The Trap is a kaleidoscopic BBC documentary by Adam Curtis that examines the perilously flawed evolution of social theory underpinning Western foreign policy since the 1950’s. Curtis’ amazing use of archival footage– reminiscent of Robert Rauschenberg’s combine paintings– blend with carefully organized narrative and interviews with key players to make highly instructive viewing. The 3-hour journey moves through game theory, nuclear deterrence, market incentivization, R.D. Laing’s theories of family repression and on to genetic determinism, meritocracy, Prozac and finally neo-conservative interpretations of positive and negative liberty.

The program makes a compelling case that these flawed theories have been consistently embraced by both liberal and conservative ideologies and stand in the way of moving beyond our current state of peril.

The Trap - Part 1 Fuck You Buddy Part 2 The Lonely Robot Part 3 We Will Force You To Be Free

Fernetici / Fernetti, video still, 2008

Ljubljana has currently no major exhibition space for contemporary art, with the exception of important independent spaces such as Skuc Galerija and P74. Although both galleries have socially and politically relevant shows on display, Mala Galerija, the contemporary art affiliation of the momentarily closed Moderna Galerija, presents the most compelling one: Lost Territories.

Considering every European nation as having a larger territory in its memory, sometimes extending beyond its present day borders, artist Saso Sedlacek regards territory not only as an abstract notion. In our everyday life, it is in the first place a piece of real estate: the house or apartment in which we live.

Trieste and its surrounding area is a historically traumatic region for both Italy and Slovenia. Once a grand cosmopolitan Austro-Hungarian city, it lost its central European setting after the First World War and became gradually a declining Italian harbor town. Trieste was the window onto the world for many Slovenes and consequently it permanently marked Slovene culture. Being close to Ljubljana, the two cities grew apart over the years.

With Lost Territories, Saso Sedlacek proposes to bring the two cities back together, imagining that eliminating the border in people’s minds would be mutually beneficial. He provokingly states: “In Kosovo, Albanians bought overpriced real estate from the local Serbian population for several decades and consequently established an independent state. Real estate in Trieste, which is an hour’s drive away from Ljubljana, is at the moment cheaper than in Slovenia. Today there is no longer a need to create new countries or officially move the borders in Europe. As is evident in Kosovo, these can be moved simply from one apartment to another.”

The exhibition is based on research into specific aspects of the elimination of the border between Italy and Slovenia caused by the Slovenian inclusion in the EU in 2004. The artist designed a new flag that combines the respective flags of both countries and hung it for one day at the border between Italy and Slovenia.

Lost Territories displays this flag as well as a video that documents the action. Different available real estate in Trieste is on display while a computer allows the visitor to go online and actually buy the property. Dealing with environmental issues in the broadest sense of the word, Saso Sedlacek redefines common notions of Slovene national identity within global trends of technology, ecology and the ideological void after the transition period.

Here for Saso Sedlacek.

Opening in limited cinemas around the country tomorrow is Errol Morris’s new documentary called “Standard Operating Procedure”, winner of the Silver Bear Award at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival.

In the film Morris investigates the power and limitations of documentary photography by means of the horrific images taken by young soldiers at Abu Ghraib in 2003. Not only did the pictures’ impact change the war in Iraq but also America’s collective self image. Morris believes that the images function both as exposé and cover-up. “An exposé, because the photographs offer us a glimpse of the horror of Abu Gharib; and a cover-up because they convince journalists and readers they had seen everything that there was, no need to look further.”

By interviewing five of the seven soldiers directly involved, Morris seeks to further understand who these people are, what they were thinking, and why these pictures were taken? “My last film, ‘The Fog of War,’ was about a person that was at the apex of power, Robert McNamara. With this new one, I wanted to make a film about the people at the bottom of the pyramid, ‘the little guys.’ A story that I think the world needs to see and hear.”

As many crucial questions are asked throughout the film, many remain unanswered. The explicit and horrendous images of torture and sadism shown in cinema-screen size also call for viewer discretion. To see some of the film’s interviews and read a Q&A with the director, check out the SOP’s website.

NaJa & deOstos, The Hanging Cemetery of Baghdad, 2008

In a recent article published on the Foreign Policy in Focus website, Provisions’ associate John Feffer writes about a compelling political project initiated by artist Joseph DeLappe. Iraqimemorial.org is an online exhibition and call for participation to propose concepts for memorials to the thousands of Iraqi civilians killed in the War. DeLappe has invited artists, architects and designers to submit their projects to a website, where they will be judged by jurors and the general public. The website itself will then be a virtual monument to the 81,632-1,120,000 civilians who have died. Reflecting on various issues that block the actual realization of monuments, Feffer writes: “In a world increasingly dominated by Facebook, Google and YouTube, such a virtual monument may well have as much longevity as anything made of concrete or granite.”

The diversity of approaches is remarkable:

* A three-panel painting of an aerial attack on civilians in homage to Diego Rivera.
* A representation of a wall destroyed by a bomb attack.
* A billboard proclaiming This War Is Unjust.
* A thin copper strip that encircles Baghdad.
* Photographs of a model in various locations wearing a T-shirt saying Kiss Me I’m Iraqi on one side and Kill Me I’m Iraqi on the other.
* Test of tubes of blood substituting for the profits of major oil companies as represented in a bar graph.
* A garden in the shape of Iraq.

Here for the online exhibition.

Here for the article.

Sam Durant, Proposal for Iraq War Memorial, Symbolic Transposition of effects of war in Iraq to the U.S. and England: 10 Downing St., Parliament, U.S. Capitol and the White House [detail], 2007

The ICA in London did a similar project last year when they invited 26 artists from around the world and used the exhibition medium as a backdrop for proposed memorials to the War. The memorials addressed topics such as the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the country’s slide into civil war, the deaths of soldiers and civilians, and the conflict’s relation to global jihadism and the War on Terror. The exhibition was self-critical, in the sense that it recognized the impossibility of finding a definitive memorial. It explored different views of the Iraq War and questioned what can or should be memorialized in the context of an ongoing conflict.

Here for an article on the ICA show, Memorial to the Iraq War.

“My contention is that Orientalism is fundamentally a political doctrine willed over the Orient because the Orient was weaker than the West, which elided the Orient’s difference with its weakness. . . . As a cultural apparatus Orientalism is all aggression, activity, judgment, will-to-truth, and knowledge.” (Edward Said, Orientalism)

Recent political developments have once again shed light on the question of East/West relationships. Framing the Other: 30 Years After Orientalism, is a symposium that looks at the 30th anniversary of Edward Said’s Orientalism as a suitable opportunity to re-examine the impact and currency of Said’s key arguments. Famously suggesting that discourse about other cultures is always inherently ideological, Said developed a highly controversial postcolonial critique of cultural representation. The symposium will focus on his legacy to analyze visual culture and its construction of the ‘Other’.

Organized by the Courtauld Institute of Art in London on April 26, lecture topics will range from 19th Century visual culture to contemporary Islamic art.

Planet of the Arabs is a trailer-esque montage of Hollywood’s relentless vilification and dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims by artist Jacqueline Salloum. Descending from Palestinian immigrants in the US, Salloum felt “forever the foreigner, and with the constant exposure to only negative images of Arabs in the news and Hollywood films, […] grew up feeling ashamed of being an Arab. […] her feelings soon reversed in her teens… with a twist of candy-coated vengeance.” Inspired by the book Reel Bad Arabs by Dr. Jack Shaheen.

Here for Framing the Other: 30 Years After Orientalism.

Here for Jacqueline Sammoun.

One of my biggest pet peeves- and I know for many of you its the same- is to find out about a concert, a conference or any kind of cool event that sparks my interest, after it has already taken place. Therefore, please mark the dates of this years’ Split This Rock Poetry Festival into your calendars!
From March 20 through March 23, 2008, Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness will feature America’s top activist poets reading, performing, sharing, and teaching their craft in Washington, DC. Split This Rock Poetry Festival aims to bring greater attention to national heroes – activist poets who are tackling these tough times through art. The location and lineup are great and the program sounds highly promising!

Bringing together poets and activists, training workshops on news media, writing strong op-ed pieces, using poetry to empower the disenfranchised, and integrating poetry into political activism will provide you with the tools you need to be an effective advocate at the local and national level. Poetry readings, film screenings and walking tours will let you discover the rich literary and activist history of Washington DC. During the afternoon panels you can network with like-minded people and share your words and ideas with others!
Come celebrate the power of the written and spoken word and sign up now!

Here’s a thought-provoking article from Eurozine on the legacy and meaning of Nietzsche as it relates to contemporary society. Exploring his often offensive attitude towards morality and politics, his attacks on monotheistic religions and nationalism, his project of the revaluation of all values, and his critique of egalitarianism in relation to liberal democracy; six philosophers answer questions in relation to his views. Excessively sensitive, anti-liberal and irrelevant, or radical, prescient and misunderstood? Nietzsche still divides opinion.

Paul Patton: Some of his remarks about women are among the most offensive of Nietzsche’s writings. I take these to be indications of the extent to which he was a man of his time who could not see beyond the existing cultural forms of the sexual division of humankind. Like the vast majority of nineteenth century European men, Nietzsche could not divorce female affect, intelligence and corporeal capacities from a supposed “essential’ relation to child-bearing. His views on women are representative of his attitude toward morality and politics in the sense that they are in tension with possibilities otherwise opened up by his historical conception of human nature. For example, at times he recognizes that supposedly natural qualities of women or men are really products of particular social arrangements. We can conclude from this, even if he could not, that these qualities are not natural but open to change. In this domain as in other of his social and political views, he was not able to foresee some of the ways in which the very dynamics of human cultural evolution that he identified could lead us into a very different future.

Here for the article.

The above picture is by San Francisco photographer Naseema Khan. Inserted into fruit are fragments of Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil”, a text that challenges the concepts of meaning and reason.

Ronen, an Israeli artist currently living in Weimar, Germany, links art, culture, history and contemporary politics in a provocative public art piece:

“I wanted to bring The Israeli border police in Weimar, the standard armored jeep that the border police uses to patrol will escort me in my daily life in town. I examine what such an action brings, how the presence of a militarized police force from Israel in a small quiet East German place would be perceived. Would it produce fear, antagonism, discomfort or maybe understanding and sympathy? The site of the Star of David is never neutral on the streets of Germany, all the more so when it is painted on an armored jeep. Not surprisingly, I could not bring a real jeep to Weimar. Instead, I built a two- dimensional life size cut out (like the fake police cars that deter driver from speeding). The cutout can do the same job that a real jeep can do and invoke the discussion I would like to create. Some people might recognize the jeep as an Israeli border police; others, who are less familiar with the situation in Israel/Palestine might not have any reference and not know the origin of the jeep. But all will recognize that it is a militarized jeep. This fake militarized jeep, I feel, will also bring another useful element to the discussion. The fake jeep, the two-dimensional façade barley standing on its wooden frame, is very much like the fake façades of Weimar’s historic building. The façades, historical manipulations, and the cultural cloning wish to suggest authenticity, but they do have to be really convincing to fulfill their purpose and to create in Weimar the romantic Disneyland of the east. In the same way, security can work as a façade. It does not really have to be convincing, you don’t need expensive systems, trained personnel, intelligence, and expertise. What is needed is a pretense of security, feeling of security, the knowing of its being and the statement that it is present.”…

Via Wooster Collective.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics, previously heralded as a hope of more openness and freedom in China, receive more and more openly demonstrated critique from artists and human rights activists. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who is partly responsible for the design of the Olympic stadium in Beijing, criticizes the way the Chinese government is exploiting the 2008 Olympics for their own purposes. From a recent article in Der Spiegel:

“The government wants to use these games to celebrate itself and its policy of opening up China. But there isn’t anything to celebrate. The political system is incapable of handling economic and social change. Now the system that caused these problems in the first place is struggling to remain in power. And who pays the price? Every individual in this society.”

Whereas Beijing Wide Open uses the Olympics as a platform to spotlight China’s occupation of Tibet:

“Since the International Olympic Committee awarded Beijing the 2008 Olympic Games in 2001, China’s human rights record has deteriorated. China executes more people than the rest of the world put together; Amnesty International monitored 1,060 cases in 2003 alone. 2003 also witnessed the first execution in nearly two decades of a Tibetan political prisoner, Lobsang Dhondup.”

New York composer, performer and video artist R. Luke DuBois explores the concept of time and space by creating works of art that are reflective of current popular culture with the help of algorithmic and procedural methods. In Hindsight is Always 20/20, DuBois generated a graphical exploration of every State of the Union address ever held, organizing the most frequently used words into a Snellen eye chart. Through computation, the more often used words appear at the top in a larger typeface and the less often used at the bottom. Brilliantly, these charts not only highlight the unique vocabulary of each presidency, but allow us to reflect upon their contemporary context. In a way, DuBois is making us take a retrospective, visual acuity test- Did I mention brilliant?