The Media is the Message: Countercultural Political Protest

John Lennon and Yoko Ono met in 1966, married in 1969 and decided to treat their honeymoon in Amsterdam as a ‘Bed-in’ for peace event. Inviting hundreds of reports into their room, where John and Yoko spoke of non-violent ways of protesting wards and promoting peace. That same year they started ‘Acorns for Peace’ where they mailed one acorn each to 96 world leaders asking them to plant it for world peace. Later that year they held another ‘Bed-in’ for peace in Montreal.

John and Yoko’s objective was to use a calm, productive way to handle protest, promoting non-violence without violence. While it may be much harder to be a non-violent protester, I believe that in the end they will be the ones that are heard. However in situations like the G20 Summit, the violent protesters who were torching cop cars and vandalizing storefronts were over powering those that were peacefully protesting. It is very disappointing to know that after the G20 people would refer to ALL the protesters as dangerous crazy people who should all be arrested if they were not already. When in fact, yes there were violent protesters, but there also were peaceful, non-violent protesters who received very little attention, as they were over shadowed. Those that were violent and arrested may have got the media attention but realistically no one wants to hear what they are saying when they are extremely violent and vandalizing everything in sight. But those people take all the attention away from those non-violent protesters.

It is a difficult situation to be non-violent and without exposure, but if you stick by your beliefs, just like John and Yoko, the exposure will come and your message will get out there. It is highly ironic to protest non-violence WITH violence. So don’t! Obviously it helps to be John Lennon and Yoko Ono, but it was the simple fact that they did not resort to violence, they did not spend money (except on the hotel room), they did not do anything totally crazy. They simply sang songs and spoke about their thoughts and beliefs of promoting world peace.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono Bed in for Peace

Protesters at the G20 Summit in Toronto

Intermedia, Performance & Sound Art

Years ago, people woke up to and were surrounded by the sound of birds and other nature. The sound of a songbird acted as music for all. You could sit in your house and not be burdened with the sounds of TV or radio. Walking down the street, driving in your car or shopping were without any sound.

Today we cannot escape sound. The sounds of TV and radio consume our everyday. We have TV’s in more than one room of the house, we have radios in our house, in our cars; even if we are walking on the street, we hear the noise of radios in other cars passing by. We enter a store and the faint noise of a radio enters our ears. Even while we ride an elevator for 30 seconds, bad musak fills the air. What used to be the sound of bird singing is now the sound of the radio. The everyday songbird has not been replaced by the radio, yet just overpowered. There still are the days where you can wake up to the sound of birds singing outside and then there are other days where you wake up to the sound of your radio alarm clock.

Cinematic Reconfigurations of Space and Place

After hearing guest lecturer Dr. Scott Henderson speak about Canadian artist Michael Snow I have a new perspective of Mackenzie Chown Complex at Brock University. For most, Mac Chown is a complicating maze of a building, to first year students – it is a nightmare. Snow helped work with the architect of the building and his intent was to bring people together at the different meeting points of the building. Just like the crossing paths of the building; students from different years and majors would cross paths. With the hope of these people not just passing each other, but sitting down to socialize, there are sitting areas at every meeting point of the hallways. There is never a direct route from point A to point B, and there is never a direct way to meet someone new.

While walking through Mac Chown there are several different pieces of Snow’s art. However, until this presentation some would not even notice the art or even know it was art. There are a variety of paintings on the wall throughout the building, with Snow’s main focus being: framing. A large frame made out of mirror hangs on the wall near block J, I had seen it, and wondered it purpose. The lower part of the mirror was covered by a large glass case, making it hard to realize that the mirror was in fact a frame. After Henderson spoke about Snow, that glass case was actually moved aside and the full mirror frame was visible.

We should be showcasing this work, not hiding it. Not only were we hiding it physically with the glass case for example but we were hiding it by not informing anyone about this art. A well-known Canadian artist has created several different art works at our school, including a building; why are we not proud of this? I find it so fascinating that this “hidden” art exists amongst our school. It is like uncovering this long lost treasure from almost 50 years ago.