features work by nine artists who strategically employ humor as a means to engage political debate, inspire hope and provide momentary respite from the boundless barrage of imperial war vocabulary.

Packard Jennings

Julia Page

Mads Lynnerup

Michael Arcega

Steven Lambert

Kristin Lucas.

Guest Curated by Jackie Sumell.

As San Francisco struggles to maintain itself as the epicenter of progressive thought, this show brings together the work of nine Bay Area artists who strategically employ humor as a means to engage political debate, inspire hope, and provide momentary respite from the boundless barrage of imperial war vocabulary.

As the imperial war machine actively redefines patriotism through compelling propaganda and Überhawk information generators, perhaps never before has it been so important to interrupt the homogenized sentiment of an emotionally paralyzed society and activate political criticism.

As intolerable global realities confine parts of society to a frustrated state of political apathy and threaten progressive momentum A Spoonful of Sugar provides the opportunity to revitalize consciousness and celebrate absurdity.

Kristin Lucas:
The Dispatcher: Carrying Green is a political satire and comedy set in
the near future. New York City is nicknamed The Big Orange after
decades of relentless government-issued orange alert status. The play
chronicles the day-to-day engagements of a radio dispatcher for hire
(private contractor of the airwaves). Among dispatch clientele are a
neighborhood vigilante patrol of canine-identified humans formed out
of a therapeutic support group. They call themselves the Sniff Squad.

The original Sniff Squad patrol debuted in March 2004 for a public
performance on New York's Lower East Side while Lucas was a
participant of the Artists Alliance Rotating Studio Program. The
initial objective was to sniff around for missing civil liberties. The
Sniff Squad characters in this script were also informed by an art
class exercise on University of Texas campus, Spring 2004. The
performance focused on understanding the power and authority that came
with a uniformed presence in a post 9-11 era, balancing canine and
human behavior, inventing jargon and wordplay, setting up and breaking
our own rules as performers on the fly.

This radio play was commissioned by 6th Werkleitz Biennale
(http://www.werkleitz.de/events/biennale2004/index.html/) which took
place September 1 - 5, 2004 in Halle (Salle), Germany under this
year's festival theme Common Property. Written and directed by Kristin
Lucas. Sound recording by Tom Roe at free103point9 studio in
Williamsburg Brooklyn. Animals of the Bible of San Antonio and Zom
Zoms of Austin provided the music.

The Dispatcher: Carrying Green is also streaming at
http://www.pair.com/klucas/radioplay. Visitors to the site can also
download the radio play as an mp3 file.