Document:Q10335

GLOBAL PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION (http://www.GlobalElection.org)
One World, One Love, One Leader

GLOBAL PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION- A historic opportunity for international participation in Global Domination

INTRODUCTION:
Globalelection.org is the official website for Global Presidential Election- a voting project founded by Kenneth Hung and Tim Blue. Global Presidential Election enables you to vote for a global leader from a pool of thirteen dictators using a voting system based upon the model of American democracy. To make your vote more potent, in Global Presidential Election you are eligible to purchase and/ or subtract votes for your choice of global leader. For USD $10 dollars Global Presidential Election will allow your one vote to count as 1,000. Our Absentee Ballot Program subtracts 150 actual votes from candidates of your choice for only USD $2.
The goal of this project is to examine the rhetoric surrounding America’s favorite buzzword, Democracy. With the current state of international relationships both economically and politically seeing power struggles and consolidation in the form of inequality and war, we have created an installation/performance/website in the form of mock elections that asks much needed questions about the nature of the Democracy the West is so keen on selling.

HIGHLIGHTS:
Resources available on the GlobalElection.org website include:
-Thirteen candidates were chosen to ensure the global democracy- George W Bush, Saddam Hussein, Ariel Sharon, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Silvio Berlusconi, to name a few.
-Voter are encouraged to write-in their own candidates.
-Voter can purchase 1000 votes for USD $10 and cast it to their favorite global leader.
-Voter can subtract 150 votes for their choice of leader for USD $2 with our Absentee Ballot program.
-Viewers can download Powerpoint presentation and voting pamphlet and set up their own global election.

HISTORY:
Global Elections was first conceived of in May 2003 as a project for a show at Cox 18, in Milan, Italy. At the time the United States government under the Bush administration had just raised its own method of terrorism, by escalating the threat of war to actual invasion, using the banner of Democracy, Freedom, and fear of “Mass Destruction” to further this agenda. The problems with this notion of Democracy, particularly in a time of aggressive global capitalism are manifold.
It is with this in mind that Global Elections was created to ask important questions about what is meant by the usage of a term that once implied a chance to participate in one’s own life. What can a vote change? What, and who are we allowed to vote for? Most importantly, what are the differences between individual interests and the interests of career politicians with strong ties to corporate lobbyists? (We may actually call them “sponsors” now).
Initially, Global Elections was executed as a performance. A voting pamphlet was printed with candidates selected from current, high profile heads of state, along side of some of the twentieth centuries most notorious “leaders”, and a situation was constructed where participants could vote. By careful selection of candidates, as well as accompanied by texts listing their “accomplishments”, it was intended to ask several, pointed questions about the nature of Democracy in it’s new configuration within an over all schema of global capitalism.
Since it’s launching as a performance, GE has taken to operating as a campaign. A website GlobalElection.org has been constructed with infrastructures, pages and contents that mirror many of those found owned and operated by the US government. Within these pages, texts have been placed that appropriates the actual language of these official sites, manipulated to reveal just where the logic of particular facts in today’s democracy leads. By functioning as performance, in conjunction with it’s placement as a form of internet activism, Global Elections does not seek to provide answers to the problems posited by the usage of the term, “democracy”, but to reveal it as the language of propaganda.
Previous Global Elections:
COX 18, Milan, Italy, June 2003 (elected candidate: Mao Tse Tung)
Shedhalle, Zürich, Switzerland, June 2004 (tie result: Slobodan Milosevic and Arnold Schwarzenegger)
Version04 Festival, Chicago, IL, USA, May 2004 (elected candidate: Arnold Schwarzenegger)

Future Global Elections:
APAture 2004, Kearny Street Workshop, San Francisco, U.S.A., September 2004
NACHT DER BILDER I, HAU Hebbel Am Ufer, Berlin, Germany, October, 2004

Contact Info:
Interviews and PR please contact:
Kenneth Hung
[email protected]
+1 (415) 606-6184
Interviews and PR in Europe please contact:
Tim Blue
[email protected]

You can also download a .pdf format of this press release at:
http://www.GlobalElection.org/downloads/pressrelease1.pdf