Sonar Echo Network, released June 2000.
Sonar is a literary journal/chapbook featuring 12 writers/artists. It was initiated, edited and published by Chris Doorley, Molly Lewis, Josh Lifrak and Geoff Kuffner with Melissa Gorman at the design helm. Sonar was produced like a rock-n-roll record and steeped in Ransom Corp. aesthetics. It explores simultaneity, shifting perspectives, interpenetrating storylines, and has an itch for genre-bending, fusion and creating. It includes musical scores, comic book illustrations, cut-ups, cross-outs, poetry, illustrated installation concepts, sci-fi dystopia, hidden tracks, fake advertisements and flipbooks. Carried by Tower Records and City Lights Book Store, 2000 copies were printed, sold and freely given.
The Task Force for Inventive Philanthropy
T.F.I.P. (pron. tee-fip),The Task Force For Inventive Philanthropy, was an early subsidiary of the Ransom Corp. As the success of the Ransom Corporation increased, our need for a Philanthropic Department grew. Ours, however, was not for tax purposes. TFIP was devised to give, in culturally anonymous ways, free gifts of the wild subconscious to New York at large. These gifts included, among others less publishable, umbrella poetry trees, two incarnations of the Doll Project and the Subway Action Parties.
THE DOLL PROJECT
A twice realized love affair with a seldom seen side of the city. Dozens of dolls, the more human the better, collected from the thrift stores of New York. Grown men and women hauling bags stuffed with dolls to secret re-assembly headquarters. A gathering of artists with red wine and chocolate, miscellaneous arts supplies: glitter, toothpicks, wax, yarn, safety pins, etc. A doll mutilation and recreation extravaganza. Two teams, dressed in their best evening black, some in white face, some in cowboy hats, canvas the city streets with crew photographers in tow, hanging dolls to street lamp and street light poles and fire escapes as the wee hours graduate to dawn. All are hung with a list of demands: More Red Wine and Chocolate or another Doll Dies. This at a time of rapid gentrification, enforcement of no-dancing cabaret laws, corporatizing and humorless policing–just months but it seemed like light years before 9-11.
The Stunt Team
(Does Not Exist)
Whatever the Stunt did or did not do remains up for speculation.
A Terse Symphony: The One Word Poems of Loud Josh
Loud Josh was a key performer and advisor in the early days of the Ransom Corp. He invented the one-word poem and performed them throughout New York. These included “OX”, “GRAZE” and “RICOCHET”, remarkable works of meditation, emotional clarity and transformation. A Terse Symphony, edited by Awing Peece, is a compilation of his complete works, drawn from his four books, and the telling of his life story as a reflection of his work. As this historicizing project neared completion, Loud Josh fell in love and heard the call of mountain climbing in his heart. Some believe that “Loud’s output and insight was just too prolific, precise and profound to bring to completion and so he had to depart” (Awing). In any case, years have passed and the near completed manuscript has disappeared. Only fragments remain.
The Hyperbolic International Ransom Corp. Destruction Dance Band, Fall 1999 to summer 2000
The HIRCDDB was a six piece unit on an 8 month side project wanting to tell stories deep inside a belly of noise and underbelly of the promises of the technological material age. The group included Agent mT, Loki Kevorkian, Sean Clute, John Sully, David Jellyfish, Kelvin Daly and special guests including Dok of Amoeba, Zemi17, Tony Torn and Lips Johnson of Licky. Pick ups wired to typewriters, saws, drums, samplers, undulating bellies, Theremins, poets, rock-n-roll guitar, fire performance, sledgehammers, a capella techno, storytelling, dynamite, the audience brought to the edge of nowhere, an intimate and unpredictable theater of destruction. The Destruction Band first performed at the loading dock during the DUMBO ARTS FESTIVAL in the Fall of 1999 then performed several times at the Frying Pan, at Rubulad, The Cave and The Dumbo Theater.
Reclaim The Streets NYC
RTS is a nonviolent direct action network found in cities throughout the world. RTS challenges the current hierarchical and authoritarian society and promotes a social-ecological revolution through actions that promote community ownership of public spaces. RTS was founded in London and had been active there for several years before a circle of New Yorkers decided to open a chapter amid the swift corporatizing of New York’s core and aggressive “quality of life” policing of the Guiliani era.
RTS actions were basically temporary reclamations of city streets or squares for community building and awareness. They featured street performance, large puppets, live pirate radio, volunteers sitting in tripods to occupy the street, a sound system on bicycle trailers, and people gathering and dancing on asphalt reserved for cars.
The Ransom Corp. offered public relations, technical and organizational support as well as on the ground creative participation to the RTS circle. The RTS actions were bold and controversial. As theater, they were marvelous displays of warmth, ingenuity and community power.
October 4, 1998
Started at Astor Place and reclaimed lower Broadway for several hours.
April 11, 1999. Avenue A
This action was part of the successful movement to prevent the city government from auctioning off over 100 city gardens.
June 18, 1999. Liberty Plaza, Lower Manhattan
This action was in solidarity with RTS chapters around the world, protesting the agenda and exclusivity of the G8 Conference held in Cologne, Germany.
November 26, 1999.Time Square, Manhattan
This action was held on Black Friday also known as Buy Nothing Day It was held in solidarity with international November 30 actions and the protests surrounding the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle
WJMZ 89.3FM Jumpin the turnstiles of the Airwaves, South Williamsburg, Brooklyn, July 1998 to June 1999.
WJMZ, named after the rickety fingers of subway metal that cross the Williamsburg Bridge, was a micro-broadcasting collective radio station started by key Ransom Corp. members to serve as a political, social, and artistic medium of expression for the diverse community of South Williamsburg, Brooklyn. JMZ had an open platform, “no content control” policy. It broadcast four days a week over 25 shows ranging from herbal urban health care and world poetics to psychoacoustic test labs, community and activist news programs and a wide swatch of music and talk-based hours. There were shows in Spanish and a show hosted by high school students during the pre-class morning hours. The FCC eventually triangulated the signal and threatened legal action (fines, confiscation of equipment and possible jail time) if the radio station refused to cease and desist. Under pressure and without means for a legal defense, we shut it down after 11 months of existence, evolution and enjoyment. As well as being a meeting ground for collaborations and friendships, WJMZ served as another window into community and the political and economic environment artists and community-minded people find themselves in during this corporate era.
