Hi all,
This is a page to discuss and collaborate on high-risk actions and media stunts.
Iād encourage people to throw out ideas:
- Paint-bombing billboards
- Paint-bombing buildings
- āBlood of our Childrenā:
- Plastering the walls of a whole bunch of climate-wrecking companies and institutions - record videos of it including a rebel openly stating why theyāre hitting this institution before doing it on camera - cut the videos together to make it all look like one action with one overarching narrative (final shot is some stunt at Parliament House)
2 Likes
Hereās Roger showing a good example of a high-risk affinity group action that would fit the model of āPaint the Streetsā:
6 people chalk-spraying the Great Hall of Kingās College London in 2017 for Climate Emergency Kingās College. They were arrested and tried by a jury and found not guilty. Kingās College divested soon after.
and a previous action spraying the front of the building a week earlier:
and a subsequent one where they got more people to paint the walls of the building:
2 Likes
All sound like effective ideas max. The blood of our children act in Helsinki made me think we could actually have a live XR choir at some of the actions.
I donāt know if this is feasible in Australia, but we could perhaps do the hose variant of the blood of our children that was done with a fire truck in the uk.
1 Like
If evolens want to help us we could also a large projection of words onto the location thatās being hit. e.g. āweāre in a climate emergency. tell the truthā
1 Like
On the blood painting: would be great if we could coordinate it to happen on different sets of parliament steps around the country, at a synchronized-ish time. Regarding the three featured paint spills from other countries, I think that the Helsinki is the most visually appealing from the drone photography and cooreography, even though they have a much smaller number of rebels. The other two feel a bit too self conscious of being demonstrations and there isnāt much energy hype when the blood actually spills. If there was an announcer calling each bucket forward by a different name or something it might be more emotive. I think the more performance the better! High drama gets attention. Also stenciling the footpath around the site would keep the message up after the action had ended.
Not sure how you could get a parliament pillar to look like a tree in a hurry, but arrestables could dress up as koalas (with body paint and everything) and chain themselves to a central pillar and not release until parliament prioritizes negating carbon emissions as per the Paris agreement or agrees to a meeting with rebels or whatever.
I know these arenāt necessarily viable ideas but just putting some imagination out there in case it sparks yours!
Also noting in the kings college ones it was all done with chalk and easily removableā¦ I like the comparison of āyouāre worried that we are damaging this building, but youāre not worried that Kings is damaging the planet.ā Santos has a school of petroleum engineering at the University of Adelaide. Would love to target it cuz petroleum students need a massive smack in the face IMO but an XR principle is no blaming and shaming. I think we need to persistently keep our target on the government. Itās no skin off the governmentās back if we badger products of the system instead of the policy makers.
A large projection over the blood site would be cool, harder if it was done in multiple cities but still achievable.
Also a fire truck would be super poignant for Australia if that could be pulled off.
2 Likes
Hereās the arty cut of the Paris one:
3 Likes
For something closer to home:
(video) https://democraticmediaplease.net/2019/03/video-22nd-march-2019-melbourne-central/
4 Likes
Small things on an epic scale - by one rebel. Imagine what we could do with 10!
I made this film about Kyle in 2014. So, 5 years before the Parliament Station action above.
Itās 11 minutes long - he touches on his legal defence toward the end.
The police we encounter this day are not indicative of the treatment he usually received.
On this day - no doubt because he had a film crew with a big-ish camera in tow - they sent in their more ādiplomaticā representatives. And they were pretty slow getting around to it. We nearly ran out of black paper - we thought we were going to have to make a run to office works to give the cops enough time to show up so we could get the shots we wanted.
1 Like
Yep, this would definitely be a good starting point to high-risk actions.
Just doing what he was doing, but covering the ads with Paint the Streets stuff instead of black, would be effective and edgy.
Hey team, a high-risk group is forming in Adelaide and is keen to work on Blood of Our Children as a starter action. Are there any other cities who would be interested to run that action alongside us at their own parliament house? We could swap and share resources (like a blood recipe) and messaging etc and aim for a similar time frame (in a few weeks?) Would be cool if it could pop up all over the place!
1 Like
Going to see who else is interested in doing stuff in vic. i would think a blood of our children action would be good, especially since another state is already onto it. how have you gone about seeing whoās keen, signal or?
I put out a call for a general group without specifying the action through a convenors meeting, got some names, and have signaled the rest. Weāve booked a zoom meeting to start planning tomorrowā¦ I might ask the national PTS MM channel if other cities would want to engage, this thread might not be seen by interested parties. What do you think?
@costasmaniatis @brad333 @jess
Who wants to be involved in āHi-Viz High-Jinxā Affinity group ??
We do daring actions in the middle of the city in broad daylight, utilising the publicās respect for High-viz authority against them!
5 Likes
Sounds great but not practical for me personally if itās during conventional business hours.
oh true. Could be on a weekend 
The PTS groups I work with talk about high viz but would probably appreciate some training or direction in how to pull it off effectively.
You know whatās universally funny? Farts. Do you recall farts are made of gas? Isnāt the government passing on a lil too much gas lately?? Anyone want to fart bomb parliament over the gas deals. If we synced cities with very clear messaging, that would make media.
4 Likes
I just love this Paris āblood of our childrenā video. Letās start with something like this and later we can escalate to a fire hose action. I think personally spilling the blood in buckets - and the flowers and the people ādyingā in the blood - is more emotional than a fire truck in any case.
2 Likes
āBlood of our childrenā is a perfect high emotional impact but physically distanced event. Iād be happy to help in Melbourne.