TITLE NARRATIVE

Revolutionary Table was a tool often utilized during the run of Revolutionary Spirit. Using radio as a means of both transmission and communion, Revolutionary Table took place as a series of dinners across the country. Taking place in private homes, our hosts would invite friends over for dinner to discuss a topic in line with the platform in general, and in specific of note to the neighborhood where our dinner took place. Prior to our meal we would set up a radio transmitter whose range was capable of only a few blocks around the site of our dinner. This technology and its "limitations" was specific. If you could hear the broadcast you were in walking distance. The intent being to create a technology of intimacy and brought people in as much as transmitted ideas out.

Before dinner began guests who hand-write notes to deliver to neighbors inviting them to listen in, or even call-in to the meal, if part of our dinner conversation sparked an idea for them. One of these meals took place during the 2008 Republican National Convention in Peavy Plaza in Downtown Minneapolis. Broadcasting into the hotel rooms of delegates to the convention, we cooked outdoors with a few select guests (which included recently returned Iraq War veterans) and had a discussion prompted by the question, “How has the war affected your day today?” Another meal, in San Jose, California was in the house of an original Merry Prankster. When talking with them initially to see if they would host the meal they were intrigued, "We had a transmitter on The Bus. This sounds a lot like what we were after." We welcomed the comparison.

COMMENTARY

Original invitation text for the first dinner:

“Some of our most enlightened conversations develop while sitting around during, or after, a meal; discussing subjects that seem to rise out of thin air, grafting together the collective
imaginings of those gathered around the table in front of us. Revolutionary Table harnesses the usefulness of The Meal and The Table as tools to allow discussion to emerge regarding
notions of revolution and the everyday.

For each installment of Revolutionary Table a new host, and new home, invites friends and strangers alike to enjoy a meal with one another to discuss a topic specific to the hosts interests
that relates to these notions of how we encounter revolution within the everyday, and in what ways these encounters affect our daily lives.

Often we will bring along with us a radio transmitter. The evening's discussion is recorded, and simultaneously broadcast over the airwaves to the surrounding neighborhood.”

DOCUMENTS

COLOPHON

Editor: Sam Gould

Collaborators: Gabriel Mindel Saloman, Dylan Gauthier, Courtney Dailey, Conny Purtill, Jenelle Porter, Sina Najafi, Zefrey Throwell, Joseph del Pesco, Lee Montgomery, Helena Keeffe and others.