Sunday shoppers on Ste. Catherine street were startled by a cacophony of voices. Rising above the din of consumerism, a chorus of profound human anger and frustration arose, voiced by hundreds of demonstrators furious with the overnight death of over 270 people in Gaza, killed by Israeli bombs. Traffic snarled as the street was transformed [...]
Last week, OTL finally got a letter from the Ville Marie borough. If this is their idea of a Christmas present, it’s definitely one that we’d like to exchange. It’s in response to our question about the giant billboard from Time2Ad on The Main, asking just what the city was going to do about it. [...]
I’ve played in many culture-jams, but never as a videographer and never in a city I was visiting for the first time in my life. That changed last spring, when I was part of a culture-jam at Tim Hortons in Rimouski. Since 2002, OTL has offered a workshop called Revolutionary Theatre: Culture-Jamming and Theatrical Activism. [...]
By now everyone has seen the video or at very least heard the story of how Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi threw not one but two shoes at George W. Bush. Most people have probably also seen some of the parodies and offshoots (forgive the pun) circulating around the internet. There’s even a game! What you [...]
Every activist knows that even the most anti-corporate jam can be co-opted by commercial interests. Usually this involves some sort of subversion or re-appropriation of the techniques used but every now and then, the co-option is nothing more than sticking a corporate identity where it doesn’t belong. A few years ago OTL culture-jammed PartyPoker.net who [...]
On the occasion of today’s Quebec election and in honour of the difficulties Stephen Harper is presently facing in Ottawa, we present a mock press conference we performed with UTIL (l’Unité Théâtral d’Interventions Loufoques) on the back of a flatbed truck before an anti-war march in the freezing cold, March 2006. First, the guest of [...]
Last year, it was a clever, creative warning of what was to come if we didn’t curb our over-consumptive ways. This year, it seems like the prophecy of the Shopocaypse is coming true, if you follow international business news, anyways What Would Jesus Buy is a film that chronicles NYC theatre activist Reverend Billy and [...]
Buy Nothing Day is an international challenge to our oversaturated, unsustainable consumer culture. For the past five years, Optative Theatrical Laboratories has challenged this glut with guerilla theatre culture jams at places like McDonald’s, Starbucks and more recently Chartwells. Mass consumption wouldn’t be possible without the banks and this year, the greed of those institutions [...]
With this year’s Buy Nothing Day only four days away, here’s a look back at The Chartwells Tour, a theatrical jam performed by OTL and Uberculture Concordia last BND to challenge the monopolizing University food service provider controlled by Compass Group Canada. Chartwells not only runs all the cafeterias at Concordia and McGill Universities, as [...]
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