HELP ILLUMINATE THE NATION

A note from the activists:

The Illuminator, in case you haven't heard, is a tactical media machine (aka a van with a really powerful projector, sound system, and library) that has been roaming the streets of New York City and beyond, bringing the spirit and message of the #occupy movement to street corners and public squares everywhere.

On November 17th, 2011, the two month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, a group of artist-activists pulled off an epic light projection action that came to be known as the "OWS Bat Signal". The video went viral, and the story got picked up by news outlets all over the world.

The success of this action led to the creation of The Illuminator, and since March 3rd, we’ve been on the streets of New York City and beyond. Our all-volunteer collective, comprised of artists, technologists, librarians, biologists, etc… have been staging spectacular interventions in public spaces, supporting a wide range of struggles, making the news, and reminding people that the crises that brought people into the streets last fall are still very much alive. It has been an incredible journey.
 
Unfortunately, due to differences in vision with the funder of the project, our access to this van will end after September.  This clearly demonstrates why it’s vital for our movement projects to be accountable to all of us, to the 99%, rather than any individual funder. (You can read our statement about this here.)

That's where you come in. Together, let’s seed funding for "The Illuminator 2.0." This time around, it will be all of you, all of us, that bring our beautiful imaginings into being. This time, we want to expand the project to other cities, to groups of committed activists and artists in places like Boston, San Francisco, and Baltimore who are ready to utilize the tactic of mobile guerilla projection. And there's undoubtedly lots more of them - of you - out there that we haven't heard from (if you have a committed group with the background and skills, write to us at info@theilluminator.org! We'd love to expand this Kickstarter campaign's reach).