#OWS Verizon Building "bat signal" projections during Brooklyn Bridge march (video)

Video Link: Projections on Verizon building #ows. Thanks, Eric Spiegelman!

Here's a partial video of a beautiful sequence of light projections that appeared on the side of the Verizon building while tens of thousands of Occupy Wall Street participants marched across the Brooklyn Bridge tonight. More about the march, and more stills, in this previous post.

UPDATE: Here's another more complete video (thanks, csfny).

Screengrab: pieceinthepuzzlehumanity.tumblr.com

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: occupy wall street • ows

More at Boing Boing

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Hackers prepare for first "national holiday" in their honor

TheBreen

Any word yet on HOW they’re doing that? That would be awesome to do in SF, too!
Heath Sledge

I haven’t seen any clips of the whole thing yet. I hope it all gets released. It was amazing.
http://www.facebook.com/nickgold2012 Nick Gold

I just read this article, which really makes me think this movement should be framed in terms of “we are the 99.9 percent” given that it’s really the top tenth of the top one percent that would be closer to what we tend to think of as the STINKING rich. A good half of the top one percent (speaking here of net worth in the USA) are really what we’d just think of as successful white-collar working class folks who have made decent financial decisions. ~ $1.2 Million in net worth is the low-end of the top 1%. That’s, like, not Montgomery Burns rich by any stretch of the imagination.

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html
- xenphilos
  
  99.9% doesn’t have the same oomph to it, though, in my humble opinion.
  - http://www.facebook.com/nickgold2012 Nick Gold
    
    True, but the movement stands much more to gain from the support of the white collar “working and successful” class, and I worry too many of them are being turned off for the movement to have legs. The fact is, small business owners who have achieved some level of success, successful doctors, successful managers, have MUCH more in common with folks who earn $35,000 a year, than those who are worth tens or hundreds of million, or billions.
- TheBreen
  
  A *net* worth of $1.2 million, in most parts of the country, is still pretty rich. Particularly after the decline in real estate prices, which is where the bulk of most people’s wealth lies (or at least did). New York and San Francisco (where I live) might be exceptions, but in Toledo where you can get a nice house for under $200,000 a net worth of $1.2 million would be like owning six houses mortgage-free. Something to consider.
  - http://www.facebook.com/nickgold2012 Nick Gold
    
    Totally get you, but seriously, do you think most of the “99-percenters” are really thinking of “the one percent” as a doctor who saves lives all day long who’s on call a good chunk of the time and works their butt off and took 25 years to pay off their school loans, who happens to live in a gated community and has put away a pretty healthy amount of their income for 20 years for retirement? Or are they thinking Montgomery Burns?
    - TheBreen
      
      I can’t really speak for the rest of the “99-percenters.” By definition, they encompass nearly the entire spectrum of society. I live in a neighborhood where incomes are often six figures and home prices average around a million dollars, but to have a *net* worth (e.g., excluding mortgage) of over a million seems unobtainable to me. That’s a lot of money to have lying around, as it were.
  - 10xor01
    
    Sure, you’re a real estate mogul, but you’re still living in Toledo.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Is it weird that I know a couple of billionaires socially? Living in a resort really messes with normal reality.
  - http://www.facebook.com/nickgold2012 Nick Gold
    
    Yes yes, the “resort” with “the billionaires” who just happen to be wearing the same white jackets with no arms as you…
    
    ;)
  - Cowicide
    
    Is it weird that I know a couple of billionaires socially?
    
    I’ve known one that had that much in assets socially to some extent many, many years ago but not any more (and I’m pretty sure he was part of the jewish mafia and got busted for some stuff later) and I was around this guy when he came around some business dealings I was involved in around 9-10 years ago, but I didn’t know him socially.
    
    Who are your pet billionaires?
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      One media mogul, one family money + early tech investments. Also entirely possible that they’re much poorer than they were six or seven years ago since one of them, at least, had the money in stocks. I certainly know a few people who were worth a couple of million in 2005 and are now getting food stamps. I end up meeting the absurdly rich because I do hipster, high-end charity work.
BarBarSeven

Amazing stuff! I was actually just on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and saw this. I went to the main Brooklyn Post Office to mail a last minute package and saw tons of cops there. All kinds. Guys in riot gear, guys just on regular work-a-day uniform & even a huge group of probies (rookies/probationary cops) being instructed on how to handle themselves. Met folks who successfully crossed the Brooklyn Bridge without incident. The only incidents reported were OWS folks who genuinely wanted a fight with cops getting arrested or beat down. But if the OWS folks didn’t bother the cops, they did nothing.

So anyway, I walked over to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade hoping I would see something. It’s really cold out and one couldn’t see much activity other than helicopters overhead, but then I saw the projection on the side of the Verizon building and my jaw dropped. But positively.

The last time my jaw dropped on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade was on 9/11 when I walked there to see what had happened. The fact this is happening 10 years later is an odd bookend on this crazy decade.

And FWIW—as someone who was in that part of Brooklyn on 9/11—the amount of cops out there right now easily eclipses the cops I saw on 9/11 or even the days after. There is literally an army out there and I have never seen anything like that in my life. The NYPD seems tons better composed than other cops in other cities, but still it really is chilling to walk down a street and see 100% nothing but cops and maybe one other civilian.

And here is another video I found of the projection on the side of the building from a different angle. According to what I have read there are Verizon workers out there who are on strike who marched with the OWS folks. I’m sure none of them disagree with this projection happening on the side of the Verizon building.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A22adDcqpKs
- Cowicide
  
  The only incidents reported were OWS folks who genuinely wanted a fight with cops getting arrested or beat down.
  
  I’m not sure the woman who got dragged by her hair was trying to go toe-to-toe with a pack of cops.
  
  http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-705266
  - BarBarSeven
    
    Okay, fine. You are right. There are folks who are being treated like crap by the cops. But the point I am making is that compared to Oakland and other cities, this march went on and a good chunk of folks were able to march and make it to the other side of the bridge in Brooklyn without incident.
    
    Yes, there will always be cops who are jerks. And yes, the eviction of the OWS folks from Zuccotti/Liberty Park was handled horribly. But this march—which could have been a disaster—did happen, people did cross the bridge after walking from all over the city and honestly I see that as a “glass is half full” scenario all things considered.
    - http://www.greenidea.eu Green_Idea_Factory
      
      ”… there will always be cops who are jerks.” seems to infer that they are rogue police, and not that they have instructions to beat at least some people up, not to mention that the mayor bears ultimate responsibility for the action of any city employee.
    - Cowicide
      
      Okay, fine. You are right. There are folks who are being treated like crap by the cops. But the point I am making is that compared to Oakland and other cities, this march went on and a good chunk of folks were able to march and make it to the other side of the bridge in Brooklyn without incident.
      
      Yes, I agree that the NYC cops are overall better than the ones that shoot military vets in the head and then lob explosives at people who try to help him.
      - BarBarSeven
        
        Exactly! But still, I will say seeing a true army of cops in Brooklyn where the protests weren’t even happening—but prepped to do something if needed—was truly scary.
  - TheBreen
    
    It’s not clear why the cops grabbed this woman. Unfortunately for us, the person who took the video didn’t notice anything until the cops already had her by the hair. She may have punched a cop in the nose or merely looked like someone’s ex, but this video and the associated report don’t give us enough info to figure that out.
    - http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi
      
      I don’t give a shit if she punched a cop in the face. A cop has a job to do and part of it involves the odd scuffle. What the cops job does not involve is dragging a woman by her hair through the street when she clearly has given up resisting.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      TheBreen,
      
      Please check out our Comment Policy. Making up shit to suggest that the victim had it coming is a violation.
Dave Jenkins

I know it’s their job to take the piss, but does anyone have any thoughts on the Samantha Bee report from The Daily Show from last night? Is there really social stratification inside “the movement”?

Also, how much of this protest is now becoming something hip to do– like urban art– and how much of it is really geared toward wealth redistribution?
- http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios
  
  Lots of folks might not like to hear this, but apparently Jon Stewart’s brother is COO of the NYSE.
  
  Not as many people are aware of it as should be, but Jon Stewart’s older brother, Larry Leibowitz, is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
  
  Mr. Leibowitz was appointed chief operating officer in the first quarter of 2010. In this capacity, he (Leibowitz) is responsible for all the operations management, global cash execution and global listings. He previously served as group executive vice president and head of U.S. Execution and Global Technology from 2007 until 2009
  - Susan Carley Oliver
    
    What’s your point? Seriously, how is that relevant?
    
    Stewart has never hidden this fact, nor has he ever presented himself as anything but part of the 1%. He frequently remarks upon his own privilege, so really – there’s no outrage here.
    - robuluz
      
      I could have just +1nd this.
  - Dave Jenkins
    
    Okay, but so what? Larry Leibowitz and Jon Stewart are brothers, but are you saying that Stewart would be anti-99 because of that? It would seem to me that he would just for comic gold wherever he could find it.
    
    Moreover, it doesn’t really matter where I get the report from– the question still stands: is there social stratification within the protesting crowd? Simple mathematics and demographics would tell me “yes”. For the life of me, I still don’t know what the point of it is– yes, mad at rich people– but then what? I would imagine there are a huge number of factions going on inside there, and it’s probably difficult enough for them to unify around methodologies and the meta-demand to simply protest.
    
    Forgive my agnosticism, but unless I start hearing some demands (reasonable or outrageous), I won’t have anything to support or decry. It will turn into a big blob of “meh” for me. I don’t work in Lower Manhattan. I would imagine if I did, I would start to get a bit peeved already.
    - http://www.doggo.org doggo
      
      I think the message is pretty clear, people don’t want profit driving policy. Government policy, economic policy, needs to be driven by what benefits the entire society, not what provides the most profit for a small segment of the society.
    - http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi
      
      If you haven’t worked out at least the basics of the “demands” yet then you’re not paying attention. Its time policies were developed to make life better for everyone in the US, not just the already rich and powerful.
      
      Decades of neoliberal trickle-down economic thinking have shown that its true trickle down economics work. Huge amounts of wealth are poured into the top of the economy and the poor get a tiny trickle that they fight over. Everyone above scrambles around with their buckets, spending the profits to buy bigger buckets. The 1% of course have long ago given up on buckets and instead just build their swimming pools right at the top.
    - Cowicide
      
      the question still stands: is there social stratification within the protesting crowd?
      
      http://boingboing.net/2011/11/17/ows-verizon-building-bat-si.html#comment-367132550
    - Radka
      
      You won’t hear their demands from the mainstream media. Fox and co are still playing the “but what do they want?” card. If you look for it (like on wikipedia) “protesters want more and better jobs, more equal distribution of income, bank reform, and a reduction of the influence of corporations on politics”.
      And more importantly,
      “It’s impossible to translate the issue of the greed of Wall Street into one demand, or two demands. We’re talking about a democratic awakening.” Cornel West. Look up the Liberty Square Blueprint which is a open wiki document that’s evolving.
  - Donald Petersen
    
    Larry Leibowitz, is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
    
    Yeah, I’d heard that. Out of pure nosiness, I wonder: how much does that particular gig pay? Seven figures? Eight? High six?
    
    Hell, I don’t even have the slightest idea how a stock exchange works, what its revenues might be, or what it means that the NYSE demutualized and became a publicly traded company six years ago. Guess I got a lot of reading up to do.
    - jerwin
      
      It’s a cushy gig.
  - robuluz
    
    So what? Stewart has enthusiastically urged market regulation time and time again. He doesn’t pretend he isn’t rich and successful. It’s not like Jon Stewart is an elected official who has a conflict of interest. I don’t see your point.
- Cowicide
  
  Is there really social stratification inside “the movement”?
  
  This just goes to show that the OWS isn’t a small subset of society… it IS society minus the corporatists.
  
  OWS is people from almost all walks of life. While there’s much solidarity, there’s always going to be groups of people that aren’t going to want to sit nor sleep next to loud drums all day/night long. And, as some pound drums and smoke pot, many go to other quieter areas to discuss plans of action. (And, don’t think for a second there aren’t agent provocateurs in the mix being belligerent assholes as well)
  
  You may think OWS needs to survive within an alternative, perfect reality to survive. But, it doesn’t. It’s growing and adapting within humanity… warts and all, and that’s the beauty of it and why it will survive and keep growing as it has.
  
  I think The Daily Show purposefully has segments like this on occasion to keep their more conservative blue-dog viewership entertained and watching. They are a business, after all… owned by Viacom.
  
  how much of this protest is now becoming something hip to do– like urban art– and how much of it is really geared toward wealth redistribution?
  
  If people spread the message with art… that’s fantastic.
  
  More than half the battle is educating one another and reaching more and more Americans so they know they’re not alone.
  
  The American public is under a constant barrage of disinformation campaigns from corporatists designed to suppress them. The American public doesn’t own the airwaves anymore and the airwaves are no longer being used to inform the public. We have to counter that evil.
  
  If you don’t actually believe me that you are being fed constant, destructive lies, then please educate yourself and watch this interview with a top corporatist who will spell it all out for you in meticulous detail.
  
  Watch the entire interview, it might be one of the most important and enlightening interviews you see in your life.
BarBarSeven

Oh, and adding to the “Batman” theme, Anne Hathaway (aka: Catwoman) was at the OWS in Union Square holding up a sign that read “Blackboards Not Bullets.” http://lockerz.com/s/157020909
10xor01

Love it! And I’m guessing Jenny Holzer would approve.
Damien

WINNING!

Kudos for your mad Maker skills to whoever projected those messages.More, please.
http://grumer.org/ Avram Grumer

Was I the only one kinda hoping it would end with “Burma Shave”?
- BarBarSeven
  
  FREE WILLY!
http://twitter.com/cmackge cmackge

So,,,, Um, how did they do it? Once we’re all done with the ad hominem trolling attacks on Jon Stewart, cause, jeez, I mean, he’s like the patron saint of OWS and OMG his brother is like rich or something (but maybe nowhere near as rich as Jon, seriously)….. That’s all troll food.

I want to know how they did it.
http://www.facebook.com/daen.de.leon Daen de Leon

They’re doing fine / The 1% / After causing a financial mess. / So the other 99 / dissent / and demand a little fairness. / Burma Shave.
Timothy Krause

Here’s a few projections from earlier, before the march over the Brooklyn Bridge started, on Lafayette Street:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33498942@N04/6356413635/in/set-72157628032642591/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33498942@N04/6356415059/in/set-72157628032642591/

EPIC PROJECTION WIN OF AWESOME GREATNESS
http://twitter.com/ladykayaker Lisa

I’ve heard the technology is from ‘graffiti research labs’. Anyway I’ve seen this sort of thing before (in more elaborate form), it is something one can buy off-the-shelf.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OAUXAA362EXWLYVMPJOKLFB5JQ Incipient Madness

We totally have to get this projection thing going in Houston. BOA, Shell USA headquarters, Wells Fargo Tower, and a Federal building are all within range of Tranquility Park.

This reminds me of Jean Michel Jarre’s “Rendezvous Houston” performance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SVfLoPHmOg
http://twitter.com/ladykayaker Lisa

It’s the same technology as this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlPa_m8RVo8
el_donaldo

The last image, the screen shots of the sequence, if you click on that it takes you to the Tumblr of some truther dipshit nonsense. Fuck them.
Guest

I think someone smarter and codier should code up a thingamajig that people can link their geotagged photos of abuse and stuff to,the crowd can add tags, vote up, etc… and collectively document the heck out of everything.

If nothing else, we can identify malicious officers, and solve a huge problem for society.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

These projectors should be standard Occupy equipment. Stick them in vans and paint slogans to get the message across.
g h

THIS is hows its all really done..No 10 thousand dollar machines and any ‘specialists’ ..Quite simple really..

A really strong flashlight ( torch) and those FIVE steps posted in the coming video..

INstant 99% projection..

And yes you are welcome but thanks go to Brandon and Sarah…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXjnX2mmtQE
Layne

Zzzzzzz-*
Why not throw in ‘CO-EXIST’ and ‘Visualize World Peace’?

I’m sorry, but if this is the best they can muster – a bunch of T-shirt/bumpersticker slogans – then they are just proving themselves to be of the frivolous, dissonant mindset that most of the public thinks they are. Are we supposed to make a bunch of sound government economic policy from based on this?

These people are too mad at people being rich to understand the bigger issues with the interplay of government and economics. And for them to think that the same government is going to magically, selflessly fix things is brainless.
- occupyla
  
  are you serious? you realize that they base POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS on t-shirt/bumper-sticker slogans, right? You realize they base product campaigns on t-shirt/bumper-sticker slogans? You know why? BECAUSE IT WORKS. It is called MARKETING an IDEA, in order to get a simple point and message across. Guess what, it works :p Presidents get elected and products get sold like crazy. Come back to reality, please. The point of this was to get a message across. Not to establish a government economic policy. Not every action people take will establish a government economic policy, i’m sorry -_- There are various steps to be taken, in order to do that. Guess what, people are working on it ;p Yes, by works meaning they get the message across and it convinces people and as I already pointed out: Just like they have different roles for different departments in a company or just like they have different roles for people in government, they have different roles for people in the occupy movement. not everyone’s role is to establish an economic plan that you can critique ;p Next thing you’ll tell me is how come firefighters are not arresting anyone or how come cops don’t put out fires /rolleyes
  - Layne
    
    If by ‘BECAUSE IT WORKS’, you mean, taking catchy slogans and silkscreening them on things so people see them and parrot them, then sure that ‘WORKS’. Or maybe you think that distilling everything down to a cutesy zinger qualifies as an “idea”. Most adults should take the time to debate out complex ideas instead of going for lazy, bite-sized marketing.
    
    And you can see how well basing rational decisions on a slogan works: our last presidential debate was essentially one word slogans with precious little policy discussion. And surprise – we’re now finding out how little the current president cares about any of the things that people just assumed those slogans encompassed.
    
    Or, i guess you can also try shouting your message out in all caps. That’s cool too.
    - occupyla
      
      Yes, by “works” meaning they get the message across and it convinces people and as I already pointed out: Just like they have different roles for different departments in a company or just like they have different roles for people in government, they have different roles for people in the occupy movement. not everyone’s role is to establish an economic plan that you can critique ;p Next thing you’ll tell me is how come firefighters are not arresting anyone or how come cops don’t put out fires
    - occupyla
      
      and further more, i would blame congress more than the president. there’s a reason why congress has the lowest approval rating in history. a president can’t do what most people wish or assume they can do. congress is the one that really has to face the issues head on, more than anyone, but instead they debate about whether “we trust in god”. ridiculous. all while Obama proposed a jobs bill, that got turned down by congress
      - http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi
        
        Yep! Pretty much everyone outside of the US that pays attention sees this. Obama has proposed many, many good things for America. Congress has attacked and dismantled and essentially fucked virtually every one of them.
        
        Tough gig for Obama.
- http://twitter.com/_tweeds tweeds
  
  As as per your suggestion that the legislative body in a sovereign state is unable to fix things, Hobbes, arguably the historical source of your sentiment, has provided a clear statement in such a case:
  
  “The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them. For the right men have by nature to protect themselves, when none else can protect them, can by no covenant be relinquished.”
  
  Ergo.
http://twitter.com/_tweeds tweeds

“These people are too mad at people being rich to understand the bigger issues with the interplay of government and economics. And for them to think that the same government is going to magically, selflessly fix things is brainless.”

Hobbes, the source of your thought, quite clearly stated: