Black Rock Arts Proposal 1 of 2

Studio 13 Portable Rehearsal Space

This art car aims at realty greed. There is a lack of spaces for SF musicians to rehearse, especially if they're working hard to ends meet. SF is one of the most expensive places to live, so the local scene lacks diversity compared to other places. Inspired by my virgin Playa adventure in 2011, the Studio 13 art car will be used by over half a dozen local bands ranging from hip-hop, dj-ing and turntablism, to hardcore and pop-punk bands among others. The name Studio 13 is in honor of the rehearsal space at Tommy Guerrero's Audiobox Studios that housed the Freshkimos, Golda Supernova, Slashton, Ghosts and Strings, among others, for over a year, a prolific time for all the bands before the two leasees could no longer afford the rent.

Aside from dedicated rehearsal space, the goals for the art car include:

1. Helping local music/education foundations.

2. Coordinating with activists communities like #OccupySF, S.F. Bike Coalition, Sunday Streets and Bindlestiff Studios to provide portable audio for hedonistic and political actions.

3. Creating a public talk show, Manafrio radio, coordinated with internet broadcast capabilities through fccfree radio and ustream.com. Local activists and journalists will be free to hold panels, interviews and give speeches. When no scheduled speakers are available and no band is using the car, people in public will be allowed to use the microphones to hold a conversation.

4. Bringing the Playa spirit to the S.F. streets by offering free rides to S.F. revelers at night, circling from the Mission to Potrero and through SoMa. This will cut down on drunk drivers and offer a magical experience for passengers. Hopefully this will spur other people with art cars to do the same.

Aesthetic

The joyful pilot art car of Studio 13 is a converted van outfitted with dozens of mirrors within a metal frame. The mirrors, "The Sea of Vanity", creates an everchanging dance of color and reflective light while masking "the guts" of the car--a plug-in portable rehearsal space! The second level of the car is a wooden boat crafted by CCA masters student Peter L'abbe and inspired by outrigger construction of Southeast Asian boats (with removable outriggers), which will be adjoined by a spiral staircase and surrounded by a safety bar with perimeter benches, and cushions.

Our hope is that the voyage of Studio 13 helps bands who've been unable to rehearse and inspires the next generation of musicians through visits with our art car. Our intention is to be on a regular schedule with those involved in music education, help local bands rehearse and provide audio for a wide-range of purposes and activities in San Francisco.

Regular Stops

Dolores Park
Justin Herman Plaza
Powell St.
Sloat and Great Hwy.
Haight St. food truck outpost
Noe St. Farmers Market

I first learned of the Enclosure Movement in England in a renaissance literature class at S.F. State. Though the professor's droning reading of his own papers brought yawns and prevented my full attention, this idea of the beginning of fences and borders that would lead to Manifest Destiny in the Americas stuck with me. When Orwell speaks of Oceania in the digest section of 1984 he includes the Americas, the British Isles and parts of Western Europe.

I have no claim to expertise in what went into the movement and online sources are slim. One short definition in thefreedictionary.com summarizes:

"Division or consolidation of communal lands in Western Europe into the carefully delineated and individually owned farm plots of modern times. Before enclosure, farmland was under the control of individual cultivators only during the growing season; after harvest and before the next growing season, the land was used by the community for the grazing of livestock and other purposes. In England the movement for enclosure began in the 12th century and proceeded rapidly from 1450 to 1640; the process was virtually complete by the end of the 19th century. In the rest of Europe, enclosure made little progress until the 19th century. Common rights over arable land have now been largely eliminated."

Four centuries since the time of Shakespeare, it seems we've reached another milepost at the end of industrial revolution. It's become clear that as civilized animals who have technology, we may have gone as far as we can in "manifesting destiny". Postwar suburban sprawl has proven itself as unsustainable if abandoned towns and bankrupt city governments are any indication and Orwell's 1984 is prophetic. His claim of the State controlling the populace with armed police and control over resources--limiting access to food, shelter, etc. depending on your place within the caste sytem--would be seen as "paranoid" and "crazy" if not for events that have occurred over the last few years.

Naomi Klein's viral article "The Truth About the Crackdown on the Occupy Movement" from the Guardian U.K. lays out in clear terms that Occupy's "dissent"--a term which ironically fits of a movement who many claim to have no message or demand--is not welcome in our current climate of governmental shakeup. Klein writes, "The picture darkened still further when Wonkette and Washingtonsblog.com reported that the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on "how to suppress" Occupy protests."

The Department of Homeland Security defines centralized policing and security. Folks who would dispute that will also be not-so-politely asked to remove their shoes when traveling freely by airplane, a humiliating new reminder of control for Nietzsche's beasts (Genealogy of Morals).

Anyway, please excuse the pretentious exercise of reference and paraphrase. I will continually rewrite this essay (second day) till it is streamlined and informative.

The aesthetic argument of OWS is the most telling because it rejects : people are outside camping. This is a rejection of the status quo and in the bigger picture, the enclosure movement that has marked Oceanic culture since the invention of the printing press.

Find joy always, first and foremost, apart from bottom line. Outside of this simple physical/aesthetic decision, the matrix of words and politics must be objectified. You are not a number or a commodity. You are spirit incarnate. You must scramble and redefine what they are giving us, bending the matrix like an artist (Nietzsche said the artist is the one who changes the symbols). Everything must start over: university, spirituality, exchange of goods. There must be a hermetic seal with full awareness of how the power center operates at its borders. An organization like Burning Man is fully aware of its transcendent nature and maintains a relationship with law enforcement, thus, citizens of the temporary Black Rock City are more insulated from oppression than they are at an event like Love Evolution.

In a sense, we return to tribalism and natural law in our physical lives. As strange as it feels, we exist tribally--communicating physically--more than we realize. In our modernity, we've numbed ourselves to this fact. You are grumpy with a courageous soft heart. It's not going to be easy because we have to learn trust. I love you with all my heart. You are the children of the revolution.