post.thing.net

headlines | about |

Robocop Redux at the G20


As part of the NY Art Book Fair at P.S. 1, Deep Dish TV is screening a 30 minute film (excerpted above) on the G20 protests in Pittsburgh last week, during which the local police staged an exercise in civil suppression, gassing students on the University of Pittsburgh campus, attacking journalists and deploying acoustic weapons.

screenings:
Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 7:00pm
Saturday, October 3, 2009 at 7:00pm
and throughout the three day fair

location:
P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center
Room J109

Footage is salvaged from broken cameras, stolen video and arrested reporters, and is presented by Vlad, just in from Pittsburgh.
vlad@glassbeadcollective.org
www.glassbeadcollective.org
917 650 2486

Police used pepper spray, tear gas aerosol canisters, rubber bullets and an acoustic weapon tank against University of Pittsburgh students during the G20 Summit. Many of the students were not part of any demonstration but bystanders, curious to find a mass of armed riot police on their campus.

For more information and videos:
http://indypgh.org/g20
www.deepdishtv.org
212 473 8933
iwitness@iwitnessvideo.info

And for comparative purposes, here is a clip from Robocop (1987), a film on the future face of law enforcement. The G20 documentation is certainly less dramatically lethal than the tabloid excesses of Robocop, but the imperative to obey a disembodied, computer generated advisory or "you may be arrested and/or subject to other police action", plus the very real possibilities of "collateral damage" and the absence of police accountability, is no less chilling.