Memefest 012 Festival Outlines: DEBT
You can’t evict an idea whose time has come!
These words express the nature of the current global movement against the rule of money over life. They belong to the people, the 99%, who are bringing the fundamental urgent issues to the streets, into the media, into the realm of public consciousness, into the schools, universities, jobs, homes and intimate discussions and relationships.
These words also express something else. They speak about a state of mind, a focus and a concise articulation of the problem. The idea whose time has come is mainly about three things. First: interventions that create a rupture in the order of things with the goal to redefine our fields of experience and the relationship between being, doing and saying. Second: dialogue. Third: creating new emancipatory social institutions.
If communication and art are to play a relevant role in shaping a future worth having, we need to further redirect, reinvent and reimagine our own understanding and the way we think, theorise and practice them both. Debt is not only an opportunity to do so, but also an urgent responsibility.
Millions are enslaved through debt, and indebted life has become naturalised. Debt has become the primary mechanism that takes power from the people and gives it on to the hands of the 1%. But debt is rarely questioned. Its moral obligation is culturally embedded. It is shaming and therefore unspeakable. Its power lies in its violent normalcy.
Taking a step back and look at the global Occupy movement from a distance it is clear that we need to learn more. We need to create strategies for understanding and ways of learning that go beyond the institutional, cultural and pragmatic boundaries of professions and fields of knowledge. This process is already happening with great intensity around the world. We have been contributing to this processes for many years and this year we are going even stronger.
Do respond to our call in the Memefest 2012 Friendly Competition. This years theme is DEBT. See here for the outlines: www.memefest.org/en/competition/intro/
You can participate in the categories Visual Communication practice, critical writing and a special participatory Art/Communication category is open as well!
Deadline for your submissions is May 20th. Participation is free of charge and there is no age limit or any other restriction. We will post more soon. For now it is your turn.
With Love, Conflict and Imagination,
Oliver-Memefest Kolektiv
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