Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga

Structural Patterns

Reflections on Art, Technology and Society

Archive for the ‘immigration’ Category

Deferred Action Workshops

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New York State Youth Leadership Council is helping to organize a series of workshops regarding Deferred Action:

Legal Assistance for Deferred Action on Wednesday Aug 15th from 12pm-6pm at St. Mary’s Church 440 Grand Street (between Pitt St. and Attorney St.) – Manhattan. Take the trains F to Delancey; J, M, Z to Essex St.; B, D to Grand St.

Staten Island Deferred Action Workshop on Tuesday, Aug 14th from 5:30-8pm at St Mary of the Assumption Parish located on 2230 Richmond Terrace Staten Island, NY 10302

Manhatan Deferred Action Workshop
on Thursday, Aug 16th from 6:30pm-8:30pm
at Little Sisters of the Assumption on LSA Family Health Service, 333 East 115th St, New York, NY 10029, 3rd Floor.

NYSYLC UndocuMic on Sunday August 19th from 3-5pm.
WHERE: La Casa Azul Bookstore 143 East 103rd St New York, NY 10029 Registration starts at 3pm
Damage is $5. Contactinfo@nysylc.org for any questions.

Written by ricardo

August 13th, 2012 at 9:55 am

Mobility at Momenta Art, Sept 9th – Oct 17th

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I’m the one artist without a cart in the exhibition Mobility, however the curators elected to include my “Undocumented Drones” as part of the show. The exhibition looks great, upon entering the gallery, I wished that one of my carts was available for the show, unfortunately they are either disassembled or in another part of the world. The exhibition opens Friday, September 9th and runs through October 17th, hopefully my bots will survive. The images below are a preview, the paint bucket in the first photo is not art.
Mobility exhibition at Momenta
From left to right: Undocumented Drones, Blender by Hidemi Takagi and Pimp My Piragua by Miguel Luciano
Mobility exhibition at Momenta
From left to right: SOS Mobile Classroom by Tattfoo Tan and Máximo González’s Changarrito
Mobility exhibition at Momenta
Consume Love by Atom Cianfarani
Mobility exhibition at Momenta
Close up of an Undocumented Drone – a series of modified hobby robots that have been enhanced with an additional microcontroller, screen and radio module. Each robot presents a rotoscoped animation until it receives a twitter message with the tag “DREAMers”. Upon receiving the tweet, the animation freezes, the motors are activated and the message or tweet is displayed.

The Undocumented Drones represent a near slave class within the United States that exists for cheap labor and does not have a voice – the undocumented laborers contributing to this country and primarily concerned with providing for the children and family. The twitter tag “DREAMers” alludes to the children of undocumented immigrants, brought to this country at a young age who have grown up in the United States, but may not have a right to higher education or employment. The DREAM Act was introduced a decade ago to create a pathway toward citizenship for undocumented youth. The DREAM Act has never been passed, however many of the young adults who would benefit from it have exposed themselves as undocumented and become activists; they are the DREAMers. Each bot juxtaposes the silent day laborer with the activist offspring.

Written by ricardo

September 8th, 2011 at 7:46 pm

KLASSENTREFFEN –THE 2ND GENERATION

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Last night, upon the invitation of Moritz von Rappard, I attended the performance of KLASSENTREFFEN by the Ballhaus Naunynstrasse theater company at PS122 and it was excellent. KLASSENTREFFEN is a documentary theater piece in which the performers retell their personal stories as Turkish immigrants living in Germany or first generation Germans of Turkish descent. The piece revolves around identity politics and the memories and emotional histories that are recounted touch upon cultural loss, the difficulties of being Turkish in Germany, and ultimately the construction of cross-cultural identity. I don’t feel that the stories told represent new discoveries or new perspectives regarding the “other,” rather the power of the piece lies in entering these people’s lives and listening to the accounts not from an actor, but from the individual who has lived the difficult experience of defining oneself between cultures. It is the unveiling of personal experience from the individual in real-time that establishes an emotional reaction in the audience.
Cast and crew of KLASSENTREFFEN
Pictured above sitting in a row are the performers: a taxi driver and owner of a taxi company, a publicist, a Green Party politician, a police woman (the first female police commissioner), a Turkish/German pop music producer, and a professional actress. The last man in the row is Moritz von Rappard, the production manager and I don’t recall the second to last man, sitting to the right of Moritz, I believe he may have been an artistic co-producer. Sitting behind the actors are artistic director Shermin Langhoff and director Lukas Langhoff

Written by ricardo

November 21st, 2010 at 10:53 am

Natalya Serebrennikova Receives NBR Student Grant

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My first year teaching at Hunter’s Department of Film and Media Studies is nearing an end, just a couple finals next week and then grading. As with any new position, it’s been a great deal of work and I’ve done a lot of curriculum planning.

One of the great pleasures is the quality of work from many of the students. The highlight has been a beautiful animation by Natalya Serebrennikova titled “Cicada”. The animation was executed in my Intro to 2D Animation course (it was the first time I taught the course, but have wanted to do so for sometime). Fortunately Natalya walked in with a story and art work in mind that she developed in Tim Portlock’s Graphic Novel class. With a great story and the aesthetic developed, it was really a matter of conquering the technical skills of animation and a bit of guidance.

I consider Natalya’s work an excellent example of various courses and faculty working together to help a student realize her vision.

Natalya was just awarded a National Board of Review Student Grant! Hopefully, I’ll have a few more great projects this semester.

Written by ricardo

May 19th, 2010 at 7:57 pm

La Recesion en USA

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I was sent this video, I don’t know who made it or where it’s from.  The icon at the lower right corner looks like WHUT PBS, but can’t seem to find a link to it anywhere.  The video is great, so I’m posting it…  La Recession en USA:

Written by ricardo

November 13th, 2008 at 12:34 pm

Voting Cart on YouTube

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Resident Voting Cart Documentation is also on YouTube:

Stop the Raids and Deportations, May 1st Rally, NYC

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May Day 2008, Union Square, NYC

May Day was celebrated in strength yesterday at Union Square where several hundred people gathered to listen to speakers and music that questioned the deportations of laborers, demanded immigrant rights and celebrated multiculturalism. The gathering of several hundred grew to several thousand as the May Day activists marched from Union Square to City Hall.

At a time when all the news seems bleak – continued death of innocent people and soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the increasing cost of groceries and gasoline, a growing popularity of McCain – the candidate who hopes to continue the Bush Administration’s failed agenda… it was reinvigorating to have a joyful gathering demanding citizen rights for those immigrants who help keep the city running.

May Day 2008, Union Square, NYC

Every human color and age was present at the rally. It was an exciting mix of generations, languages and cultures enjoying the right to demonstrate in one of the greatest cities of the world. Amongst the points of protest were the raids of work places to deport laborers and markedly a protest against last week’s verdict regarding the killing of Sean Bell by 50 police bullets.

May Day rally

As the rally spilled from an enclosed area in Union Square onto Broadway, the number grew to the thousands, where tourists were taken by surprise.

May Day march along Broadway

Written by ricardo

May 2nd, 2008 at 11:31 am

VOTEMOS.US Weekly Video Podcast Now Available

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votemos.us

VOTEMOS.US the site that questions what the 2008 U.S. presidential elections would look like if all residents in the U.S. could vote will now feature weekly video interviews with U.S. immigrants and Mexico City residents concerning the presidential elections and general relations between the United States and Latin America.

Although VOTEMOS.US is a Spanish-language site, the videos have English language subtitles so that U.S. citizens may have an insight into the views of their Spanish speaking neighbors within the country as well as those south of the border. The weekly video interviews are available on the site, as a podcast or rss feed:

votemos.us podcast

This week Argentine Jose Antonio Lazzari relaxing in the park Alameda Central located in the historical center of Mexico City states that he would not vote for Obama, Hillary or McCain and he questions who the leftist candidates are in the U.S… Jose Antonio goes on to point out that the United States is controlled by the transnational companies that are making a fortune in Iraq.

We had a lengthy conversation with Jose Antonio Lazzari, a theater actor and educator who runs a free school in Argentina. Sections of this conversation will be published over the next few weeks. Past interviews with NYC undocumented resident Raymundo are also available and all videos will be archived on the site.

Border and Ballot Box

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The NY Times has run a good story on the complexity of immigration in relation to national elections – “The Border and the Ballot Box”.  The author David Leonhardt points to historical reoccurence of xenophobia and national identity disorder regarding immigration as we like to think of ourselves as a nation of immigrants and yet we fear new waves of immigrants.  The article suggests that although immigration remains a national issue, it has not and will not present a primary platform for presidential candidates.  Personally the story is interesting because it presents a brief index of the historical national attitude toward immigration.

The article sites the 1850s anti Irish Catholic immigrant movement – “Know Nothings”,  the 1882 “Chinese Exclusion Act”…  However the article attempts to consider both sides of the issue and mentions the fact that illegal immigration undermines the notion of a nation and that the contribution of illegal immigrants is exaggerated when considering the overall effects.

But as it nears conslusion, Leonhardt points out that “No matter how it happens, the country will almost certainly need an influx of new arrivals in coming decades. The baby boomers are about to start turning 65. Someone will have to take their place in the work force — and help pay their Medicare and Social Security bills. ”  Read the story.

Written by ricardo

March 2nd, 2008 at 10:49 am