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Sonar Echo Network 23 Windows Studio TFIP The Stunt Team Terse Symphony Dance Destruction Band Reclaim The Streets WJMZ |
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Sonar Echo Network, released June 2000.
NEED IMAGES In February of 2001, a few months after returning from the Sky Plots Tour, the Ransom Corp., anchored the founding of a collective art studio called 23 Windows on the the top floor of an old 19th Century beer factory in Bushwick, Brooklyn. 23 Windows has served first and foremost as a collective home, a nurturing headquarters, for individuals and groups to share studio space and equipment for the purpose of devising, rehearsing and creating innovative works of art. As a performance venue, 23 Windows has been the site for an array of new works: video screenings, experimental electronic music concerts, fashion shows, parties and multimedia installations. 23 Windows has also served as a host to national and international artists, individuals we wished to collaborate with, learn from and support.
Noted Hosted Workshops, performances and events, Feb 2001 - Jan 2004
IMAGES GO HERE The UMBRELLA POETRY TREES were quite simple. The design: Discarded umbrellas attached to wood or steel poles sunk into a paint can filled with concrete. Poems on cards were attached by string to the limbs of the umbrellas to be plucked by passer-byes like ripe fruit. These trees were placed on streets, in subway stations and outside performance venues. One drawback: They tangled in the wind! THE DOLL PROJECT was a twice realized love affair with a seldom seen side of the city. Dozens of dolls, the more human the better, collected from the thrift stores of New York. Grown men and women hauling bags stuffed with dolls to secret re-assembly headquarters. A gathering of artists with red wine and chocolate, miscellaneous arts supplies: glitter, toothpicks, wax, yarn, safety pins, etc. A doll mutilation and recreation extravaganza. Two teams, dressed in their best evening black, some in white face, some in cowboy hats, canvas the city streets with crew photographers in tow, hanging dolls to street lamp and street light poles and fire escapes as the wee hours graduate to dawn. All are hung with a list of demands: More Red Wine and Chocolate or another Doll Dies. This at a time of rapid gentrification, enforcement of no-dancing cabaret laws, corporatizing and humorless policing--just months but it seemed like light years before 9-11.
Sample Demands Does not exist A Terse Symphony: The One Word Poems of Loud JoshLoud Josh was a key performer and advisor in the early days of the Ransom Corp. He invented the one-word poem and performed them throughout New York. These included "OX", "GRAZE" and "RICOCHET", remarkable works of meditation, emotional clarity and transformation. A Terse Symphony, edited by Awing Peece, is a compilation of his complete works, drawn from his four books, and the telling of his life story as a reflection of his work. As this historicizing project neared completion, Loud Josh fell in love and heard the call of mountain climbing in his heart. Some believe that "Loud's output and insight was just too prolific, precise and profound to bring to completion and so he had to depart" (Awing). In any case, years have passed and the near completed manuscript has disappeared. Only fragments remain. The Hyperbolic International Ransom Corp. Destruction Dance Band, Fall 1999 to summer 2000 A tough to describe strange flower. The HIRCDDB was a six piece unit on an 8 month side project wanting to tell stories deep inside a belly of noise and underbelly of the promises of the technological material age. The group included Agent mT, Loki Kevorkian, Sean Clute, John Sully, David Jellyfish, Kelvin Daly and special guests including Dok of Amoeba, Zemi17, Tony Torn and Lips Johnson of Licky. Pick ups wired to typewriters, saws, drums, samplers, undulating bellies, Theremins, poets, rock-n-roll guitar, fire performance, sledgehammers, a capella techno, storytelling, dynamite, the audience brought to the edge of nowhere, an intimate and unpredictable theater of destruction. The Destruction Band first performed at the loading dock during the DUMBO ARTS FESTIVAL in the Fall of 1999 then performed several times at the Frying Pan, at Rubulad, The Cave and The Dumbo Theater. Reclaim The Streets NYCSYMBOL GOES HERE RTS is a nonviolent direct action network found in cities throughout the world. RTS challenges the current hierarchical and authoritarian society and promotes a social-ecological revolution through actions that promote community ownership of public spaces. RTS was founded in London and had been active there for several years before a circle of New Yorkers decided to open a chapter amid the swift corporatizing of New York's core and aggressive "quality of life" policing of the Guiliani era. RTS actions were basically temporary reclamations of city streets or squares for community building and awareness. They featured street performance, large puppets, live pirate radio, volunteers sitting in tripods to occupy the street, a sound system on bicycle trailers, and people gathering and dancing on asphalt reserved for cars. The Ransom Corp. offered public relations, technical and organizational support as well as on the ground creative participation to the RTS circle. The RTS actions were bold and controversial. As theater, they were marvelous displays of warmth, ingenuity and community power. October 4, 1998  WJMZ, named after the rickety fingers of subway metal that cross the Williamsburg Bridge, was a micro-broadcasting collective radio station started by key Ransom Corp. members to serve as a political, social, and artistic medium of expression for the diverse community of South Williamsburg, Brooklyn. JMZ had an open platform, "no content control" policy. It broadcast four days a week over 25 shows ranging from herbal urban health care and world poetics to psychoacoustic test labs, community and activist news programs and a wide swatch of music and talk-based hours. There were shows in Spanish and a show hosted by high school students during the pre-class morning hours. The FCC eventually triangulated the signal and threatened legal action (fines, confiscation of equipment and possible jail time) if the radio station refused to cease and desist. Under pressure and without means for a legal defense, we shut it down after 11 months of existence, evolution and enjoyment. As well as being a meeting ground for collaborations and friendships, WJMZ served as another window into community and the political and economic environment artists and community-minded people find themselves in during this corporate era. |