WHAT:

Independent Media InfoShop Opening Night

n     Silent Auction

n     Multimedia Exhibit

n     VJing on Baby Grand Piano by EBN

n     Special presentation on Iraq and Independent Media Worldwide

Screenings, Cocktails, and DJ Migmix on the turntables

WHEN:

August 19^th, 2004 8-12 p.m.

LOCATION:

Gigantic Art Space Gallery

59 Franklin Street, between Lafayette and Broadway

New York City

OVERVIEW:

From August 19 to September 4, the Gigantic Art Space in downtown New York will serve as an Independent Media Infoshop for a public hungry for truth.

During the Republican National Convention, the GOP spin machine will make every effort to airbrush the hundreds of thousands of expected protesters out of the happy GOP Convention picture, or worse, paint them as dangerous “Un-American” thugs. To facilitate this, they have outfitted the Farleigh Post Office building as the corporate media’s newsroom, and built a bridge from there to Madison Square Garden, so that the corporate press never has to touch the streets.  

But the NYC Grassroots Media Coalition and the Indymedia Network have a different mission. We will build our own newsroom with the support and resources of our communities and use it to produce a daily newspaper, a daily television show, a 24-hour radio webstream and a website with up-to-the-minute reports and photographs. If you want to know what the people have to say, this is where you need to look.

To help showcase this work, the Gigantic Art Space has generously offered independent journalists their gallery.

On August 19, we invite you to join us for the opening of GAS as an Infoshop and to celebrate the quality and tradition of independent journalism.  Indymedia photographers will showcase their work on gallery walls and offer them in a silent fundraising auction; videographers will screen their footage on the five gallery monitors; you can tune into the I-pod installations to hear radio coverage of events, protests and conventions past, and browse through the archives of NYC IMC’s newspaper, The Indypendent.

This will also be a great opportunity to find out how we plan to cover the voices of people on the street during the upcoming Republican National Convention, and most importantly, how you can directly plug in.

8:15pm Special presentation: Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films and producer of the documentary, Fourth World War has just returned from Sadr City, Baghdad. He will talk about what we don’t necessarily see in the corporate media regarding Iraq while showing never before seen footage. Having traveled the world and worked with dozens of independent media centers across the globe, he will discuss the importance of independent media in a time of war.

Participating groups:
NYC Grassroots Media Coalition
The Indymedia Network
Paper Tiger
The Indypendent
NYC IMC Sound Collective
NYC IMC Photo Collective
Blacked-Out Media
Third World Newsreel
Big Noise Films
Pacifica Radio
And dozens of independent journalists…