Welcome To The ACTLab

TAKING IT TO THE STREET: PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS / THE POLITICS OF PERFORMANCE

This course explores the theory, history, and practice – mostly practice -- of technology and performance as sociopolitical intervention. This includes performance in an urban context: site-specific and street theater, puppetry, environmental theater, culture jamming (including radio, television, billboards and recording), and digital interventions.

Class is in studio and discussion format. This means that your active participation is a requirement of the course. During the semester we expect you to contribute your own ideas and arguments to the discussions, and to be willing to take the responsibilities and risks such contributions imply.

There are no written exams. Instead you will use the theories and tools you acquire during the semester to MAKE STUFF! What you make can be in any form: sound, installation, video, computer animation, collage, sculpture, assemblage, performance -- you name it. You will do this in stages, starting with simple projects and moving to more complex ones, using humor, irony, uncommon approaches, and bizarre techniques.

A sample syllabus of this course is available for viewing.

Here are some resource we use for the course:

Antonin Artaud

Artaud's "Manifesto in a Clear Language"

Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed

Guillermo Gomez-Pena

Gomez-Pena's La Pocha Nostra: Short Videos

Stelarc

Orlan

Sandy Stone

Radical Theatre

The Diggers Movement - radical performance art in San Fransisco