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Joseph Nechvatal – New Works

Joseph Nechvatal – New Works

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Joseph Nechvatal is a “chef extraordinaire” of the artworld. Using the ingredients of source images, viral codes and attacks, computer-robotic collaboration, as well as his own creative, activist, theoretical sensibilities, he serves up luscious feasts of haunting, liminal images. Nechvatal’s “viractual” digital paintings are dynamic in a way that belies their 2-dimensionality. Pregnant with an almost mystical awareness of new kinds of consciousness, these works embody rhizomatic interconnections that still defy linguistic articulation (at least, they still defy mine, although his critical writing on these issues is more sophisticated than my own).

Nechvatal’s art and theoretical writing attempt to bring certain kinds of awareness and understanding into the open public sphere (or even into the clearing, as Heidegger might say). It would be the limited person indeed who could meditate long upon one of his paintings without having new patterns of recognition, new kinds of thoughts.

I am always more than happy to brag about the work of my viral friend. In the vernacular of my youth, Nechvatal is “wicked cool.” Keep it going, Joseph!

america jesus tOrture 7

the america jesus tOrture series

Nechvatal counters the too-ephemeral cultural recognitions of torture with his embedded images of Abu Graib. The inevitable, evocation of the crucification in this collection is cause for ethical reflection in many directions. These works function as a “wake-up slap to the face” for Americans in general, but especially so for the so-called Christians who have condoned and supported torture policies from the top down.

Bohemian Grove 7

inside Bohemian Grove

As a 100% real Bohemian, Nechvatal objects both to the name appropriation and to the realities of the “Bohemian Grove,” the 130-year old California retreat for the political, corporate, banking, and military ruling elite. He has created “a series of faux-romantic digital paintings” that call attention to to the private power club, using source photographs obscured with viral codes and layered imaginaries. The paintings evoke the darker side of the multiple layerings and mutations of religion and power.

Note: The secondary (and more well-known) definition of a Bohemia as a place where creative people can live and work cheaply – and behave unconventionally – in community also seems a bit alien to global power players. This is something beyond simple gentrification…

ideologues in fairyland 9

ideologues in fairyland

“Fairy portraits” render prominent neo-conservatives as insectile, bulbous, fractalized, twisted, and written-over, in a series that calls attention to current governmental manipulation and corruption, while at the same time performatively undermining neo-con claims to dominance or authority. Multiply-resonant for would-be interpreters. Have fun.

Finally, be sure to read Nechvatal’s essay on Yves Klein, whose works are being shown at the CORPS, COULEUR, IMMATÉRIEL (Body, Color, Immaterial) show, The Centre Pompidou / Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, through February 5th, 2007.

In bringing together 120 paintings and sculptures, some 40 drawings and manuscripts and a great number of contemporary films and photographs, this exhibition offered me a new reading of Klein’s work, this time in the context of virtuality. Adhering as faithfully as possible to the artist’s own intentions as revealed in his recently published writings, the design of the exhibition brought out the importance that Klein accorded to the diverse aspects of his artistic practice: not only painting and sculpture, but also immaterial performances, sound works, interventions in public spaces, architectural projects and, most essentially, immaterial art theory. This diverse oeuvre, all produced during a period of just seven years, is indeed impressive as much of it anticipated the trends of Happening and Performance Art, Land Art, Body Art, Conceptual Art and Digital Art. Thus it has had, ironically, a durable influence on art through its essential interest in and expressions of the immaterial.

Armchair activism for today

Armchair activism for today

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Stop New Pollution and Global Security Threats from Nuclear Waste

The US has a serious nuclear waste problem, and like the rest of the world, we have found no solution. Nonetheless, the White House is proposing a giant program to import and reprocess foreign spent fuel. In his current budget, the Bush Administration proposed the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) which would make major changes to U.S. policies regarding the global management of spent nuclear fuel. Under GNEP, “supplier” countries would reprocess other countries’ commercial irradiated fuel and provide fresh fuel for “user” countries that agree not to enrich uranium or reprocess fuel domestically. Reprocessing other countries’ spent fuel would increase the amount of highly radioactive waste that the U.S. would have to permanently store. What this will do is cause more pollution, create an enormous security threat, and be dangerous to communities and neighborhoods.
Demand that your Senators vote no on Bush budget’s initiative on nuclear reprocessing.
(Public Citizen/The Petition Site/Care2)

The America I Believe In

The America I Believe In doesn’t torture people or use cruel, inhumane treatment. . . doesn’t hold people without charge, without fair trials, without hope, and without end. . .doesn’t kidnap people off the street and ship them to nations known for their brutality. . .doesn’t condone prisoner abuse and excuse high-ranking government officials from responsibility for that abuse. . .doesn’t justify the use of secret prisons. . .and does not rob people of their basic dignity.

Amnesty International has launched a new campaign that will fight to restore our traditional American values of justice, rule of law, and human dignity. In the coming weeks and months, we will as a nation either end some of the worst human rights abuses of the Bush administration or continue down this destructive path. Amnesty is fighting for the America we believe in, the America that leads the world on human rights. Be part of this campaign. Shape the outcome. Join with Amnesty International to restore “The America I Believe In.” This campaign is mobilizing people of conscience all across America to speak out. Please join us. We won’t stop until we turn America around on human rights.

Sign The America I Believe In Pledge
(Amnesty International)

CARE 60th Anniversary action

The United Nations member states have made a promise to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015. On their 60th Anniversary, CARE is urging world leaders to follow through on this commitment by investing substantial resources in women and girls in the developing world.

Add your voice to CARE’s 60th anniversary Women CARE declaration
(CARE, thanks to Elainna)

LCV’s Environmental Scorecard

Since 1970, the League of Conservation Voters’ Scorecard has tracked your Congress members’ voting records. LCV’s Scorecard is based on crucial environmental votes, including energy and oil drilling, environmental health standards, and protecting wild places. Nothing more starkly illustrates how your representatives in Congress have helped or harmed the environment. How did your elected officials score?

The good news is that the next Congress can do a whole lot better. They will have new opportunities to debate and vote on legislation to tackle global warming and promote a cleaner, safer, and cheaper energy future.

Sign the New Energy Now! Petition to help push America’s next Congress to improve its National Environmental Scorecard score by promoting clean energy, protecting the environment, and reinvigorating the economy.
(League of Conservation Voters)

Send a Message of Support to Heroes of Justice and Freedom

Standing up for something you believe in takes great personal courage. That is especially true for the brave individuals who have stood up to government abuses carried out in the name of the ‘war on terror.’ Every time you hear about a lawsuit challenging government spying, protecting someone’s right to criticize the government or suing over mistreatment and abuse, behind the headlines there is a brave individual or group taking a stand for all of our rights.

That is why the ACLU is asking liberty-loving people across America to join them in thanking a remarkable group of clients who joined them in challenging government abuses since September 11, 2001. These amazing people come from diverse backgrounds and from a range of occupations. They are librarians, religious leaders, business people, students, pacifists. They represent many faiths, communities, cultures and political viewpoints. But they share one thing in common. Each has had the courage to stand up and fight for the core American values of freedom and fairness. It only takes a minute to let these courageous people know that they are not alone and that there are many Americans who appreciate and support what they are doing.

Send a message of support to this extraordinary group of ACLU clients.
(ACLU)

Demand Emergency Paper Ballots

Urge your political representatives and election officals to provide Emergency Paper Ballots at every polling place, along with a well-publicized plan for action so that every election official, poll worker, and voter will be absolutely clear on the procedures for utilizing them. No legally registered voter should ever be told to “come back later,” or be forced to use a provisional ballot simply because a voting system is unavailable to them at the time they are able to vote.
Demand that an ample supply of Emergency Paper Ballots be made available at elections.
(Progressive Democrats of America)

Homework:

American Fascism Is on the Rise, Stan Goff

The precursors of fascism — militarization of culture, vigilantism, masculine fear of female power, xenophobia and economic destabilization — are ascendant in America today.

A splendid achievement, Terry Jones
(yes, that Terry Jones)

Wherein the World League of Despots recognizes President Bush’s accomplishments and formally invites him to join their membership.

Mean, Loathsome Individuals

Mean, Loathsome Individuals

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These people – yes, that’s the perjorative phrase “these people” – fill me with bewilderment, disgust and just plain old loathing.

Baby used as a weapon:
In Erie, Pennsylvania, a month-old baby was critically injured when anti-mom Chytoria Graham (27) “allegedly” swung the baby through the air to strike her boyfriend – with her baby – in a domestic dispute. The baby suffers from a fractured skull and bleeding in the brain. Four other children were removed from the home.

Torture of an animal, terrorizing children:
Here in Atlanta, Joshua (17) and Justin Moulder (18) “are alleged to have” bound a puppy with duct tape, then doused her with paint and baked her in an oven at a community center of Englewood Manor Apartments. Then they enticed neighborhood children in to the center to see the dead puppy. Then they threatened to kill the children if they told anyone.

This one is a little more subtle:

Another Georgia Fanatic Wants to Ban Books from School:
Loganville anti-mom Laura Mallory is using every available means to insist that Harry Potter books are banned from all Gwinnett County public schools. She has gone over the head of the Gwinnett school board and presented the case to the state Board of Education. Mallory can still appeal to Gwinnett County Superior Court if this goes against her. She should sit down with the author J. K. Rowling and hear how the first book was written, so that she could develop a working definition of momhood.

Gwinnett County Taxpayer Cost: More than $4,000 – not counting staff time – and rising. MacBeth is next, and the Wizard of Oz, and the Narnia books, and most fairy tales, and….

Mallory is actually being taken seriously in her view that Harry Potter books represent an organised attempt to indoctrinate children in the Wicca religion. “I surely don’t want them indoctrinated into a religion whose practices are evil,” says Mallory.

An evangelical Wiccan conspiracy, yet. Now I’ve heard everything.

Now, what evil practices would those be again? And – oh, let me guess – what’s your religion? Don’t get me started on definitions of “evil practices,” just read some books on history or world economics (unless those aren’t allowed in your house either?).

How about this? You could always be a parent and monitor what your children are allowed to read (under your very limited ideas about acceptable education, literature and religion).

Keep your dour hands off our libraries and schools.

Harry Potter is fantasy literature. Fantasy literature is not identical to pagan belief or practice, Wiccan or otherwise.

If your kids are not able to distinguish between fantasy and reality, then they have bigger problems than an embarrassing mother. Yes, I know, a lot of people have problems distinguishing between fantasy and reality, but let’s just assume there’s a remedy here. You could start with Pilgrim’s Progress, for example (assuming that simple allegory and metaphor aren’t too traumatic for you).

I was raised in a Jehovah’s Witness household, but even my parents did not forbid me to read fantasy. I read Watchtower publications, sure, but I also read The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and Secret Garden and A Wind in the Door and The Magician’s Nephew (Narnia) and The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and the Dune books, and anything else I could get my hands on.

My love of imaginative and challenging works of fiction enabled me to grow and to thrive in ways that would have been impossible otherwise. Oh, and by the way, serious readers rarely have problems passing standardized tests. You learn a lot by osmosis.

Deny quality reading experiences to children at your peril!

I’m going to assume that I know your political party. I’m speculating that if times were just the slightest bit different, you’d be first in line to stone someone to death, first in line to hang a woman accused of witchcraft.

You’re a literalist, more concerned with rules than wisdom or understanding. Wave the flag, sieg heil, whatever.

You’re no better than a puppy torturer or a baby-thrower. You have the same basic lack of empathy, the same disregard for others.

You’re yet another symptom of the decline of our freedom and democracy, our literacy, our wisdom – and yes, our spirituality. The losses that we have sustained in these areas represent a clear and present danger to our country.

I know that there is some way of understanding how people can be twisted up in the ways that these people are, but I simply don’t have what it takes to try to understand right now (Lord, give me compassion…. but not yet.)

I spit in your general direction, you mean, vile, loathsome people.

The Torch is out

The Torch is out

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“Let the world go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today, at home and around the world!” – John F. Kennedy

Sorry, Jack, you were wrong about your generation. That American torch is extinguished, for now. Sad to see the line broken, but there it is. Played by fear and hate, the U.S. Congress has passed unconstitutional legislation that denies individuals detained by the United States the ability to challenge their detentions and treatment in court (habeas corpus).

Instead of holding the executive branch accountable for its abuses, Congress has now:

  • Given the Executive branch unchecked power to label anyone as an “unlawful enemy combatant” and to detain such persons, including U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.
  • Said that evidence obtained through “coercion” is acceptable (just like the Inquisitions).
  • Specifically denied independent judicial review of detentions.
  • Tried to eliminate accountability for previous violations of the law
  • Granted the Secretary of Defense authority to deviate from time-tested military justice standards for fair trials.

Fair trials, due process of law, habeas corpus, human rights – these are fundamental American values. We have nothing to be proud of in this legislation or in those who have voted for it.

Measures Passed:

Military Commissions Act: By 65 yeas to 34 nays (Vote No. 259), Senate passed S. 3930, to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of war, after taking action on the following amendments proposed thereto:


Rejected:
By 48 yeas to 51 nays (Vote No. 255), Specter Amendment No. 5087, to strike the provision regarding habeas review.
By 46 yeas to 53 nays (Vote No. 256), Rockefeller Amendment No. 5095, to provide for congressional oversight of certain Central Intelligence Agency programs.
By 47 yeas to 52 nays (Vote No. 257), Byrd Amendment No. 5104, to prohibit the establishment of new military commissions after December 31, 2011.
By 46 yeas to 53 nays (Vote No. 258), Kennedy Amendment No. 5088, to provide for the protection of United States persons in the implementation of treaty obligations.

“If Vice President Cheney is right, that some ‘cruel, inhumane, or degrading’ treatment of captives is a necessary tool for winning the war on terrorism, then the war is lost already.” – Vladimir Bukovsky, who spent nearly 12 years in Soviet prisons, labor camps, and psychiatric hospitals for nonviolent human rights activities

“No good intelligence is going to come from abusive interrogation practices.” – Lieutenant John F. Kimmons, Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence

The UN Committee against Torture and the UN Human Rights Committee have found the US interrogation methods are unlawful and have expressed concern at arbitrary detentions. “The bill does not take into account substantive criticism from our side … It is not the signal that I would have expected the US government and Congress would make in order to try to comply with our recommendations,” Nowak said.

In London, Amnesty International vowed a campaign against the legislation.

“Once again the Bush [team] has succeeded in significantly breaching the rule of law. This is to the great delight of the `Islamoterrorists’ whose aim is to destroy the political system of the godless West,” the Swiss daily Tribune de Geneve said in an editorial on Friday. “Bush Junior now has tailor-made justice,” it said.

“This is one of the most regressive pieces of legislation in US history,” Reed Brody, legal counsel at the New York-based group Human Rights Watch, told Reuters. “The Bush administration has been given authority to determine who is an enemy combatant and to lock people up on its own say-so indefinitely without trial,” Brody said. “We would have thought that after Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and secret prisons, the administration would have learned mistreatment and torture do not make the country safer against terrorism, but in fact render it more vulnerable.”

The International Commission of Jurists said the law put inmates at Guantanamo and elsewhere “back in a legal black hole”. “It is terrible to say the least for the detainees and rule of law in the United States, but also a dangerous precedent because it undermines international human rights law standards,” said Gerald Staberock, head of the ICJ’s global security program.

Shami Chakrabarti, director the of UK-based human rights group Liberty, said: “This unsavory political compromise will send the worst possible signal about the United States government’s commitment to the rule of law.”

Paris’s left-leaning Le Monde newspaper attacked the bill in an editorial earlier this week, saying it would give Bush “the power to authorize the CIA to use interrogation methods that respect neither US legislation, nor international law codified by the Geneva conventions. In fact, it would be able to resort to torture. Mr. Bush is playing his usual card: to put the fear of terrorism before any thought on the means to fight it.”

The fact is that Bush administration schemes don’t work – not for our national interests, not for our national security – and they strip us of some of the qualities and values that made America a country to be proud of. Privacy rights, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right to peaceable assembly – all of this and much else has been undermined and eroded by this horrible administration. All this, lost and given away, without addressing the root causes of terrorism or to making us any safer from those who would destroy us.

Look for the lights that still shine in the darkness. America cannot tolerate this pathological climate. Those who have a voice, speak. Those who have ears, hear and listen. Those who have wisdom, vote for the ones that have at least a little bit of that light left – real light. The torch is out, but the hearth-fires of October are banked. Carry the warm embers until the torchbearers return.

Catch up? Let go?

Catch up? Let go?

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I’ve been feeling a certain amount of (self-imposed) pressure to keep up with every action and every political development here. Obviously, I can’t do that. There are people who actually receive a salary to do so, and you can find them all over the web. Anyone who has read this blog knows that I would be disappointed in McCain and others for caving on the torture provisions, that I would probably rant on the strategy of seeming to attack the Geneva Conventions directly (knowing it wouldn’t fly) only to “settle” on grandfathered pardons for CIA torturers and the introduction of “alternative procedures” and the ability to label anyone they want to as a terrorist – which is what they wanted in the first place. America the beautiful, torturer in chief. So on and so on. A lot has been happening.

And of course, I have a number of backlogged announcements in my email. Attorney General Gonzales actually stood up to defend the actions of the US in the false imprisonment, rendition to Syria, and torture of an innocent Canadian. Baghdad’s Camp Cropper, which started out as a bunch of tents, is now a $60 million “state-of-the-art” prison, paid for by us. Another industry anti-regulation ideologue (Susan Dudley) has been nominated by the White House for a position that requires the opposite concerns of the person nominated. This time it’s at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, an office that makes decisions about the safety of the air we breathe, the cars we drive, the medicines we take and the water we drink. Top housing official (Alphonso Jackson) has been instructing staff to cut out Democrats when awarding HUD contracts – in violation of the law, of course. Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) gets to keep his congressional pension after he serves his prison time for selling his votes for money. Government auditors responsible for monitoring leases for oil and gas on federal property say the Interior Department suppressed their efforts to recover more than $30 million from energy companies that were cheating the government. The National Black Republican Association is running an ad accusing Democrats of starting the Ku Klux Klan. They also say Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican. Sigh. Medicare physician payment rates are set to be cut by more than 5 percent starting Jan. 1, 2007, and by nearly 40 percent over the next nine years, just as Baby Boomers are starting to retire. The FCC destroyed their own study when it proved media consolidation reduces local news coverage. Yada yada.

I can’t keep up with the landslide of these kinds of stories, and even if I could, I’m not sure that it really makes much difference. So you may notice some changes in the blog. I’m not going to try to cover the whole range. I’m just going to address what I’m thinking about that day. It might be political, or cultural, or religious, or creative, or just silly. We’ll see.

I’m still looking for a full-time job, and increasingly disappointed that my Ph.D. hasn’t allowed me to net a job here. I’ve not limited my search to the fields of my training. I’ve not limited my search even to academia. I’ve always worked part-time, even while I was in graduate school, but I don’t have a “last salary” to enter on an internet form. I would be an asset in many ways, except perhaps in accounting or sales (it’s a little too much like “witnessing” for me). I’ve been applying for several jobs a week over the last two years. Bupkis! – a big nothing.

I’m just a bit discouraged. However, I have a lot to be happy about, too. One great thing about getting older is that you get better at dealing with life’s oddities.

Here’s the thing, though. Just when you might be feeling that you’re doing pretty well (all things considering), the big black boot in the sky appears to smash into your head. “Wake up and pay attention! Time to grow again! It’s GOOD for your CHARACTER!” It’s been a while since I really felt existentially shaken, and I guess it was time for me to take some kind of next step. It’s strange the way some things can affect you more than others. Sometimes, I’m calm and collected in the middle of chaos and disaster. Other times, something that doesn’t look like such a catastrophe can knock me down on my butt.

I’ve been knocked down in a way that has been affecting the way I respond to everything for the last couple of days. I’ve got to find a better way through it. It’s a challenge, something much more difficult even than I would have thought it would be (if I had thought about it). A family member has acquired some mistaken and surprisingly negative ideas about me. I spent much of yesterday trying to respond to an email that made me burst into sobs whenever I looked at it. I’m not normally much of a weeper – I’m more of a stoic, or maybe – in extreme situations – a cocoonist. The assumptions and views that were expressed – and what they implied – deeply, deeply hurt me in a way that I haven’t felt in a long time. I don’t know whether or not we will be able to work out the problems and misunderstandings, and the repercussions of not doing so would be very sad for both our families. I’ve responded as best I can, but I suspect that it won’t make much difference. It feels like a fundamental loss, a kind of death. It might even be just mourning for something that was never really there in the first place. Right now, I couldn’t say for sure.

I’m blown back, yes, but there are other aspects of my life now that can’t be ignored or abandoned just because I got a big electric shock. That’s a funny image, but that’s what it felt like – one of those cartoons where a character gets hold of a wire or something, and big lightening-bolt images fly from their contact. I could almost hear the sound effect. ZAP-zappp-booOOOm.

So I’m just taking it a bit slower for the next little bit, taking those walks and baths and meditations that I often recommend to others. I’ve done what I can for now, and how it all turns out will be what it will be.

Bush Administration Pronounced Guilty of War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity

Bush Administration Pronounced Guilty of War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity

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The Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration released its final verdict on Wednesday, September 13, 2006. Guilty.

11:00 AM, Press Conference, Camp Democracy (Constitution & 14)
12:00 Noon, Delivery of Verdict to the White House

Full text of the verdict in PDF.

An unprecedented Commission of Inquiry has found the President of the United States and his administration guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The five-member panel of jurists unanimously found the administration’s actions “shock the conscience of humanity” in five areas – wars of aggression, illegal detention and torture, suppression of science and catastrophic policies on global warming, potentially genocidal abstinence-only policies imposed on HIV/AIDS prevention programs in the Third World, and the abandonment of New Orleans before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina.

THE VERDICT

In their summary, the Commission jurists found that: “Each of these constitutes a shocking crime in itself, and taken together the full horrors are all the more unconscionable. It is also clear that this is an administration that demonstrates an utter disregard for truth and flagrantly lies about the reasons for its actions.

“In arriving at this decision the jurists were particularly alarmed by the degree to which the Bush Administration’s actions in all five indictments were informed by the extreme right. …. although the specific conduct differs among the indictments, the result is the same: human life was debased and devalued by gratuitous acts of violence, torture, narrow self interest, indifference, and disregard.”

In arriving at their verdict, the Commission’s panel of jurists examined a wealth of evidence with care and rigor. Consistent standards were employed, with well-established international law referenced where applicable.

The panel of jurists consisted of Adjoa A. Aiyetoro, William H. Bowen School of Law, Little Rock; former executive director, National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL). Dennis Brutus, former prisoner, Robben Island (South Africa), poet, professor emeritus, University of Pittsburgh. Abdeen Jabara, former president, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Ajamu Sankofa, former executive director, Physicians for Social Responsibility-NY. Ann Wright, former US diplomat and retired US Army Reserve Colonel.

THE HEARINGS

The Commission’s year-long investigation included five days of public hearings in October 2005 and January 2006 in New York City. The 45 expert and first-hand witnesses included former commander of Abu Ghraib prison Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray, former UN official Denis Halliday, former UN arms inspector Scott Ritter, Guantanamo prisoners’ lawyer Barbara Olshansky, and Katrina survivors.

The verdict’s release comes with war crimes again on front pages following President Bush’s defense of secret prisons, rendition, and practices constituting torture under existing law, his demand that the War Crimes Act be fundamentally weakened, and his threats against Iran.

In a preface to the printed verdict, historian Howard Zinn writes: “The Bush Administration has been following a course, which can only now be described as a series of crimes against humanity. . . . What could be a higher crime than sending the young people of the country into a war against a small country on the other side of the world, which is no danger to the United States, and in fact a war which is condemned by people all over the world and a war which results in, not only the loss of American lives and the crippling of young Americans, but results in the loss of huge numbers of people in Iraq? These are high crimes.”