January 24, 2017

Salvaging the litter of the Women's March...

... preserving it as history.
Archival projects aren’t typically spontaneous, but the material was available for only a short window, and the group had to act quickly, [said  Dietmar Offenhuber, an assistant professor of art and design and public policy].

Though many of the signs were funny and creative, said Alessandra Renzi, assistant professor in emergent media, the archive isn’t just about displaying the clever quips, but about understanding the women’s movement and sentiment around the march, she said. "It was one very large mobilization in a country that no longer has very large mobilizations."...

The signs illustrate concern and demands for Mr. Trump’s administration without getting lost in a social-media feed. As activism and democratic movements live increasingly online, physical signs are a rarity....
It's good to preserve protest signs. Not all of them, of course, but this was an example of abandoned signs that had fallen into the category of things people regard as trash and a quick decision to preserve the whole lot. In the end, only the best will be selected and preserved, though I assume the very best — like the one John photographed here — were not abandoned on the street in the first place.

And I didn't know you could be an "emergent media" professor. Is that just another way to say new media?

38 comments:

Amadeus 48 said...

I am sure the large March for Life will receive similar epochal treatment.
It never has before--but maybe this time...Nah!

Danno said...

Not as tidy as after a tea party march. Slobs.

The "perfesser" in the video babbled on without really saying anything and so I couldn't watch it all.

rhhardin said...

It was a women are always upset march.

Really they needed chromosome signs, not genital signs, though.

Curious George said...

"And I didn't know you could be an "emergent media" professor."

Sure here's the recipe:

2 parts pompus jerk
3 part total asshole
1 American University

Voila!

Curious George said...

It wasn't a Women's March
It wasn't even a Leftist Women's March
It was a Leftist's March With Mostly Women

traditionalguy said...

Aborting Emergent people is the real reason for the march. They are 100% against the emergency called birth and children imposed on women by Patriarchs.

campy said...

So considerate of the womyn to leave the mementos of their herstoric event behind for us to worship forever.

Contrast with those teabagging fascists who guiltily removed the evidence of their hate crime events as they slunk away in disgrace.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

"Clean up after yourself; I'm not your maid!"

J said...

Middens do leave clues about behavior don't they.What will this one tell us ?

AllenS said...

Some person's art, is another person's litter.

who-knew said...

"It was one very large mobilization in a country that no longer has very large mobilizations."...

Except for the March for Life that happens every year

Michael K said...

I'm with campy.

Curious George said...

"For example, a black woman at the march held a sign reading, "Black women tried to save yall! #94%." Her sign highlighted that 94 percent of black women voted for the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton (while 53 percent of white women voted for Mr. Trump). The signs demonstrated that the movement, as united as it was, had points of contention."

I would contend that most of the black women voted "black" rather than voted "women." This march wasn't a women's march, it was a leftists march with mostly women. How many black women want open immigration...Muslim Syrian refugees...give a rats ass about LGBT rights. They voted for Obama not Hillary in 2008.

Trump proved that these black and lefty women are politically irrelevant.

urbane legend said...

" And I didn't know you could be an "emergent media" professor. "

This is America. Opportunity is where you find it. And who checks credentials?

LuAnn Zieman said...

The 2017 March for Life is the largest pro-life rally in the world. Mark your calendar for January 27, 2017! This coming weekend! It's entirely possible this is the only way you will ever know it occurred.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

The signs absolutely should be "archived" so they are easy to retrieve for the next stupid march on whatever. How come the same people who threw hissy fits and made plastic shopping bags illegal and made crying Indian commercials to shame the rest of us into seeing litter as evil are inconsiderate lowlifes who leave their protest area with heaping piles of garbage?

Do they not know this too leaves an impression om the public? Where are the yuuuuge "recycle signs here" bins? Maybe we should make a Law about protesting on the Mall and require these asshats to clean up after themselves. Or require all protest signs to be of a specific size and composition, perhaps chalkboards that can be erased and rewritten as needed?

Wince said...

At my last high school reunion there was a poster with all the people in our class that had died. Afterward, the poster was still on the stand and clearly would be thrown out by the staff with all the other decorations. Maybe it was the empty ballroom or the intelligence detracting beers I drank that made me feel as though that would be disrespectful.

So now I have a poster with all the dead members of the high school class in my basement.

Linda said...

I wonder if these signs will be stored in the new State Archive Preservation building near Dickinson St. (along the bike path)?

AllenS said...

Save the signs for fingerprints, then fine the person for littering.

wendybar said...

Good..People in the future will look at those signs and ask what the hell they were protesting for...What rights don't they have????

wendybar said...

AllenS said...
Save the signs for fingerprints, then fine the person for littering.


Love It!!!

Matt Sablan said...

They saved Occupy signs too. It'd be interesting to see Occupy, Women's March and Tea Party signs in an exhibit: Protests of the Early 2010s.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Slobs, pigs, losers, whiners, takers, inconsolable 1st world spoiled brats - it's all good.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Matthew Sablan: They saved Occupy signs too. It'd be interesting to see Occupy, Women's March and Tea Party signs in an exhibit: Protests of the Early 2010s.

You can't.

1. Tea Partiers took their signs home.
2. They aren't "interesting" to archivists.
3. Conservatives have probably already recycled them into other worthwhile projects.

Fernandinande said...

One woman's trash is another man's trash to pick up, and one man's emergent media is another man's twitter account.

That's why one can get a master's degree in twitter.

Jamie said...

Pictures of the astounding amount of litter were unfortunately published too widely, I think - they sent a bad message that had to be countered. Preserving all that litter affords it value and, by extension, signals that the march itself had value.

I'm having a hard time figuring out that value. My women friends who attended (and I keep hearing about them via my husband, who is either stronger or more masochistic than I and dares to go on Facebook at this seriously irritating time) are of two kinds: successful in their own right, or supported financially and emotionally by husbands whose work makes it possible for their women to "follow their bliss." (I'm one of the latter at the moment, though it never would have occurred to me to follow my bliss by marching.) How exactly are we being oppressed? I keep picturing the first-wave and even some second-wave feminists rolling over in their graves (if they're in them) as they see the depths to which this current crop has brought present-day American "feminism".

Could they maybe march to stop human trafficking (of all genders)? Bans and limits on education of girls in so many parts of the world? Rape as a tool of war? Or systematic oppression (of all genders) by governments that draw legitimacy from a particular interpretation of religious teachings? Or, even better, work to change these things instead of walking down a street and then congratulating themselves on their courage and virtue?

Fernandinande said...

rhhardin said...
Really they needed chromosome signs, not genital signs, though.


Joseph Stalin's Humanzee Experiments. Picture looks like a marcher, but might not have 46 chromosomes.

AllenS said...

EDH, myself and a woman high school classmate (class of 1964) make a poster of our classmates who had died for our 50th reunion. She kept it for about 3 weeks, or long enough for one of the classmates who showed up for the reunion died. We knew we'd have to make another for the next reunion.

n.n said...

Catastrophic. Why didn't they telecommute?

Save the environment! Don't pollute.

Peter said...

A scholar would perhaps try to salvage a representative sample of the signs.
An activist would carefully select what is to be salvaged.


So, is our "emergent media" professor a scholar or an activist?
Perhaps she forgot to salvage these?

http://www.dailywire.com/news/12688/these-were-15-stupidest-signs-saturdays-womens-michael-qazvini

Freder Frederson said...

1. Tea Partiers took their signs home.

I don't know about the tea partiers, but I will tell you from personal experience that I was on the Mall in Washington the day after the March for Life a few years ago, and there were abandoned signs and trash all over the place.

To pretend that only leftists are slobs and inconsiderate is just ridiculous.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

"Emergent Media Studies" would seem to describe dynamics; a trajectory; the derivative of "media" w.r.t. time. Why, then, a special effort to preserve artifacts from one event on the curve?

Sydney said...

Is it a historical march if it doesn't accomplish anything?

The Godfather said...

Two things:

1. If it were possible to collect a representative sample of the signs carried in various demonstrations, that could give us a better idea of what they were demonstrating for. The coverage of the Women's March on local and network TV made it seem very family-and-apple-pie, and anti-Trump. The videos I saw on my usual conservative/libertarian websites made it look very hard-left and not very nice. The signs sample might tell us what narrative is more accurate.

2. The video about "emergent" media was a reminder of how much of our technological progress has been directed into trivial matters. There was a time when new technology meant that we could travel farther and faster, that we could build things without back-breaking labor, that we could extend healthy human life. Now, these folks are saying, we can share our random thoughts with more random strangers.

PeterJ said...

Fine for the prof examining the discarded material; but those folks really left a lot of trash behind! Which maintenance people will have to clean up.
Based on previous years, I predict that those who participate in the March for Life next Friday will clean up after themselves.

Anthony said...

The difference between "New" media and "emergent" media: New media gets you an M.A., emergent media, with more syllables, gets you a PhD.

Lost My Cookies said...

I think it's a way to get paid for watching reality TV. This is how I know I'm not super duper smart. I couldn't figure out how to get a job like that. Plus I got my eyes lasered, so I don't wear glasses any more, I drink lite beer, boxed wine and cheap bourbon because I have no palate, and I use the short form of my first name and no initials on my business card. I'm a mess.

damikesc said...

I bet a lot of those women are pro-environment.

I see no point in saving the signs. The MAKERS viewed them as disposable trash and who am I to doubt them?

To pretend that only leftists are slobs and inconsiderate is just ridiculous.

Leftists loudly proclaim to love the environment.