Oliver Ressler & David Thorne
Boom Banner, 2005
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Oliver Ressler (Austria) & David Thorne (USA) |
Oliver Ressler & David Thorne
Boom Banner, 2005
Oliver Ressler and David Thorne developed 3 proposals for banners (2004) as a set of drawings of extremely long protest banners which might be used in a strong and radical international anti-capitalist movement. These somewhat atypical, non-didactic, challenging and humorous banners could be used in demonstrations, applied on the facades of buildings, or displayed in public spaces; in order to mix up the rhetoric of oppositional politics and to complicate the visual and verbal languages of protest.The Boom! Banner for a public square was realised for the RISK exhibiiton, and stretched along the walkway of the CCA courtyard.
www.ifonlypeoplewouldopentheirheartstothevisionthatfreedomisonthemarchandbelieve thattheyarebeingspiritedonthewingsofangelsintoabrightandshiningfuturecalledglobal freemarketdemocracythenthefactthatthisvisionthingbecomesclearonlyaftertheireyesare gougedoutandtheycannotseewheretheyaregoingatallandthattherearenoangelsleadingtheway onthislongforcedmarchcouldbebetterleftunsaid.com
3 proposals for banners is the most recent manifestation of Oliver Ressler and David Thorne's ongoing Boom! collaboration. Boom! consists of text works in various media designed for flexible production and application in a range of display contexts. The project began as a series of banners for use in counter-globalization protests, and has also been realized in art institutions, as contributions in print media, and as public art. The works in the series to date inject full-length statements into the traditionally short linguistic structure of the 'url' to generate web addresses which address the central contradictions of globalized capitalism. The dysfunctional urls function as sites in which a certain hysterical excess is generated; if there are still 'locations' marked by the urls, they are speculative locations within a troubled neoliberal imaginary.
Versions of Boom! have been presented in exhibitions at Dunkers Kulturhus, Helsingborg (S, 2003), Gallery 825, Los Angeles (2003), Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program Exhibition, New York (2002), Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, LA (2002), World-Information.Org, Amsterdam (2002), Kunst Raum Goethestrasse, Linz (2002), Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna (2001) and others.
The drawings for 3 proposals for banners were executed by maz_sokup.