We Are All Scott Olsen
Channel: himacks
Date: 2011-11-22

A piece of performance art I composed and performed at UC Santa Cruz on 13 November 2011. I am performing on a Roland Octopad connected to a MaxMSP patch I wrote. The program has eight banks of samples which are statements made by UCSC students or speech excerpts. Each bank of samples has an internal theme and an internal level of randomization which swells and recedes as the performance progresses, such that the piece might be compared to reading a jazz chart in that each performance involves a large amount of improvisation within a set form, and thus each performance is different.

I am a full-time student at UCSC. I want to admit right off the bat that I haven't been at an Occupy rally or camped out. I readily acknowledge that I have had some things handed to me in life; however, my middle-class standing (which some are quick to vilify in the debate surrounding OWS) doesn't prevent me from reading the news, from reading income disparity and tax statistics and understanding what they mean, from seeing more and more people I know struggle to make ends meet or find themselves unable to do so. I didn't write and perform this piece because I am some pseudo-disenfranchised 20-something with a need to associate with the newest political movement. I wrote this because I can clearly see that the economic, political, and cultural status quo is unsustainable for this country that I proudly love, as well as the world.

Whether or not you agree with the Occupy Wall Street movement; whether you are unemployed or have three jobs or are worth millions of dollars; whether you think they are the thing this country needs or a group of over-entitled hippies (positions I disagree with equally): you must realize that the situation more and more Americans find themselves living in - not out of laziness but out of systematic disadvantage - is inhumane for a country that claims to be the world's most powerful nation. 

Unrelated to what I said above... why is there no Arts category for videos?