There were a lot of things that drew me to Occupy. I didn’t really get involved until late September 2011. Early October is when I really started going a lot and plugging in. I guess I was mostly pulled by the fact that there were so many people trying to build a small model of a different, more beautiful world. The politics were the initial draw, but I stayed because of this heady worldview we all shared and helped build. That’s what really spoke to me and kept me there. I had very little experience with direct democracy and decision making before. That pulled me in. I think that pulled a lot of people in. I loved everything about it—the kitchen, the general assemblies, the comfort, the conversation. We created a really beautiful model.
I guess I was a second wave occupier. The park for me was a place I went to often. I spent a few nights, but I certainly wasn’t a resident. By the time I got involved, I felt like the structures were fairly solidified. I'm a photographer, so I tried dipping my hand in media for a while. I found that I really didn’t have the time or the energy to constantly go to Manhattan to do it. I wasn’t too involved with any core structural stuff when the park was present. Also, at the time, I was working a full-time job that was a bummer. I was working at a fancy restaurant as a food runner. It seemed incredibly at-odds with what I was falling in love with at the park. I later quit my job largely because of Occupy.
Shortly after the eviction, I was a core founder of Occupy Bushwick, which went on to be a really strong general assembly for a while. We organized a march over the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan that drew five or six hundred on May Day 2012. That was really amazing. We also hosted an Occupy Town Square in the park, which involved a lot of activities including free, anonymous legal advise for immigrants. Occupy Bushwick was a general assembly (GA) that met weekly. We had a regular attendance of a dozen to two dozen people. We met in Maria Hernandez Park. It was mostly for people who didn’t have the time or energy or patience to commute to Manhattan and deal with a really large general assembly. We wanted to have a smaller GA where everybody could be heard, where everybody mattered and where we could do things within our community and focus more locally. We took turns preparing food for our weekly meetings, and whoever wanted to join was welcome to. We had some community members join pretty regularly. Occupy Bushwich allowed you to get your "Occupy fix" at home. It was an outlet to plug into and a place to be able to talk politics and dream of a better world with people in your backyard.
The main project that I’ve been involved with under the Occupy Wall Street banner is the Illuminator Collective. We do large scale urban projections on buildings and other facades in support of leftist political activity. We work with unions, non-profits, student organizations and any kind of radical-minded groups that we dig. We’ve been operating out of a modified Astro Van and use a 12,000 lumen projector that’s mounted to a rig that we can crank up and out of the top of the van. We just recently built a bike propelled projection unit called the Green Lumen. It’s a modified NYC pedicab that's stripped down to the bare frame, and we’ve been working with a welding team to build this out. The idea is that there's a driver pedaling in the front and a projectionist in this swivel seat on the back. It’s an amazing project.
Occupy is important because if you look around the world at the state of things domestically and abroad, it’s terrifying. The clock is ticking. We need imminent change. We need a systemic overhaul. We need to rethink a whole lot of the structures that we’ve built as a human race, and that’s not just talking about here in the US. I think we’re seeing the first vibrations of this global consciousness raising change. It’s interesting what a large part the internet is playing in all of this - how it’s helping shape this global change through rapid communication. The work is important because it has to be done. There’s no alternative. We’re currently at a point of late stage capitalism, and we simply can't continue on this trajectory. We’re destroying the earth. We’re destroying ourselves. We need to rethink humanity and rethink the way that we co-exist and build things together and talk about solutions.
I guess I was a second wave occupier. The park for me was a place I went to often. I spent a few nights, but I certainly wasn’t a resident. By the time I got involved, I felt like the structures were fairly solidified. I'm a photographer, so I tried dipping my hand in media for a while. I found that I really didn’t have the time or the energy to constantly go to Manhattan to do it. I wasn’t too involved with any core structural stuff when the park was present. Also, at the time, I was working a full-time job that was a bummer. I was working at a fancy restaurant as a food runner. It seemed incredibly at-odds with what I was falling in love with at the park. I later quit my job largely because of Occupy.
Shortly after the eviction, I was a core founder of Occupy Bushwick, which went on to be a really strong general assembly for a while. We organized a march over the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan that drew five or six hundred on May Day 2012. That was really amazing. We also hosted an Occupy Town Square in the park, which involved a lot of activities including free, anonymous legal advise for immigrants. Occupy Bushwick was a general assembly (GA) that met weekly. We had a regular attendance of a dozen to two dozen people. We met in Maria Hernandez Park. It was mostly for people who didn’t have the time or energy or patience to commute to Manhattan and deal with a really large general assembly. We wanted to have a smaller GA where everybody could be heard, where everybody mattered and where we could do things within our community and focus more locally. We took turns preparing food for our weekly meetings, and whoever wanted to join was welcome to. We had some community members join pretty regularly. Occupy Bushwich allowed you to get your "Occupy fix" at home. It was an outlet to plug into and a place to be able to talk politics and dream of a better world with people in your backyard.
The main project that I’ve been involved with under the Occupy Wall Street banner is the Illuminator Collective. We do large scale urban projections on buildings and other facades in support of leftist political activity. We work with unions, non-profits, student organizations and any kind of radical-minded groups that we dig. We’ve been operating out of a modified Astro Van and use a 12,000 lumen projector that’s mounted to a rig that we can crank up and out of the top of the van. We just recently built a bike propelled projection unit called the Green Lumen. It’s a modified NYC pedicab that's stripped down to the bare frame, and we’ve been working with a welding team to build this out. The idea is that there's a driver pedaling in the front and a projectionist in this swivel seat on the back. It’s an amazing project.
Occupy is important because if you look around the world at the state of things domestically and abroad, it’s terrifying. The clock is ticking. We need imminent change. We need a systemic overhaul. We need to rethink a whole lot of the structures that we’ve built as a human race, and that’s not just talking about here in the US. I think we’re seeing the first vibrations of this global consciousness raising change. It’s interesting what a large part the internet is playing in all of this - how it’s helping shape this global change through rapid communication. The work is important because it has to be done. There’s no alternative. We’re currently at a point of late stage capitalism, and we simply can't continue on this trajectory. We’re destroying the earth. We’re destroying ourselves. We need to rethink humanity and rethink the way that we co-exist and build things together and talk about solutions.
I guess in the short term, speaking of system change, I hope to one day live in an America that is not capitalist. I hope to live in an America that isn’t so cutthroat and shallow, an America that is more humanistic towards its own people and the rest of the world. I love this country very much. I love Americans. I think we’re really strong-willed people. We are people who are willing to work hard. There are just great forces at work against what the people really want. The kind of world I hope to bring about is a world that isn’t focused on money or growth. I'd like to see a world that’s focused on humanity and sustainability. I’d like to bring about a world that’s more compassionate, a world that communicates, that prizes its humankind over gross domestic product.
Maybe more people should be living and working collectively in smaller environments. I think that’s how we should organize ourselves in general—smaller groups. It seems silly to have structures where an individual or a small team of people are making decision for the masses, and everyone just has to say, “Well, I disagree with that decision, but as I’m a part of this, I'll just go with it.” That’s a really archaic way of living. It’s all about local organization. I suppose that would be my ideal utopic future. Of course, I don’t know what it would look like exactly. We’d have to figure it out. It would be built according to needs. Everything is built to function under the current system, so it would be hard to re-envision how that could actually look in the real world. What would that look like? Well, people would be "working" a lot less. I think the current way that we work in unbelievably weird and distancing. It’s terrible really. I’d like to see the definition of work shift. That’s become a really important part of life for me. Work is helping your neighbor. Work is loving someone. Work is raising your children and being there for them in a really meaningful way. It’s sad that we neglect or have outsourced so many of these really important aspects of our lives.
We work a lot, make money, buy things we don't need, and repeat and repeat and repeat. All of these things we buy and upgrade to seem to just be a substitute, filling the void of a lack of what actually matters in our lives. I’d like to see a world in which people focus less on these trivialities and focus more on themselves, their well-being, the well-being of those that they love, and the well-being of those in their communities. I actually think it’s not that hard but these things take a lot of time. It's really easy to think, “Oh my god, there’s this big thing happening. Why isn’t everyone changing right now.” I saw this a lot within Occupy. It really takes time for people’s minds to change, and the only way is by reaching the hearts of a generation. You can’t do it with guns. Even if we had a well-armed, well-intentioned force of people who were willing to stand up to the powers that be, it wouldn’t work. The only way to really change people is to reach their hearts and minds, and that’s slow going, but that’s the process. That’s what we have to keep in mind and focus on.
Maybe more people should be living and working collectively in smaller environments. I think that’s how we should organize ourselves in general—smaller groups. It seems silly to have structures where an individual or a small team of people are making decision for the masses, and everyone just has to say, “Well, I disagree with that decision, but as I’m a part of this, I'll just go with it.” That’s a really archaic way of living. It’s all about local organization. I suppose that would be my ideal utopic future. Of course, I don’t know what it would look like exactly. We’d have to figure it out. It would be built according to needs. Everything is built to function under the current system, so it would be hard to re-envision how that could actually look in the real world. What would that look like? Well, people would be "working" a lot less. I think the current way that we work in unbelievably weird and distancing. It’s terrible really. I’d like to see the definition of work shift. That’s become a really important part of life for me. Work is helping your neighbor. Work is loving someone. Work is raising your children and being there for them in a really meaningful way. It’s sad that we neglect or have outsourced so many of these really important aspects of our lives.
We work a lot, make money, buy things we don't need, and repeat and repeat and repeat. All of these things we buy and upgrade to seem to just be a substitute, filling the void of a lack of what actually matters in our lives. I’d like to see a world in which people focus less on these trivialities and focus more on themselves, their well-being, the well-being of those that they love, and the well-being of those in their communities. I actually think it’s not that hard but these things take a lot of time. It's really easy to think, “Oh my god, there’s this big thing happening. Why isn’t everyone changing right now.” I saw this a lot within Occupy. It really takes time for people’s minds to change, and the only way is by reaching the hearts of a generation. You can’t do it with guns. Even if we had a well-armed, well-intentioned force of people who were willing to stand up to the powers that be, it wouldn’t work. The only way to really change people is to reach their hearts and minds, and that’s slow going, but that’s the process. That’s what we have to keep in mind and focus on.
Many people in this country don’t even have time to think about these alternatives or to plug into something that allows them or encourages them to explore alternatives. Capitalism keeps people down. It’s designed to do that. It’s designed to maintain an unthinking, politically-disinterested working class. You were asking me what I want the world to look like, but I think it’s so hard to imagine that world because even if we did create it, even if New York City was transformed into some autonomous zone where we were organizing ourselves in small groups in an anarchist way, if somehow that actually happened, this world is so big. There are six billion people. There are other forces. It’s so hard. Short of sounding silly, I don’t want to make a grand statement about how things will be because I really have no idea. We'll have to figure that out together.
I think a very concrete, very realistic step we can take as Americans right now is a big step towards socialism. It's apparent that we're beginning to embrace more socialistic programs right now, and that's happening little by little. I think that’s a really positive step in the right direction. Maybe in the near future, when this utilitarian political thinking has become the norm, we as a society can start returning to a lot of the visions we had within Occupy Wall Street—horizontal organizing, smaller communities, weakened corporate power. Perhaps the next generation can embrace that. Again, I think change takes a very long time. I just hope we have the time.
I think a very concrete, very realistic step we can take as Americans right now is a big step towards socialism. It's apparent that we're beginning to embrace more socialistic programs right now, and that's happening little by little. I think that’s a really positive step in the right direction. Maybe in the near future, when this utilitarian political thinking has become the norm, we as a society can start returning to a lot of the visions we had within Occupy Wall Street—horizontal organizing, smaller communities, weakened corporate power. Perhaps the next generation can embrace that. Again, I think change takes a very long time. I just hope we have the time.
A great way that we as individuals can start building a better world now is by creating and supporting alternatives. Join a collective. Start a collective. Build something that serves others. Build something that nourishes your soul. Work for money because we have to, but do it in a way that feels good and that doesn’t exploit others. There are lots of ways that we can begin to see this change within ourselves, and in a way, I think that’s really the only way to change the world - by changing yourself. I think that’s what's really important right now. Plug into good stuff!
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/