Dedicated to critical cultural production at the intersection of art and activism.

The theme for this month’s sprout spaghetti dinner is On The Radio. We’re going to look at the history of radio, the artistic medium of radio, and how radio has been used as a tool for communication and organizing. As usual, it’s happening at sprout at 339R Summer St Somerville MA with dinner at 730PM–prepared by the lovely folks at Food Not Bombs–and performances starting at 8PM.

Performers will include ::

+ music by _The Russian Nonsemble_
+ Switches, a sci-fi radio drama by Paul Dworkin, will be performed by members of the local radio troupe _The Post Meridian Players_
+ _Jacques-Antoine Jean_ will speak about his radio program “Haiti Focus” and its role as a community radio program that helps connect the Haitian community in the Boston area
+ John Bell and a group of volunteer musicians will present a modern re-interpretation of _John Cage’s Radio Music_, a piece written for 8 radios

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UPDATE: RebelArt has posted pictures of Voina preparing the action, and is reporting that 3,500 cockroaches were released in the courtroom. One of Voina’s websites has more, including some of the ones below.

The court’s decision in the much-discussed Forbidden Art exhibit was handed down earlier this week, with fines for the defendant curators Yury Samodurov and Andrei Yerofeyev, for inciting religious hatred.  The radical artists collective Voina was on hand for the verdict.

In addition to grabbing headlines by painting a giant penis on the St. Petersberg bridge recently, in 2009, Voina disrupted the Taganskiy District court during the hearing of the Forbidden Art case with a one-song punk concert, performing as the punk collective Cock In the Ass.  The song they chose was All cops are bastards from the new album PLEN, a Russian acronym for “Fuck the Police Those Motherfucking Bosses.”  Watch in the video below.

As judge Svetlana Aleksandrova announced the verdict, stating that “the artwork at ‘Forbidden Art’ is very gross and very offensive for viewers and humiliates their sense of human dignity,” Voina released thousands of cockroaches into the courtroom before being detained.

3,500 roaches hit the courtroom floor

Voina’s Pytor Verzilov being detained (Image credit: Denis Sinyakov / Reuters in The Moscow Times)

The curators have vowed to appeal.

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Five members of the art activist group Culture Beyond Oil poured non-toxic black oil around the British Museum’s world famous Easter Island sculpture, in protest at BP’s sponsorship of the museum.

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BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill has taken center stage internationally, and the disaster has brought to the fore questions about the connection between cultural organizations and their sponsors.  The Tate celebrated 20 years of BP sponsorship [PDF] last week, as one of many London-based institutions accepting money from big oil.  The artist/activist group Liberate Tate intervened, staging an oil spill inside the party and outside, at the gallery’s entrance, as documented in the video below.

Liberate Tate made headlines, and was joined by many outspoken allies in an open letter published in the Guardian condemning BP’s sponsorship of the Tate.  Among the signatories are many recognizable names, including art world luminaries, well-known artists/activists we’ve covered, or friends of Groundswell.

The organizers show no sign of slowing.  We’ll continue to follow the action; regular updates are also available from Liberate Tate’s Twitter account.

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Harmonic Dissidents is a digital magazine produced by and for mobile oriented, politically active, socially conscious musicians, bands, and other performers in the HONK! Fest tradition.

Issue #2 is just out, and includes offerings on defining a HONK! band, operating as an explicitly political and non-hierarchical band, the low down on HONK! at the US Social Forum, and the origins and growth of the festival.

Disclosure: I’m on the HONK! Festival organizing committee, who contributed to this edition of Harmonic Dissidents.  Some of that work has been seen previously on Groundswell.

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