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DYKE ACTION MACHINE
BITCH PROFILE
DYKE ACTION MACHINE IS HERE TO QUESTION the terms being set for our movement, from inside the movement and from outside, and does so by using this century's classic form of politically engaged protest: agitprop," proclaim Sue Schaffner and Carrie Moyer, the two halves of a team that's been producing public art with a purpose for almost a decade. DAM aims to combat assimilation and consumer-limited identity within the lesbian community with provocative posters exhorting "Lesbian Americans: Don't sell out," "Gay marriage: You might as well be straight," and "Do you love the dyke in your life?"
DAM was born in New York in 1991 when photographer Schaffner and painter/graphic designer Moyer met at meetings of a Queer Nation lesbian working group (also called Dyke Action Machine). "I had seen these posters on the street that I thought were really cool, these Absolutely Queer posters [which pictured suspected closeted celebs and a tagline cribbed from a leader in gay niche marketing], and I was like, `Oh, wow, fabulous, I really want to do something like that,'" says Schaffner. "So I went to DAM, [which] had only been in existence for a few months, and...