[Seattle-editorial] FP: Whirlmart performances target Wal-marts

[typist at speakeasy.net]

I posted and changed the title to "Performance Art Meets Wal-Mart."  If you don't like new title you can change it.  I just thought it might be more descriptive.

Judy  
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gentry Lange [mailto:g at art13.com]
> Sent: Thursday, October 2, 2003 05:59 AM
> To: 'Editorial'
> Subject: [Seattle-editorial] FP: Whirlmart performances target Wal-marts
> 
> Title: Whirlmart performances target Wal-marts
> Sub: MEDIA LITERACY THROUGH COUNTER CULTURE
> 
> <p>By Kirsten Anderberg
> <p>Whirl-Mart is a participatory, anti-consumerism, performance trend
> started
>   by the <a href="http://www.breathingplanet.net/whirl">Breathing Planet
> Troupe</a>.
>   It is art, performance, ritual, and meditation all in one. The Whirl-Mart
> ritual
>   involves a group silently pushing empty shopping carts through the aisles
> of
>   a superstore, wearing Whirl-Mart smocks. Utilizing tactics of occupation,
> Whirlers
>   call this symbolic spectacle a “collective reclamation of space that is
> otherwise
>   only used for shopping and buying.” Averting outright protest of the
> “emptiness
>   of material consumption,” they instead mimic the absurd shopping PROCESS
> instead!
>   When asked by Wal-Mart employees what they are doing, and knowing that
> protests
>   are not permitted inside Wal-Mart, they respond that they are
> participating
>   in a “consumption awareness ritual,” confusing store employees and
> shoppers
>   alike. And the good news is, Whirl-Mart is coming to a superstore near
> you!
> <p><a
> href="http://seattle.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=34056&group=webcast
> ">Click
>   to read the full story</a>
> 
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