undergroundzero festival 2014
Center for Marooned Citizens is open July 12th, 2014 through July 15, 2014.
 

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Center Hours of Operation and Locations

Many thanks to all who've participated in the Center for Marooned Citizens, due to bad weather the last two days the Prophecy has been put temporarily on hold while we look over our data collected thus far and see if we can schedule another performance or two before the end of Undergroundzero on July 20th.
In the meantime, be sure to check out the other amazing performances happening as part of the festival!

PPL (Brian McCorkle and Esther Neff) perform CENTER FOR MAROONED CITIZENS as part of the Undergroundzero festival.

Saturday July 12 1:00pm – 8:00pm OUTSIDE ON THE STREET: The New Museum 235 Bowery
Sunday July 13 1:00pm - 8:00pm OUTSIDE ON THE STREET: ABC No Rio 156 Rivington
Monday July 14 4:00pm to 8:00pm OUTSIDE ON THE STREET: Clemente Soto Vélez Educational and Cultural Center 107 Suffolk
Tuesday July 15 4:00pm to 8:00pm OUTSIDE ON THE STREET: Abrons Arts Center 466 Grand St
Facebook Event HERE.

The card most selected by participants on July 13th was:

27 people participated in the second day of CfMC
8 explicitly declined to participate
8 just wanted to have a conversation

 

The card most selected by participants on July 12th was:

26 people participated in the first day of CfMC
11 explicitly declined to participate
4 just wanted to have a conversation

Undergroundzero Manifesto

A ZERO BUDGET MANIFESTO – TOWARDS A PRICELESS THEATRE
by Paul Bargetto

We are doing this for free. We are giving it away.
It is our radical act – our revolutionary gift
not a poor theatre – but a priceless one

We played and lost in the great fixed game
smashed our heads on the glass ceiling
fell hard for the long con called merit
wrote grants on three card monte
got hooked, and strung out on M.F.A.
a generation of debt junkies, we chased our angry fix
and ended in the towers hung from a tie – or emigrated
in trust funds you trust – not us

the not-for-profit system is a relic of slavery

What AIDS started, gentrification is finishing

but not just yet!!!
we will act in the half bleached streets
of our dear, lost downtown
joyful heretics dancing at the stake -
not for sale, not a product, not for sale, not a product
sugar plum fairies who gave it all away

We challenge you great Moloch – to a downtown dustup!
we fought over your crumbs, whored in your casino,
stabbed each other in the face – oh how many times!
to remake ourselves in your image,
staged zombie theatre for zombie audiences
as knights of the living dead
then we danced the hustle, becoming what we do

No More! One last time! Fix flowers! Over the top now boys and girls!
We are fertilizer bombs! Intrinsic values tattooed on our tongues!
The quick! The immortal in the moment!
Now into the breach! Molotovs in the Marketplace!
none of your Fucking Business~!!

Public Arts! Public Culture! Public Sacrifice! Public Good!

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!
for sweet, sublime, dirty, creative, stinking,
fecund, poor, priceless, dangerous, immigrant, sexy,
ethnic, sacred, queer, New York!

Documentation

July 13th, 2014 (photos by Robert Zott)


 

July 12th, 2014 (photos by Uta Brauser)


 

The booth used for the CenterCenter for Marooned CitizensTarot cards used at the Center

The Prophecy






"AMERICA IS IN A PERIOD OF DECAY AND CORRUPTION BASED IN SUPERPOWER DISASTER"





Hold your mouse over each part of the graph to see the statement to which people answered "True"






"YOU SHOULD SELL FREE LEMONADE"










"REALIST PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT"










"FEELING STRONG EMOTIONS IS WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL HUMAN"










"DON'T BRING CHILDREN INTO THIS WORLD"










"HUMBLE YOURSELF, PLAY THE GAME"










"SLACK: BEING ABLE TO DO THE MOST WHILE DOING THE LEAST"










"IS CHARITY INTRINSIC? NO MONETARY SYSTEM DEMANDS IT"










"PRIMATES PICK NITS"










"DIRECT ACTION LIKE FOOD OR A BED IS MORE VALUABLE THAN ART"






"IS THIS SURVEY ABOUT SEX?"





We get it: New York City is hyper-gentrified.

This is nowhere more apparent then in the former tenement enclave turned punk paradise becomes yuppie central. There are many locals still in the Lower East Side holding it down, but for each one there is a story of eviction, exclusion, and despair. Gentrification’s effects on the people of the LES is not just financial, it is also psychological and emotional, cutting into the roots of human self-worth and senses of self and finally shifting culture across spheres, levels, and forms of community. What is the role of art in all of this? How can art be made when the ability to make anything at all has been so significantly replaced by hegemonic commerciality?

Constructive Critique of Information as such:

Institutions and many social arts projects collect data in hopes of arguing for their own cultural value and designing their operating procedures. By and large, metrics are used to prove functional worth of programs and systems; data about populations and demographic portraits of individuals are perceived as viable (scientific, if not democratic) ways of making decisions for groups of human beings. PPL takes on the idea of justifying value and worth via a process of subjective information-gathering but we use the second definition of “metrics:” the use or study of poetic metre, those rhythms which stresses and structures to turn thought and language into art. Thus, our results are poetic, subjective, both unvaluable and invaluable, a Prophecy rather than a Grant or Program.

We Know We Make No Sense

  • In contrast with our “ironic” tone and absurdist appropriation of institutional framing language, we note that an actual study with the mission outlined in our “About” section might be able to produce results that could be considered "useful" or “valuable” in some circles.
  • However, being performance artists, we instead focus on processes and practices, not on productivity/production/results.
  • Our objective is to gather marooned ideas, beliefs, energies, experiences, not in order to functionally use them, but rather to center them temporarily and site-specifically, as right/rite and ritual.
  • The resultant Prophecy may make no sense at all, but non-sense is exactly that which resists “sensible” “progress.”

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Date updated: July 10th, 2014