from »The Refusal«
Even heroic refusals often aren’t that heroic though some are more heroic than others.– Anne Boyer
In memoriam, Tony Conrad
Or by hugging the cops
Or by posing with them in photos
Or by cooking them a hot meal
Or by standing beside them and farting
Or by pining away for G. W. Bush publicly
Or by kissing a bust of him and serenading him with a guitar
Or by blocking the way of traffic
Or by standing in front of the cops hurling insults, maybe bottles, maybe rocks, maybe Molotov cocktails
Or by wearing a handkerchief for the tear gas and throwing the canisters back at the cops
Or by writing a song and playing it for the others
Or by writing a poem and reading it for the others
Or by dancing with or for others
Or by linking arms and marching (as though this were a dance you had choreographed)
Or by holding meetings, studying together, discussing strategy
Or by starting to plan
Or by stockpiling arms
Or by forming an alliance
Or by splintering into sects
Or by branching into affinity groups
Or by exposing your own body to harm in hopes that this will produce an image of unjustified cruelty, of the law not acting as it should
Or by inspiring pathos and empathy in whoever may see the photograph or the video of your body being harmed
Or by touching another’s body, a body the larger society would not like you to touch in that way
Or by refusing to work
Or in the body itself refusing to work
Or by going to work but destroying the tools
Or by going to work but not doing the things you’re supposed to, instead maybe writing a poem
Or by going to work and writing email and chatting on Gchat and reposting links on Facebook
Or by disseminating internal memos among your friends
Or by leaking sensitive information
Or by finding out everyone’s email passwords and reading their email
Or by napping
Or by taking drugs while on the clock
Or by changing the structure form «within» laying claim to power so as to alter its expression
Or by trying to gain a position in government
Or by having a town hall meeting
Or by starting a petition
Or by writing a letter
Or by starting a blog
Or by placing an ad
Or by calling a referendum
Or by assembling a team of lawyers
Or by finding a loophole in the law
Or by making art that tries to dramatize a legal anomaly or capitalizes upon a legal anomaly
Or by manufacturing passports
Or by founding a charity
Or by chanting a slogan
Or by marching
Or by beating a drum
Or by giving a free concert
Or by fundraising
Or by performing charitable acts
Or by working on behalf of the disenfranchised or an oppressed minority
Or by working pro bono for a legal cause
Or by occupying buildings
Or by taking over the entire city, erecting barricades around the perimeter
Or by raising a militia
Or by publicly shaming one’s leaders when they have committed crimes against humanity
Or by hacking an organization’s or a private individual’s source of funding
Or by stealing from the rich or well-off
Or by robbing a bank
Or by taking from what is commonly shared
Or by squatting
Or by refusing to use one’s legal name
Or by avoiding all use of credit cards or other means by which the state and corporations might track one
Or by replacing the name given to your ancestors, when they were slaves, with another
Or by boycotting the businesses that would not serve your people, the people with your same identifying features
Or by refusing to leave when they tell you to leave
Or by not resisting when they attempt to move your body
Or by packing a weapon
Or through assassination
Or through bombing
Or through car bombing
Or through suicide bombing
Or by organizing a union
Or by forming a network among global laborers and labor organizations
Or by refusing to sign a contract
Or through contractual ownership asserting the rights to how your music is distributed
Or by owning the masters
Or through conspicuous consumption
Or by rearranging those works of art on display
Or through reformatting
Or by removing a work outside the museum or other sanctioned cultural location
Or by defacing or erasing a work of art representing a cultural regime currently in power
Or by toppling a statue
Or through looting
Or by refusing to show
Or by refusing to play
Or by refusing to read
Or by only making your art with others and never giving your name to it
Or by refusing to take credit
Or through plagiarism
Or through reappropriation
Or through sampling
Or through detournement
Or through the derive
Or through intertextuality
Or through preservation
Or through creating an archive
Or by regulating access
Or by interacting with an audience differently
Or by reading your poem or playing your song in the street
Or through street theater
Or by organizing an event
Or by creating a carnivalesque atmosphere
Or by making people feel they can speak or move more freely
Or by reminding everyone of those who are not free to speak or move
Or by caricaturing a political leader or someone else in a position of power
Or by «roasting» the president
Or by speaking «truth to power»
Or by laying claim to the popular media
Or by making information more widely available
Or through education
Or by making sure there is wider access
Or by being willing to go to jail
Or by providing prisoners with educational resources and other basic human rights
Or by breaking out of prison
Or by breaking others out of prison
Or by enacting legislation
Or by making sure a neighborhood is protected from gentrification
Or by holding out
Or by creating strong community networks
Or by appropriating agency for one’s community or for communities in need of resources
Or by opposing developers legally and extra-legally
Or by boycotting strike breakers
Or by not eating meat produced by the industrial-agricultural complex
Or by not eating meat that is produced inhumanely
Or by not eating meat
Or by not using certain gender pronouns
Or replacing certain gender pronouns with others
Or by giving a stranger a swipe
Or by refusing to specialize
Or by giving up art
Or by refusing to show one’s work in certain institutions
Or by constructing the built environment differently
Or by founding the institutions you would want to be a part of, the businesses you would want to participate in
Or by dropping out
Or by committing suicide
Or by committing Facebook suicide
Or by holding hands in public
Or by kissing in public
Or by baring one’s breasts in public
Or by loving too intensely
Or by stealing
Or by being lazy
Or by refusing to produce any art this year
Or by refusing to consume
Or by volunteering to distribute food and medicine and rebuild homes
Or by refusing to vote
Or by voting
Or by not paying your taxes
Or by dumping one’s trash in public
Or by appearing naked in public
Or by performing bodily functions in public
Or by just showing up
Or by pitching a tent
Or by refusing to act violently no matter what
Or by refusing to attend the popular media
Or by recycling or composting
Or through avoiding nouns
Or through using heteronyms and collective names
Or by refusing to participate in certain representation practices
Or by organizing a revolt
Or by storming the palaces
Or by breaking through the phalanx of cops
Or by saying what you shouldn’t
Or by throwing a party
Or by taking drugs
Or by presenting your work publicly
Or by making public statements
Or by filling your purse with ketchup
Or by chaining one’s self to a bank vault, or an old growth tree, or a building slated for demolitions
Or through infiltration
Or through spying
Or by refusing to invest in oil and coal
Or through divestment
Or by sharing a meal
Or through a hunger-strike
Or by embracing another culture, taking on their customs and habits
Or by posing questions
Or by talking back
Or by paying attention
Or through devotion
Or by considering everything in relation
Or by not paying attention
Or by shifting the balance of power
Or by parenting differently
Or by forming alternative affiliations
Or through the withdrawal of tradition
Or through the embrace of traditions
Or in allowing others to make decisions
Or by giving up power
Or by stepping down
Or by building consensus
Or through the establishment of solidarity
Or through eliminating ego
Or through de-emphasizing or displacing «the self»
Or through depersonalization
Or through collectivization
Or through participation
Or by refusing to participate
Or through skepticism
Or through dissensus
Or through reprinting
Or through diplomacy
Or by staying alive
Or by reproducing
Or through transmitting cultural memory
Or through comedy
Or by becoming vulnerable
Or through providing care
Or through forgiving debt
Or through donation
Or by setting up a trust
Or by preventing further exploitation
Or through fucking
Or through reparation
Or through forgiveness
Or through forgetting
Or through reciprocation
Or through symbolization
Or through patience
Or through anger
Or through sorrow
Or through joy