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What is a Whirl-Mart?
The action is comprised of a group of anti-shoppers ranging in size from 1 to 50 members. The ritual consists of activists/actors arriving at a Wal-Mart, Toys-R-Us or another chain superstore at 12-noon on the first Saturday or Sunday of the month and proceeding to push empty shopping carts slowly and silently through the aisles. Eventually, all of the participants locate one another and form a single-file chain of anti-shoppers which weaves, wanders, and whirls throughout the store for about an hour. It is a collective reclamation of space that is otherwise only used for buying and selling. It is a symbolic display of the will to resist the capitalist ideology.
'Whirl-Mart' is an experiment that can be approached from several different angles. As a work of art, it examines and blurs the boundaries that have been established between performance art, protest, living sculpture, and direct action. As an action of resistance, it utilizes the power of silence in occupying private consumer-dominated space with a symbolic spectacle. As a ceremony, it is a counter-ritual to shopping that transforms the super-store and its wall-to-wall array of products into a surreal and colorful cathedral. And what the heck-- it's just darned fun!
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National & Worldwide
Whirl-Mart Ritual Resistance International Whirl-Mart HQ World Changing Models, Tools, and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future Critical Mass Critical Mass is not an organization, it's an unorganized
coincidence. It's a movement ... of bicycles, in the streets. Rev Billy's Church of Stop Shopping Lots of great scripts from/for performance interventions
with a heavy focus on Starbucks. Commerce
Jamming Commerce Jamming source page. AdBusters A global network of those who want to advance the new social
activist movement of the information age. Commercial Alert wants to keep commercial culture within
its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting
the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and
democracy. No Media Kings Jim Munroe's guide to doin' it for yourself Booksense.com Internet book search that sends your order to your nearest
independent bookstore. Starbucks Delocator Search that helps you locate locally owned alternatives to Starbucks
Media
The Independent Media Center is a network of collectively run media
outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of the truth Project of the Independent Media Institute, a nonprofit
organization dedicated to strengthening and supporting independent and
alternative journalism. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the first to identify
threats to our basic rights online and to advocate on behalf of free expression
in the digital age. Declan
McCullagh's Politech Politech is the moderated mailing list of politics and technology.
Topics include privacy, free speech, the role of government and corporations,
antitrust, and more. MediaChannel.org The global network for democratic media.
PLUS the News Dissector's Weblog. CorpWatch.org counters corporate-led globalization through education,
network-building and activism.
SAN FRANCISCO — Retailer Gap Inc. (GPS) Thursday said
January sales at stores open at least a year rose 16 percent and
forecast quarterly earnings above Wall Street expectations on good
results from its holiday merchandise and a more favorable tax rate.
The No. 1 U.S. clothing chain company forecast fourth quarter earnings
of 23 cents to 29 cents a share helped by a full-year tax rate of 39
percent to 42 percent. This was below the 47 percent rate it estimated
during its third quarter earnings call. The lower rate was due in part
to 'favorable resolution' of some tax audits and improved earnings
performance, it said in a statement.
Maybe you pick a weekend afternoon, when the store is
swarming with Gap employees and their plastic smiles. Even better are
the slow periods, when the workers are dormant, awoken only by the
sound of opening doors. On a busy day, you can enter all at once,
fanning out as the Gap staff scramble to identify which of you might
have the highest credit limit. On a slow day, you go in one at a time,
timing your progress with a stopwatch to decide who lasts the longest.
Either way, the goal is to enter through the main doors and beeline for
the furthest wall. A single, cheery “Welcome to the Gap” or “How may I
help you?” and you're out. Tagged. Done like dinner. It can all be over
with a simple “Hello.”
If you make the back door, you're only halfway through.You slap a
sticker on the wall as your marker (“Mind the Gap” is a popular
choice), then try to make it back out the front door, again without
being “greeted.” If you escape, check your time. The fastest turnaround
wins the game.
Maybe you'd prefer to heighten the stakes. You're tagged? Now you have
to try to convince the employee who caught you that he should quit his
job. Or maybe you have to try to trade the clothes you're wearing for
new ones. Or climb onto a counter and give a one-minute speech on the
pitfalls of modern consumer culture.
MediaChannel.org
