kunst.ee is an Estonian quarterly of art and visual culture published in Tallinn. The title continues the legacy of Kunst magazine started in 1959; the magazine was restarted as kunst.ee in 2000. The editorial office of the magazine has consisted of one art critic. The flexible structure of kunst.ee enables flexibility in the content. The main section follows current exhibitions and discussions, while the special section is edited by guest editor(s) who specialize in the selected topic and who also invite the guest designer. Finally, the graphic design special is an alternatively financed mission project edited and designed by a team of professionals.
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The protesting school took place at the Roskilde Festival of music 2006 in Denmark between Sunday June 25 and Sunday July 2 with the purpose to stimulate and educate the participants of the festival. The Roskilde Protesting School aimed to work out a body building of awareness, a kind of mental gymnastic.
Colonel, Geoffroy Thierry
The Protesting School took place at the Roskilde Festival of music 2006 in Denmark between Sunday June 25 and Sunday July 2. The purpose was to stimulate and educate the participants of the festival to create a protest concerning the news topics of the day.
The Roskilde festival is a metaphor of “our real world”: people are kept in a glass cage, protected from the outer world, in an illusion of compassion. News comes from the outside but doesn’t really affect anyone. The purpose was to avoid abstract slogans like “No more war”. The Roskilde Protesting School aimed to work out a body building of awareness, a kind of mental gymnastic to point out dysfunctions of the surrounding society, it was also a gymnastic of instant expression and exhibiting opinions while grabbing an instant moment of history. Today is today and not yesterday.
1 One of the slogans generated during the festival was: “Null Tolerance for Your Ignorance”. At the festival young people were informed by newspapers, radios about everything going on outside their festival, they knew about mass murders, territorial invasions, the lies of politicians, injustice, the growing xenophobic movement in their country, etc. They knew, but all this information was ejected. That’s why somebody created the slogan: “Null Tolerance for Your Ignorance”. We share the responsibility of knowing the worst.
For example on the 27th of June 2006, the newspaper Globe made an innocent entertaining story about the fact that a member of the xenophobic ultra right wing party, The Danish Peoples Party, Morten Messerschmidt, was invited to make a speech at the festival. A group of young festival goers noticed that particular story and felt it was scandalous. They created the slogan: “More tomatoes at Morten Messerschmidt”. Thereafter, they toured the festival grounds, informing other festival goers about their hurt feelings. This protest was a very concise and direct one against the proximity of the xenophobe party coming and making propaganda in the middle of the festival. And this group was the only one protesting this fact among the 75,000 visitors at the festival.
Another slogan erupted on the 27th of June, inspired by an article headlining: “Weapons are out of control”. The slogan made by the protester questioned with pertinence: “Who should control?” clearly pointing out the absurdity of the articles title. The same day another article announced: “Kalashnikov is the poor man’s best friend”. A protester pointed out the absurd phrasing by answering “Weapons are not friends”. The same day a terrible photo of dying Africans was presented in the context of the cultural section of the newspaper. A protester posed the question: “Why does this image appear in the culture section?” The following slogan was created on the spot: “Charity without entertainment”. And on it went.
2 Once someone had formulated a slogan we stimulated him to search for likeminded. “No more loneliness in front of the media”. Protesters should make groups sharing the same slogan and work out a protest chorus about, for example, the bad treatment of refugees in their country or the growing racist elements in the politicians’ language. Instead of raising a beer bottle and shouting cheers, they should approach each other and they should talk about their visions and fears. It was a de-isolation project. Whenever a slogan was created, a headband was produced. The headband was placed on the protesters’ head. When 10 persons shared the same slogan, a flag with that particular slogan was made. On the flag, an image from the media of the day was added. It became a community of opinion.
3 Through an SMS telecasting, a so called ‘flash mob’, the protesting school pupils were taught the precision of time and hyper fast mobilization. Having registered their mobile phone numbers, the protesters received an SMS-message informing them, the starting and ending points of the protest march of the day. One more time, gymnastics was the key word. Like a daily gymnastics regime, a march was organized every day. Every day new slogans, new headbands, new flags.
4 Protesters had daily a 1 hour march. New protesters with new slogans spontaneously joined in. Others ran away. Sometimes more people followed a particular flag.
Some slogans were more dominating. Some were very discrete. Some were very popular. Some were very lonely. But all the slogans expressed life.
Some flags disappeared. Some clashed. Some responded to each other. Protest jam. Transmission.
A megaphone was given to the protesters and it circulated during the protest march. If one protester had a lot of talent with the megaphone he was taught to include all slogans in his talk to make a unity out of the diversity. In the chaos of diversity protesters had to regulate their noise and adapt their speed. Everything mixed in as a harmonic chaos of opinions was being exposed.
5 All conversations were filmed, all hesitations, debates, slogans were registered. The whole project developed into a portrait of a specific generation in a specific period.
After the festival, the collected data will be interconnected in a new form. What is extracted and exhibited in the march will take a new meaning in the magnifying glass of classification and statistic. It will be possible to create a “measurement of awareness”.
The protests will become a part of history.
Appendix
About Colonel see also: kunst.ee 2002, No. 1 (pp 56-64); 2003, No. 1 (pp 33-34); 2006, No. 2 (pp 26-27).
One of the slogans generated during the festival was: “Null Tolerance for Your Ignorance”. At the festival young people were informed by newspapers, radios about everything going on outside their festival, they knew about mass murders, territorial invasions, the lies of politicians, injustice, the growing xenophobic movement in their country, etc. They knew, but all this information was ejected. That’s why somebody created the slogan: “Null Tolerance for Your Ignorance”. We share the responsibility of knowing the worst. 
Another slogan erupted on the 27th of June, inspired by an article headlining: “Weapons are out of control”. The slogan made by the protester questioned with pertinence: “Who should control?” clearly pointing out the absurdity of the articles title. The same day another article announced: “Kalashnikov is the poor man’s best friend”. A protester pointed out the absurd phrasing by answering “Weapons are not friends”.
for likeminded. “No more loneliness in front of the media”. Protesters should make groups sharing the same slogan and work out a protest chorus about, for example, the bad treatment of refugees in their country or the growing racist elements in the politicians’ language. Instead of raising a beer bottle and shouting cheers, they should approach each other and they should talk about their visions and fears. It was a de-isolation project.
Through an SMS telecasting, a so called ‘flash mob’, the protesting school pupils were taught the precision of time and hyper fast mobilization.
A megaphone was given to the protesters and it circulated during the protest march. If one protester had a lot of talent with the megaphone he was taught to include all slogans in his talk to make a unity out of the diversity.