Nuts and bolts of the project:
Ann: The content of the Sharing pages, in which students paired from different sites had to discover what they had in common and how they were different, was a way to find some common ground without erasing difference.
We were able to use the Sage Colleges computer lab which is a couple blocks away from the Ark. This provided an environment where a large group participate in a hands-on computer activity. After working cooperatively together at the Sage lab, youth reverted back to same site groupings when we returned to the Ark for the hot-dog party. Keeping the different sites interacting and mixed takes a lot of thinking ahead -- it doesn't just naturally happen.
Thinking behind the project:
Ann:Another particularly good political theater device is "interruption".
Brecht recognized interruption as a way to create critical distance for the
audience. Melodrama captivates the audience away from critical analysis,
allowing people to wallow in emotions. Whereas a master of ceremonies
who invites audience participation, breaks up the narrative and helps the
audience maintain critical distance. Other examples of "interruption" are
stylistic breaks, and juxtaposing different stories to highlight parallels
between two narratives. Bengali political theater offers brilliant examples of
this technique. The "Living Theater" travels the countryside taking its
performance off the stage and onto the street. Their performance "gradually
directs the attention of the audience away from the milieu of Khardah to the
reality of its plays". (Bharucha, p.222) The troupe skillfully uses juxtaposition and
contradictions to create layers of meaning.
So far most of the interruptions in our broadcast have happened
spontaneously. One afternoon kids were testing the transmitter and
broadcasting from the ninth floor of Building Three. As they read some of
their money poems, a rowdy group of people came down the hall
overwhelming their voices momentarily, however as soon as they rounded
the corner, saw the kids, realized they were practicing something, they
immediately quieted down and wished the children well. It was a
wonderful intrusion of real life into the broadcast. I witnessed it from a
distance through the radio/boom box in a room at the Ark. When the kids
came back downstairs they excitedly asked me if I had heard the whole
exchange.
Another interruption was built into the script. During the November
1 broadcast, Jose asked people in the audience when and where was the last
time they spent money. Not knowing the names of all the people in the
audience he hesitated and Professor Kim Fortun's husband filled in the
pause with "Mr. Kim" the name Wesley had bestowed on him during an
earlier tour of the Ark. Jose picked up on the playful nickname as did others
later in the broadcast. Every time I hear the broadcast, interesting questions
about gender relationships interrupt the primary text of money, adding
complexity. Through these impromptu moments we can learn how to
consciously use interruption as a political device.
Looking ahead:
Ann: Another interruption to dominant power relations is to pair youth with adults with the youth as teachers and/or technical resources. Because older people who did not grow up with computers have a much harder time gaining proficiency, this repositioning can be a useful strategy. Grassroots groups that have limited resources can become more efficient at gaining computer skills when they tap into youth resources. Solving technical problems leaves adults who are already politically activated more room to focus their own electronic media work on identifying signs of power and using the aesthetic of interruption to create a disturbance in dominant images. (Sandoval)
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