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michael.benson@pristop.si: Get the Boss |
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - <nettime-l-temp@material.net> is the temporary home of the nettime-l list while desk.nl rebuilds its list-serving machine. please continue to send messages to <nettime-l@desk.nl> and your commands to <majordomo@desk.nl>. nettime-l-temp should be active for approximately 2 weeks (11-28 Jun 99). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: michael.benson@pristop.si To: nettime-l@desk.nl Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 20:32:14 +0000 Subject: Get the Boss [orig to syndicate] The Kosovars come out of the hills, they are skinny as rails, they are missing most of their families, they see the utter destruction, and they don't really seem to know what to do about it. Is it all over? It's all over. But if it's all over, what to do about all the bodies, all the unresolved anger at their utter helplessness, in the face of an enemy which has suddenly, miraculously, evaporated, what to do with the psychological trauma, the questions about where is he, or she? Are they dead? Or were they taken off to Serbia in the back of a truck for more horrendous treatment? If death came, was it at least relatively fast, or was it after weeks of torture, or rape? If they are still living, what can be done, and by who? Are they still upriver? The horror, the horror. * * * In Venice, at the Biennial, all the well-fed, well-watered art lovers, and art profiteers, and artists, and promoters, and self-promoters, and judge, and jury, and local gawkers, and various onlookers, and scribes, and photographers, they all survey the art, incline their heads, nod appreciatively, or make subtle negative comments, or positive comments, or ignorant comments. And they track blood-red dust out of Ann Hamilton's installation in the American pavilion, as some would probably say, 'appropriately enough.' Coming out of the Komar and Melamid lower floor of the Russian pavilion, which featured pictures of Moscow taken by a chimpanzee (not bad), and paintings by several adult Indian elephants (as well as a video of the elephants in the course of painting -- quite fascinating, actually, to see the elephant hesitate, apply more paint, think a bit, squint at the canvas, then add more, all with surprising delicacy; the elephant trunk is evidently a lot more skilful than you may have thought, if you ever gave it any thought) -- coming out of the Komar and Melamid lower floor, I hear one American say to another: "Did you see upstairs?" -- gesturing up to where Sergei "Afrika" Bugayev's large installation occupies two rooms -- "Because it feels a lot more **Russian.**" Just in case you didn't know exactly what it is you're buying, or rather, sampling. * * * In Venice, at the Biennial, in a square near where Marko Peljhan made his interesting presentation of his Project Atoll, the earth-base of which looks like centipede marching towards the future from one angle, and a lunar lander from another angle, there is graffiti reading as follows: (1) "NATO assassini" and (2) "Free Tibet". All the polymorphous contradictions of the liberal left are there. Although the graffiti is evidently by two different hands. How to free Tibet? Negotiations aren't going to work. So how? China has nuclear weapons. In fact, it now has all the latest US nuclear weapons designs, courtesy of a simple, repetitive file transfer cut-and-paste down-load activity, which will enable it to be that much more potentially accurate and destructive when it, for example, seizes Taiwan one day in the next decade or so, while using those nukes as a shield. Let alone releasing its totalitarian grip on poor destroyed Tibet. So -- how? Well, certainly not by force. That would be too upsetting. Not to mention very, very dangerous. And among other things (if anyone survives long enough), it would result in graffiti deploring the whole move. On the other hand, it's easy to say "NATO assassini", it doesn't require any thought, after all, those "smart" and "dumb" and "laser guided" and "gravity assisted" bombs cost lives. Including innocent lives. Bombs don't (yet) come complete with an investigative arm, authority to arrest, courtroom with cage, measured investigative regimen, defense lawyer, balanced presentation of evidence, etc. No, they just kill, or maim, anyone who happens to be in their path. And, with the sound of jets screaming out of Aviano still echoing in your ears, it takes a real effort of will to turn your head and look at the immense, disproportionate pile of bodies on the other side of that scale. Not to mention to try to figure out when violence is justified to stop violence. The latter is a horrendous activity, it's simply not pleasant. The whole thing isn't pleasant, and it's too difficult to parse the whole thing out, because it disrupts certain certainties that are easier to leave sleeping. Yeah, better to leave them sleeping. Don't ask 'what is it'. Go make your visit. * * * Safe in safe-as-milk Ljubljana, all the bridges intact, electricity coursing through the walls, neighbors watering their plants, I burn several CDs by several interesting musicians, and in so doing, I increase the amount of interesting music in the world, while simultaneously breaking the law, avoiding paying the record companies a dime, and using a laser for something other than guiding a weapon down a chimney into your living room. However, a friend tells me that, if you spend a certain amount of time combing through stereo garbage with a screwdriver and a moderate amount of technical knowledge, you can quickly put together a quite respectable pile of real working lasers from discarded CD players. These lasers can then be wired together, and oriented in the same direction. When I ask him what he would do then, with those lasers, he goes silent. And changes the subject. I have no idea what his intentions are. But I'd rather not think he's dangerous. * * * You crack open the book by Wislawa Szymborska, and you read the following: MAYBE ALL THIS Maybe all this is happening in some lab? Under one lamp by day and billions by night? Maybe we're experimental generations? Poured from one vial to the next, shaken in test tubes, not scrutinized by eyes alone, each of us separately plucked up by tweezers in the end? Or maybe it's more like this: No interference? The changes occur on their own according to plan? The graph's needle slowly etches its predictable zigzags? Maybe thus far we aren't of much interest? The control monitors aren't usually plugged in? Only for wars, preferably large ones, for the odd ascent above our clump of Earth, for major migrations from point A to B? Maybe just the opposite: They've got a taste for trivia up there? Look! on the big screen a little girl is sewing a button on her sleeve. The radar shrieks, the staff comes at a run. What a darling little being with its tiny heart beating inside it! How sweet, its solemn threading of the needle! Someone cries enraptured: Get the Boss, tell him he's got to see this for himself! ** Etc., etc. ---------------- Michael Benson <michael.benson@pristop.si> <http://www.ljudmila.org/kinetikon/>