droplifting

[Aaron Ximm <ghede@xxxxxxxx>]

A brief comment on droplifting...

I participated in the droplift project housed at www.droplift.org; my
friend, the artist Richard Holland, coined the term (perhaps not uniquely;
as a bored delinquent in Salt Lake City a friend and I used to 'shopleave'
when shoplifting got too boring: we'd relocate items within the mall).
I've certainly heard many people say they've practiced this -- seeding the
used rack at Amoeba with their CDRs for example -- regardless of name.

For the project documented at the site, the 'action' was defined exactly
as placing CDs in places of CD retail. The reason being, almost all the
work on the CDs was based on unlicensed, uncleared samples,
plunderphonics, appropriation, etc.

The point was that most of the work would be illegal to sell through
conventional distribution channels. At least, in theory;  whether or not
any of the artists were worth 'going after' in practic is not for me to
say, the Negativland/U2 flap notwithstanding.

Ie, there was a close coupling of content with the counter-consumptive
gesture ~ which was not intended specifically to annoy, only to cause
confusion and hopefully provoke curiosity and perhaps thought. In the old
days one might have said, to raise conciousness. Great attention was paid
to making the packaging 'pass' in 'commodity-drag.'

In practice the actual dropping was just as fun as you made it of course.

  best,
   aaron

  ghede@xxxxxxxx
  http://www.quietamerican.org

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