[Nettime-bold] Announcement of USA Exquisite Corpse

[US Department of Art & Technology <press@usdept-arttech.net>]

Title: Announcement of USA Exquisite Corpse

US Department of Art & Technology

PO Box 32265 Washington, DC

http://www.usdept-arttech.net

press@usdept-arttech.net

Press Secretary

For Immediate Release:  April 8, 2002

US Department of Art & Technology

Announces USA Exquisite Corpse

Washington, DC. - Randall M. Packer will address the Thaw 2002 Festival of Film, Video and Digital Media at the University of Iowa to call on all Americans to serve their nation for the equivalent of two years (4,000 hours) over their lifetimes, by joining a major new citizen service initiative, the USA Exquisite Corpse. On Saturday, April 13, 2002, the Secretary travels to Iowa City, Iowa, the heartland of America, to announce the Experimental Party and its first initiative, the USA Exquisite Corpse, which will enable Americans to participate directly - in their own communities - in creative acts of freedom of association and the transformational properties of the ceremonies of art.

Secretary Packer, who gave his swearing-in speech in Baltimore, Maryland on November 30, 2001, called on the newly formed US Department of Art & Technology to confront corporate control of mass media, provide immunity from the extension of new technologies into the social sphere, and support those artists who bear the scars of living on the wrong side of the digital divide. At the Transmediale 02 International Festival of Media in Berlin two months ago, Packer declared that Collective Agency is the only possible basis for the full development of our creative life.

In his upcoming visit to Iowa, the hotbed of American politics, Secretary Packer will continue this effort by outlining his plan to launch the  USA Exquisite Corpse, a comprehensive, integrated citizen service initiative. The USA Exquisite Corpse includes three major programs:

(1) To engage citizens directly in celebrating the universal spirit of collective expression; (2) to seek volunteers to help speak oracular truths and the most radically liberating critique of reason; (3) to engage students in acts of appropriation through art and polemic, manifesto and demonstration, love and politics.

As André Breton has said, "perhaps the imagination is on the verge of recovering its rights."

The USA Exquisite Corpse will expand and improve the efforts of the US Department of Art & Technology and its newly formed Experimental Party to recruit more than 200,000 new volunteers. Secretary Packer will demonstrate his support for this effort by requesting more than $560 million in new funding for the USA Exquisite Corpse in his FY 2003 budget.  He will also ensure a high-level Administration focus on this initiative by creating a new USA Exquisite Corpse Council, comprised of the relevant talking heads.

The Citizens' Preparedness Guidebook, to be released in August, will provide procedures and systematic strategems to unlock the door to the unconscious and to give Americans guidance on how to prepare for the release of visual and verbal poetry of collective creativity.

For more information on the USA Exquisite Corpse, go to:

http://www.usdept-arttech.net/USAcorpse

Additional URLs:

US Department of Art & Technology: http://www.usdept-arttech.net

Thaw 2002: http://www.uiowa.edu/~thaw/

Contact: Press Secretary of the US Department of Art & Technology

press@usdept-arttech.net

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