Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} A Guidebook of Alternative Nows by Amber Hickey A Guidebook of Alternative Nows by Amber Hickey. A Guidebook of Alternative Nows. Amber Hickey- editor. A Guidebook of Alternative Nows is a collaboratively created book. 34 visionary creative thinkers and makers contributed to this book which illuminates ways of devising more socially, economically, and ecologically just versions of now . Other worlds are possible, but only if we exercise the proper care towards their emergence. - SPURSE. Risk-taking is not a solo act. - Temporary Services. The culture of death needs to be jammed. - The Yes Men. Paperback book with alternative covers (stickers with two different designs) Editor : Amber Hickey. Designer: Angelina Köpplin. Cover Art: Mary Tremonte. download Guidebook in pdf form for free. Alex Kemman (The Valreep Collective) , Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens , Artist Bailout Collective , Billy Mark , Cheyenna Weber (SolidarityNYC) , Antonio Scarponi (Conceptual Devices) , Critical Art Ensemble , Ethan Miller , Fallen Fruit (David Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young) , Georg Hobmeier and Tommy Noonan , Howling Mob Society , Jeanne van Heeswijk , Jenny Cameron , Johannes Grenzfurthner (Monochrom) , Marc Herbst and Christina Ulke (Journal of Aesthetics & Protest Editorial Collective) , Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative , Ken Ehrlich and Kate Johnston , Llano Del Rio Collective , New Social Art School , Platform , Rori Knudtson (School of Critical Engagement) , Santiago Cirugeda (Recetas Urbanas) , Sasha Costanza-Chock , SPURSE , swearonourfriendship , T.J. Demos , Temporary Services , The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination , Precarious Workers Brigade , The Vacuum Cleaner , The Yes Men , TradeSchool.coop , UrbanFarmers , Watts House Project . Concept: Amber Hickey Editor: Amber Hickey Graphic Design: Angelina Köpplin Cover Art: Mary Tremonte Publisher: The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press, 2012. Printed Book Price: $30- When possible, revenue from book sales will be split equally among all parties involved. (34 contributors, 1 cover artist, 1 graphic designer, 1 editor, 1 publisher, and 1 distributor/shop) 266 Pages Color 17 x 24 centimeters (6.7 x 9.45 inches) Paperback. Jeanne van Heeswijk - Freehouse title page. Jeanne van Heeswijk - Freehouse. "Freehouse is a project that is based on cultural production as a means for economic growth." Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination - Geographies of Hope title page. Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination - Geographies of Hope. "When people ask why you are resigning, I tell them that you are going to start a 'Utopian Community.' I say all the words." Cheyenna Weber (SolidarityNYC)- Economics for the Rest of Us title page. Cheyenna Weber (SolidarityNYC) - Economics for the Rest of Us. "Solidarity economics often gets hidden by the traditional narrative." Fallen Fruit - How to Have a Public Fruit Jam title page. Fallen Fruit - How to Have a Public Fruit Jam. "The Public Fruit Jam has a radiant quality echoing the symbolic qualities of fruit: goodness, bounty and sweetness." A Guidebook of Alternative Nows by Amber Hickey. It can be hard to envision a hopeful future in politically dark times. People are overworked and stressed from a constant attack on civil liberties, rising income inequality, and impending climate disaster. Writers and researchers have responded to this hopelessness with frameworks that leverage today’s uncertainties to imagine tomorrow’s possibilities. Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown describe “visionary fiction” in their book Octavia’s Brood as the work that organizers and activists do when they struggle tirelessly to create and envision another world (brown & Imarisha, 2015). Max Haiven researches the “radical imagination,” writing that it’s a collective political imagination that brings dreams back from the future to inspire action today (Haiven & Khasnabish, 2014). Yet based on personal experiences, pointing to utopia without addressing sources of hopelessness can lead to a replication of systems of power, burnout, and despair. This work grew out of a series of visioning workshops imagining a future where artists could be a force of anti-displacement instead of agents of gentrification. Working on these issues, while Seattle topped the lists of the fastest growing cities in the United States, led to feelings of hopelessness and eventual burnout. Recently, I have come to see this as indicative of “cruel optimism,” what Lauren Berlant analogizes as believing you are swimming towards a beautiful horizon, when in actuality you are “dogpaddling around a space whose contours remain obscure” (Berlant, 2011). Hope on the horizon is not enough; we must also examine the systems of power that foreclose the future’s possibilities. Rehearsing Power sprang from the realization that in order to make headway and adjust the course toward an achievable future, we need to address the systems of oppression that created experiences of shame held in the body and subconscious. This workshop is an ongoing participatory research project that examines how movement practices can shift one’s relationship with the future, and it identifies experience as source material to leverage for imagining and embodying tomorrow’s possibilities. It combines visioning tools, design thinking, anti-oppression, and performance workshop techniques to provide a framework to explore how we can use our bodies to shift our relationship with hope. This work & publication serves as a starting point that shares methods, movement scores, and resources to aid people interested in facilitating similar work with their own communities. Each iteration of the workshop is adapted in response to collaborators, participants, and institutional partners, creating a constantly evolving and shape-shifting process. As we learn our way through this work we continually ask: How can past moments of hopelessness be leveraged to imagine new possibilities? How can movement practices be used to change one’s relationship to the future? By formalizing our process and conversations in this publication, our hope is that this work's ideas can be used, adapted, and discussed by groups of friends, colleagues, artists, dancers, cooperatives, activists, unions, or any group that is working toward alternative visions of tomorrow. Notes on Movement. Movement practices are essential to this work. Our body has a natural way of processing difficult moments in our lives, but many times our inability to physically act or respond causes experiences to be lodged in the body. By engaging our nervous systems and examining past moments of hopelessness alongside longings for the future, our body can create new pathways for information to be processed. Through the continued collective practice of vulnerability and activating our social engagement nervous systems, we can contribute to our resilience while making space for future hope and disappointment. This workshop relies heavily on tools and techniques developed by somatic practitioners, more information can be found in the "Resources" section below. Workshop Guide. Resources. It is essential for us to acknowledge and recognize that all of these ideas, scores, and tools have been borrowed, inspired by, or deeply influenced by the sweat and labor of others. Below is a non-exhaustive collection of references, resources, and suggested readings of our influences. A Guidebook of Alternative Nows by Amber Hickey. A GUIDEBOOK OF ALTERNATIVE NOWS. A Guidebook of Alternative Nows is a collaboratively created book. 34 visionary creative thinkers and makers contributed to this book which illuminates ways of devising more socially, economically, and ecologically just versions of now . “Other worlds are possible, but only if we exercise the proper care towards their emergence.” - SPURSE. “Risk-taking is not a solo act.” - Temporary Services. “The culture of death needs to be jammed.” - The Yes Men. “It is time to launch the largest explosion of practical experimentation that our society has ever seen.” - Ethan Miller. “…Building an 'alternative' is always an act of hope, it’s an embodied refusal of the present which unblocks the reigning paralysis fostered by apocalyptic predications of the future. It is a lot easier to imagine the world ending than changing it for the better because there is always comfort in thinking we know what will happen. Ultimately to act from a place of hope is to let go of certainty and to trust that the greatest potential lies within the unknowable.” - The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination. Publisher: The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press, 2012 Concept: Amber Hickey Editor: Amber Hickey Graphic Design: Angelina Köpplin Cover Art: Mary Tremonte. Paperback book with two alternative covers, 266 pages, Color, 17 x 24 centimeters (6.7 x 9.45 inches). The Book. An independently published open book exploring the visions, actions, tools and impacts of change agents, thinkers and ‘happeners’ (those who make things happen!). It shows the creative processes and tools for designing positive societal transitions. These transitions are revealed by showing the new hybrid relationships being forged between alternative approaches to learning, living, making, socialising, thinking and working. Agents of Alternatives enables professionals, amateurs and citizens to understand the rich possibilities of creating and designing together in open, participatory and imaginative ways. It provides an integrated and systemic collection of case studies, essays and interviews from well-known international contributors and local activists, collated by an international team of editors. AIMS OF THE BOOK: – challenge and refresh existing world views – celebrate the diverse agents designing alternatives such as organizers, artists, designers, volunteers, activists, entrepreneurs and many more – encourage actions by providing tools and know-how in highly visual ways – analyse and link up all content to provide more holistic views – give food for thought and energy for action! WHO IS IT FOR? You will find Agents of Alternatives an essential reference for EVERYONE who wishes to become part of positive societal change. It is especially relevant if you are a social change agent wanting to apply new design and creative processes, or if you are a designer, artist or architect seeking to lever social change. Teachers, students, activists, alternative life-stylers, citizens and anyone who wishes to create more meaningful ways of living, working and playing, will find stimulation and practical tools in the pages of this book. WHO IS IT BY? An amazing diversity of over 50 international and local contributors, coordinated by an editing team. Here a preview of our contributors: Interviews with: Francesca Weber-Newth & Isolde Nagel on the Community Lover’s Guide to Berlin; Cecilia Palmer on the DIY-fashion workshop initiative Fashion Reloaded; Elisa Garrote-Gasch on Repair Café Kreuzberg, Berlin; Amber Hickey on the book A Guidebook of Alternative Nows; Maya Indira Ganesh and Gaby Sobliye on the information advocacy organization Tactical Technology Collective; Frauke Hehl & Antonia Schui on the workstation ideenwerkstatt e.V.; Cordula Andrä on the intentional community ZEGG, Centre of Experimental Cultural and Social Design; Caleb Waldorf, Fotini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga and Fiona Gueß on the self-organized learning project Public School; Daphne Büllesbach & Luisa Maria Schweizer on the civil society organization European Alternatives e.V.; Diana Krabbendam on the design agency The Beach; Tiina-Kaisa Laakso- Liukkonen on the project Design Driven City, Helsinki; Marcin Jakubowski, Open Source Ecology & Global Village Construction Set; and Corinna Fuchs and David Griedelbach on the slow-working space Thinkfarm. Essays by: Frigga Haug, philosopher and sociologist on new visions of work; Valerie A. Brown & John Harris on the role of aesthetic thinking in the collective mind; Martin Parker, co-author of the book Dictionary of Alternatives ; David Bollier, author of the book Think Like a Commoner; Michel Bauwens, founder of the peer-to-peer initiative P2P-Foundation; Otto von Busch, fashion hacker and activist on his fashion project >Self_Passage<; Benjamin Becker, Stefanie Gernert, Bernd Kniess, Ben Pohl and Anna Richter of the 5-year-experiment University of the Neighbourhoods; Cindy Kohtala, doctoral researcher of the Maker movement; and the contributing editors – Alastair Fuad-Luke on design activism and design for social innovation; Anja-Lisa Hirscher on participation in making; and Katharina Moebus on mutual learning. For more info on our contributors and case studies, please check out their short biographies here. The editing team: It is assembled by a team of international contributing editors from art and design education, practice and activism – Alastair Fuad-Luke, Anja- Lisa Hirscher and Katharina Moebus. The editors have previous published works including Design Activism and The Eco-design Handbook and chapters in a range of books including: Helsinki Beyond Dreams; Sustainable Fashion; The Sustainable Design Handbook; Longer Lasting Products ; and Designers, Visionaries and Other Stories and all taught and researched at Aalto University’s Department of Design. The co-editors are all active in contributing to and co-organising diverse projects and blogs – see Make , Mode Uncut, Trade School Berlin and Window874. TECHNICAL INFO: – written by over 50 international contributors and contributions by the sponsors – co-edited by Alastair Fuad-Luke, Anja-Lisa Hirscher & Katharina Moebus – the first SPECIAL edition of 500 copies with unique numbering – published by Agents of Alternatives e.V., Berlin, Germany under a Creative Commons licence – 480 pages, full colour, 24 x 17 cm – includes essays, interviews and case studies – language: English. You can download a preview here. We ran a crowdfunding campaign on Sponsume throughout April and May 2014 to pre-fund the production of this book. A HUGE thank you to all of our Sponsume sponsors! a blog on books. Amber Hickey (Zurich, Switzerland) is creating an amazing art book. I thought you'd like to know about this book project! "A Guidebook of Alternative Nows" is a collaboratively created book with over 30 contributions by visionary creative thinkers and makers that illuminates ways contemporary artists, activists and others are devising more socially, economically, and ecologically just versions of “now.” A Guidebook of Alternative Nows is not intended to pinpoint the next big solution. Instead, it seeks to shed light on a cacophony of potentialities and realities, all of which may compose a part of our nows and our futures. The book will act as a platform, encouraging the awareness of and engagement in “alternative nows.” As editor, my conviction is that by uniting these diverse but related beacons, readers will have a foundation for strengthening the ties between these different versions of now, and adding to the web of possibilities. This book could catalyze paths towards change – it will certainly offer a more hopeful and democratic panorama of the present and future. You can pre-order the book or get other neat rewards by making a pledge at this link: