Participate Downtown

From 6:00 pm to 9 pm, Saturday, August 31, and 9 am to Midnight Monday September 1 and Tuesday, September 2, The UnConvention is alighting in Peavey Plaza in the heart of downtown Minneapolis for 3 days of performances and participatory culture. Join us!

All the time

The following participatory projects will be happening on a more or less continuous basis in Peavey Plaza:

1000 Print Summer, Backbone, Values, Hairstyle, F-30 Pedal Cloud, IF/THEN: Honor Will Never Be Regained, Kulture Klub Art Shanties, Make an Effort, My Yard Our Message, One-on-One Film Festival, Walk in their Shoes

Scheduled events

In addition, the following performances and events have been scheduled:

Time	Sunday, Aug. 31	Monday, Sept. 1	Tuesday, Sept. 2
12:00 pm	Spark24	Free Speech Surrogate	Free Speech Surrogate
1:00 pm	Spark24	Peavey Plaza Projects	Revolutionary Table
2:00 pm	Liberty Parade Spark24	Peavey Plaza Projects	Revolutionary Table
3:00 pm	Spark24	Peavey Plaza Projects	Peavey Plaza Projects
4:00 pm	Spark24	Politaoke	Politaoke
5:00 pm	Peavey Plaza setup	Nobot Free Speech Surrogate	Free Speech Surrogate
6:00 pm	Ripple Effect	Slam Poetry Showcase	Iraq KIA WIA
7:00 pm	JAO painting (7:45 pm)	Peavey Plaza Projects	Peavey Plaza Projects
8:00 pm	Beatrix*Jar Minneapolis Art On Wheels	Minneapolis Art On Wheels	Minneapolis Art On Wheels
9:00 pm	UnConventional TV Minneapolis Art On Wheels	Urban Echo UnConventional TV Minneapolis Art On Wheels	Urban Echo UnConventional TV
10:00 pm	Film: INQ408 Minneapolis Art On Wheels	Film: INQ408 Minneapolis Art On Wheels
11:00 pm	Minneapolis Art On Wheels	Minneapolis Art On Wheels

1000 Print Summer

ArtOrg’s “The 1000 Print Summer” is a project that travels to a dozen different venues making art prints with a steamroller. So far this summer, the project has made 704 prints at such locations such as Northfield, Owatonna, Red Wing, Rochester, and The Walker Art Center. Join both kids and adults at Peavey Plaza as the patterns change from birds and bugs to elephants and donkeys for the Unconvention. It is likely that the magical 1000 print total mark will be passed sometime during this weekend!

Backbone, Values, Hairstyle

This installation consists of a found aluminum voting booth with “circuit-bent” electronic keyboard hardware embedded inside. The participant pushes switches, activating irregular sounds. This draws on the parallel absurdity between motives in voting decisions and the capricious nature of the circuit-bent device. This piece will be installed at the intersection of 11th street and Nicolette Ave, in Peavy Plaza, from August 31 through September 2.

F-30 Pedal Cloud

For Forecast Public Art’s 30th Anniversary celebration—throughout the Twin Cities—the artists of Black Bean Associates designed and built a unique, sculptural, human-powered vehicle.

I Approve This Message

I Approve This Message invites people to create a video in response to questions surrounding the scripted nature of presidential nominations and democracy in general. Entries will be screened nightly as part of UnConvention TV.

IF/THEN: Honor Will Never Be Regained

A set of two leaflets designed for automatic, mechanical distribution utilizing the Labor Camp Message Force Multiplier Instruments.

Iraq KIA WIA

Each month local artist Camille J. Gage sends out an email to a list of volunteers recruiting community members to stand witness to the soldiers killed in action and wounded in action in the war in Iraq.

Kulture Klub Art Shanties

During Sept. 1 and 2 at the Unconvention (Peavey Plaza), Art Shanty Projects and Kulture Klub Collaborative will install a shanty base-camp for various public arts activities. These activities will respond to the unconvention themes of non-partisan intersection of participatory media and participatory democracy by inviting artists and youth experiencing homelessness to engage the public in workshops and presentations including; free workshops where the public creates personalized stenciled lawn signs and flags, as well as letter pressed playbills, guerrilla cinema projections of videos created by homeless teens, Auto ethnographic guided tours led by artist and youth.

Liberty Parade

What does liberty look like? The fine Citizens of Minneapolis and St. Paul are hard at work creating a large scale parade through the heart of Minneapolis on August 31st, 2008. The Libery Parade is a celebration about what liberty means to YOU. Join us after the parade at Loring Park for music, speakers and surprises that will last into the evening.

Liberty Parade passes by the Peavey Plaza reviewing stand around 2:00 pm.

Minneapolis Art on Wheels

Inspired by Graffiti Research Labs, the principal tool of the Minneapolis Art on Wheels project is three Mobile Broadcast Units (MBUs), bicycles combing a video projector, generator, and computer. These mobile media devices allow the Minneapolis Art on Wheels project to leverage mobility, scale and real-time interactive audio-visual software for the purpose of engaging broad audience in creative interaction with mobile media.

My Yard Our Message

This project will solicit political sign designs related to the theme of participatory democracy from artists throughout the world and select the top designs through an online voting process. The selected designs will then be made available via the project Web site to be ordered as a full size political yard sign or downloaded as print it yourself PDF document.

Spark24

A non-stop marathon of free entertainment called “spark24” will kick off at 5 p.m. on Saturday, August 30, 2008 and will continue until 5 p.m. on Sunday, August 31 (the days just preceding the start of the Republican National Convention).

UnConvention TV

UnConvention TV is a series of hour-long broadcasts compiling a variety of projects about art, politics, and being American. It’s the complicated crossroads where art, politics, journalism and public opinion get together a dance a little cha-cha, a conduit to start talking about the issues, our political process, and perhaps the general absurdity of the whole thing.

Urban Echo

Urban Echo is an interactive video projection that aims to collect and creatively represent the thoughts and imaginings of city-dwellers.

Walk In Their Shoes

CODEPINK hopes Walk In Their Shoes will illustrate to politicians and Americans the immense devastation of this war, the tragedy of human loss and help convince them to vote against any extended action in the war and to avoid future wars through diplomacy. The nonprofit group has presented this memorial to more than 20 cities around the country. Thousands of people, including hundreds of delegates, will see the display at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

The UnConvention at Peavey Plaza is presented by Northern Lights and produced by J. Allen Anthony.