Sarah Kanouse: Art makes revolution by shooting holes in the social fabric. Through these holes, glimpses, visions and plans for other possibilities can be perceived. Art for revolution is a window, not window-dressing.
Art for revolution disrupts the inevitability of social and economic assumptions that have been normalized to appear unassailable, unchangeable, even "natural" and, "natural," then obviously "good." The "naturalness" and "goodness" of these conditions are reinforced daily by images and representations which art for revolution counters, parries, provokes. Existing social conditions emerged over time not through divine intervention or some process of Darwinian evolution but through human action that found patriarchy, white supremacism, heterosexism, and anthropocentrism helpful for the extraction of resources, coercion of labor and accumulation of wealth. Most of the images we see every day, from the obvious products of the entertainment industry to artworks - even revolutionary artworks - purchased by the targets of their critiques, are deployed by those who benefit from these social constructs in order to mask power and obscure the answer to the question "Cui bono?"
Images deployed in the service of capital reinforce existing social hierarchies by constantly reiterating and simultaneously obscuring them. Images serve as visual and visceral points for mobilizing personal desire and political will not to imagine alternatives but to support ideologies that may not actually be in the interests of those consuming them. "High art" legitimizes the elite by underscoring their commitment to a patronizing form of "cultural enrichment," and even 'revolutionary' images can excuse the powerful by pointing to their roadmindedness in supporting critical artwork through collectors and art institutions that effectively control the ways such critical images are displayed and seen.
Art for revolution disrupts the manners in which images serve capital. Art for revolution interjects questions, provides missing information, and creates linkages that are obscured by conventional images and the ideologies they serve. It is almost inevitable that images with revolutionary implications or intent will be appropriated and commodified as soon as they become effective; appropriation is the most effective form of censorship. The revolutionary artist will simply keep making art, finding new ways and new variations to use the subtle persuasiveness of images to invite viewers to question that which was not understood to be subject to question. Art for revolution heals the inevitable wounds of social and economic institutions by wounding their inevitability.

Bexa: Art is probably the main reason I am still alive. Other peoples’ or my own. Activism’s okay and necessary, but it isn’t particularly satisfying or sustainable for me (is it for you?).
Assert yourself: put your body? in front of the corporate-machine gears? I exist in the merging place of despair and pleasure; caught on the about-to-explode planet, looking for ways to keep going despite The World. I don’t think things are gonna change too much in my lifetime, and nowadays they are worsening in this country, and affecting everywhere else disastrously (channeling Bushie’s brain: "Lets not sign the Kyoto Protocol: We do love our SUVs!") I have some joy with friendships and dance and visual art and masturbation and massage.
Also, I think "Happiness" is overrated, kind of a cultural construct, as if it’s something you can just buy or work hard enough to get, as though it’s normal or healthy to be happy on a globe full of atrocity and inequality.
I like feeling connected to the long history of protest art; I can be an activist with what I make. I like feeling connected to ancient human history, art being integral to all cultures. Art carries the stories of a culture, whether it is propagating racist beliefs and turning them into truths, or spreading anti-racist demands. Art grieves and bleeds and passions and processes and dies and sleeps. Art can be anti-capitalist; don’t be tricked into thinking it is a bourgeois thing. It keeps you alive; it is survival. Art’s healing and wrenching and fucking ecstatic and wants to destroy this whole sickening system of torture and oppression, suffering and loneliness. Art is a question that can’t be answered. Keep asking.

Chris Evans: In the 60's, millions of people listened to what Bob Dylan had to say (they probably still do). What no one heard in 1966 was that Rubin "The Hurricane" Carter was innocent of all charges that put him on death row. Bob Dylan, the artist, was inspired to release a song in 1976 that spelled out Mr. Carter's innocence. Despite the same millions of people listening to that song, Rubin Carter stayed in jail another 9 years. And I doubt the appellate judge that released Carter from jail in 1985 cited Bob's tune as a reason to overturn the verdict. I say all that to say I am ambivalent about the word "art" and "revolution" being in the same sentence. I live in a time where the television show "Bart Simpson" is my country's favorite to watch, yet George Bush's son was able to get enough actual votes to allow the Supreme Court to select him as president. I see corporations using art more effectively nowadays to squash revolutions, not propel them. I still do art, however, that seeks "revolution" (or put another way, a "better solution") because it's the only thing I know how to contribute at the moment.