROUGHLY 1985-1995.
The Problem:

Insurance rates skyrocketed. The bottom dropped out. Commercial skate parks died. Vert disappeared. Kids took to streets and alleyways looking for a hip, ledge or backyard pool to emulate the moves of last years pros sessioning now demolished or buried parks and spent the next decade BUSTED. Constant harassment from traditional authority figures such as police, property owners, and business patrons disenfranchised skaters to such a degree that the activity assumed an outlaw aesthetic. “Good kids” soiled their image with skulls, wallet chains, and hair in the eyes. “Delinquents” looking for the next thrill naturally gravitated toward this increasingly anti-social “sport” and its promise of no uniforms, no coach, and “no fuckin’ rules dude.”

In addition to turning societies best and brightest into menaces, it drove them into the arms of societies best and brightest menaces. The tribe of wild miscreants born of this union hit the pavement laughing in the face of authority, gleefully running from cops, wantonly destroying property, fearlessly spitting on security guards, physically fighting adults of all creeds, and filming it all as a challenge to those who would dare to follow

SKATEBOARDING IN THE UNITED STATES ROUGHLY 1995-PRESENT.
The Solution:

Build killer public skate parks in every town. Provide a place that no local brick bank or concrete bench could hold a candle to. Make them free. Limit rules to common sense regulations like those that pertain to jungle gyms and public basketball courts. Make the rails a foot lower for the juvenile delinquents. Lure the older unreformable set with cloverleaf and capsule bowls poured of the smoothest concrete commercially available. Effectively entice a legion of problem cases to hang out in a socially sanctioned, municipally funded, centrally located, and easily monitored environment. Keep them pinned in by their own desires.

Go to the skate park in any U.S. town. Look at the old-school vert dogs. They’re whooping it up, occasionally self-medicating in the privacy of their cars, and complacently settling into routines of adulthood. The wives and Jr. come down to watch on Saturdays. Look at the new-school hip-hop skaters approaching a ledge or bar, content to repeat a sequence over and over. Their cloths are baggy yet clean. Skate brands are substituted with more affluent designer and corporate logos. Shirts are collared. Look at the little kids – the future of skateboarding. Helmets and pads all around. Mom reads a book at the end of the hip-hoppers ledge. Skaters and roller-bladers commingle.

Now, take a second look at both old and new school. Vert-dogs and hip-hoppers. Note the occasional glance toward the Downtown skyline, the frequent blank looks, long periods on the bench. Now look again at the little ones. The kids not yet in a school. They are content with their bike helmets, their alterna-mom, and their roller-blader brother. They know and follow the rules. They might as well be playing touch football! They are and will continue to be followers… Problem Solved.