Photo By Stacy Recht Czar

The anonymous members of Institute for Applied Autonomy assemble their exhibit, which includes a critique of hyper-surveillance in the U.S.

Artists, protesters and grassroots appropriators descend on the Contemporary Arts Center Saturday, with scathing and humorous critiques of corporate irresponsibility, a government bent on global domination and a population unconcerned with constant surveillance. Using mainstream communication channels and self-legitimizing technology, these organizations turn activism into an art and exploitation of media gullibility into a farce, inspiring dialogue on corporate culpability, invasive security measures, public space used to curate art projects and the role of art in activism. Thought provoking? Try action-provoking. The joyously irreverent and insurgent works on view at the CAC might make you want to throw something. Or overthrow something.

Six artist/activist groups present their DIY projects of civil disobedience for the CAC exhibit Incorporated: a recent (incomplete) history of infiltrations, actions and propositions utilizing contemporary art, curated by Matt Distel, mastermind of the CAC's coolest exhibits.

The Institute for Applied Autonomy uses their technical expertise for good, employing vast intellectual and ideological impetus, technology, resources and cunning techniques to distribute subversive messages. By appropriating tools of government, military and industry to criticize and parody those structures, IAA links technology, ingenuity and activism in a running public-art-science project whose artifice is delightfully obscured by its sophistication.

The members of IAA thrive on their anonymity. The obscurity of their identities acts in opposition to a growing trend of numerical identities, identity theft and constant monitoring by corporations and governments.

"John Henry," one of the anonymously named members of the organization, says, "(The government) uses fear against the people. By creating a fear greater than an Orwellian future, you make the Orwellian future seem to be a happy medium." IAA's spoofs on a security-obsessed nation employ not only humor and irony, but also complicated mechanics, engineering and, in their words, "contestational robotics."

The members of this secret society of civil insurgents described the ideas behind GraffitiWriter, a fast, four-wheeled robot that prints a dot-matrix paint message on any surface.

"We looked at ways robots were being used to perform tasks that were dangerous to humans. Meanwhile, we saw a rise in law enforcement -- people would be in jail for decades for graffiti. It seemed that graffiti became dangerous work, so we created a robotic graffiti writer to rapidly print paint on a sidewalk," says one of the Henrys.

"It turns out the robot didn't have to be stealthy. People assumed a high-tech piece of machinery had authorization. Technology carries a legitimizing effect. We had expected it would be confiscated, not us," Henry says.

How did the John Henrys of the IAA and their contestational robotics come to occupy the gallery space of an art museum?

"We use the power of aesthetics. That's a way in. There's also a sense of humor that makes the work accessible." They describe the difference between their collective and other art collectives as "a common belief rather than a common need for a kiln."

IAA is also famous for the distribution of various protest technologies, including TXTmob, which linked protesters through broadcast cell-phone text messages at the campaign conventions over the summer and last month's inauguration. They also developed a service called iSee, which offers a Web-based map of security cameras in Manhattan, allowing you to link your location and destination. An algorithm then maps the "path of least surveillance," a route designed to avoid as many security cameras as possible.

Corporate imposters The Yes Men gained notoriety by posing as corporate spokespersons, such as for the World Trade Organization, and unapologetically describing the WTO's exploitation of poorer nations. Posing as a spokesman for Dow Chemical, Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum accepted full responsibility for the Bhopal chemical leak on behalf of Dow on the BBC, promising to compensate victims and clean up the disaster. Dow was not amused -- nor did the company accept responsibility. The Yes Men are also behind various other activist hoaxes, including Web site spoofs of President George W. Bush. A documentary and book have been made about their efforts.

Concerned with the encroachment of advertisement on our psyches, Temporary Services creates ephemeral art in public spaces. The use of public spaces for art -- instead of for strategically placed products and advertisements -- fuels their imaginations and their activities. Using items such as adhesive hooks or sandwich cookies to augment or obscure advertisements in public spaces is their way of beautifying their world, silencing the visual noise of commerce and offering art to people who likely would not have sought it out on their own.

Cleveland-based newsense enterprises, founded by a husband-wife artist duo, Kristin Bly-Rogers and Lyz Bly, presents art aimed at public commentary. By making art out of public structures and public structures out of art, newsense uses materials of construction to infiltrate public spaces with art, forcing a dialogue of acceptable use of public spaces.

The State of Sabotage is its own nation, borderless, without any real rules or laws, utopian and anti-hegemonic. SoS places its temporary embassy in the CAC during the exhibit, and they will be issuing passports to visitors.

The Atlas Group documents the stories behind 15 years of car-bombings in Lebanon in a multimedia exhibition.

Incorporated opens Saturday and continues through May 8 in the Contemporary Arts Center's second floor Delta Air Lines Gallery and U.S. Bank Gallery. And, no, the irony of an anti-corporate exhibit housed in corporate-named galleries is not lost on us.