[Nettime-bold] "Speech of the Rockies"

Randall M. Packer, Secretary of the US Department of Art & Technology in Washington, DC, continues his nationwide tour at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he will deliver the "Speech of the Rockies." He will be announcing a bold new campaign entitled "10,000 Acts of Artistic Mediation," intended to mobilize artistic forces across the nation in these extraordinary times of crisis. The Secretary will also discuss the recent activation of the new artist-driven political party, the Experimental Party, the "party of experimentation," in the Department's effort to bring the artists' message to center stage of the political process. The Experimental Party intends to recruit, support, and coordinate viable artists to celebrate the universal spirit of collective expression, to seek volunteers to help speak oracular truths and the most radically liberating critique of reason, and to engage students in acts of appropriation through art and polemic, manifesto and demonstration, love and politics.

Calling him "a man of great integrity, a man of great judgment and a man who knows the arts," President George W. Bush announced his decision to nominate Randall M. Packer to serve as Secretary of the United States Department of Art and Technology on November 12, 2001. Upon confirmation by the Senate, Packer pledged to renew the war on cultural poverty, reduce the incidence of a one-way exchange of information between an active agent and a passive recipient, and combat discrimination so no American feels outside the field of aesthetic inquiry of the contemporary media arts.

The Experimental Party - the "party of experimentation" - is an artist-based political party that has been formed to activate citizens across the country in an effort to bring the artists' message to center stage of the political process. This is a political awakening, 'representation through virtualization' is the major political thrust of the Experimental Party, it is the driving force.

The US Department of Art and Technology is the United States principal conduit for facilitating the artist's need to extend aesthetic inquiry into the broader culture where ideas become real action. It also serves the psychological and spiritual well-being of all Americans by supporting cultural efforts that provide immunity from the extension of new media technologies into the social sphere.