Swoon Junk Boat City Floating Into Venice

Here are images of The latest mad, free form floating Junk boat city led by the artist, Swoon as it floats into Venice--to gate crash the Venice Biennale!!

"This week, Swoon, a 31-year-old Brooklyn artist whose name is Caledonia “Callie” Curry, is leading a waterborne invasion of the Venice Biennale (she didn’t bother to try to get in officially) with a crew of 30 artists, musicians, and miscreants in tow. Though they have raised some $150,000 for this crash party, the money won’t show in the boats they’ll travel in, because the boats are made of trash—a symbol of the freedom that comes with radical self-reliance, and one that is meant to effect change. “Throughout history, pranksters have been looking at fences and then pushing them aside,” Swoon has said (the name came to an ex-boyfriend in a dream, in which he imagined her future as a graffiti artist long before her career began). “Through action, you can move the perception. It’s almost like a magic trick.”"



Oh yes they are "Art Stars Now", but I think most of the root energy remains.



I think I always latched on to the anarchist,utopian nature of their projects, which are designed to push the border between what's possible,allowable, safe and unsafe. This line is where IMO, all true art lies as well as all real human progress and fun.

Will-it work?
Will it float?
Can we work together?
Will we kill each other?
Is it worth it?
Will we die?
Is it art?
Is it Ugly?
What is Ugly?
Who says's so?
Is it Beautiful?
Who says's so?
Is it finished?
Is it ever finished?
Is it about the journey?
Is it about the destination?
Is it just about us?
Is it important?
To me?
To others?
Who decides?


EMBED-BURNcast.TV #44 - A Conversation with Chicken John (Part 2) - Watch more free videos

Chicken John, talks about stuff like that here.

Obviously, in a world in which too many think the freedom to make these choices and decisions shouldn't be allowed- Swoon's gentle transgressions have become more and more special.

The First Law Of Petropolitics

These charts illustrate a theory that Thomas L Friedman has thrown out there, he calls "The First Law Of Petropolitics." He's far from being the first one to see an inverse relationship between human freedom and commodity prices in resource based economies, but the elegance of these charts speak volumes.

"The First Law of Petropolitics posits the following: The price of oil and the pace of freedom always move in opposite directions in oil-rich petrolist states. According to the First Law of Petropolitics, the higher the average global crude oil price rises, the more free speech, free press, free and fair elections, an independent judiciary, the rule of law, and independent political parties are eroded. And these negative trends are reinforced by the fact that the higher the price goes, the less petrolist leaders are sensitive to what the world thinks or says about them. Conversely, according to the First Law of Petropolitics, the lower the price of oil, the more petrolist countries are forced to move toward a political system and a society that is more transparent, more sensitive to opposition voices, and more focused on building the legal and educational structures that will maximize their people’s ability, both men’s and women’s, to compete, start new companies, and attract investments from abroad. The lower the price of crude oil falls, the more petrolist leaders are sensitive to what outside forces think of them."

Here's another tidbit-- "As I followed events in the Persian Gulf during the past few years, I noticed that the first Arab Gulf state to hold a free and fair election, in which women could run and vote, and the first Arab Gulf state to undertake a total overhaul of its labor laws to make its own people more employable and less dependent on imported labor, was Bahrain. Bahrain happened to be the first Arab Gulf state expected to run out of oil." He also noticed that the middle east's only democracy other than Israel; Lebanon does not have a drop of oil. Now the theory, does not explain a number of other dictatorships in the region-until you look at the huge tranfers of wealth from the oil rich states. Anyway, it's just a theory.