I have been reading and hearing many texts/words consisting of overblown statements, gesturing that the WTC terrorist attacks were an act of Art. Negating any art that was created before 9-11. How pathetic and submissive can you get? A 'Double Whammy' of life denial is dished out - firstly with the terrorists killing innocent civilians - then with academics/artists putting forward the notion that art has 'no power anymore' due to the massacre of lives in and around the the twin towers.

Who can forget the repeated image broadcasted by the news programmes as the death of the civilians were reduced to the experience of screen fantasy. People all around the world watched the TV and were shocked how close the images were to an American Blockbuster. Yet at the same time, in real lives, real people were dead and real people were affected by the killings that took place that day.

Ever since 9-11 the American ruling circles have used the attack to implement a long-standing agenda. Taking away democratic rights and civil liberties in the US and the reorganization of Central Asia in their geopolitical interests.

Composer Karlheinz Stockhausen roused indignation in Germany for describing the catastrophic airplane assaults on New York as "the greatest work of art ever". The renowned contemporary composer, who was speaking to journalists in Hamburg, he then immediately retracted the remark and asked them not to report it. After his statement four concerts were cancelled by the organisers of a music festival at the request of the local cultural authorities and festival sponsors.

Karlheinz Stockhausen of course, was more than likely misquoted. The press was in need of a scapegoate at the time and hungry for sensationalist headlines in relation to the event. The Stockhausen incident demonstrated how careful we must be when we express our opinions, especially to the press. Even high society in America were unsure how best to flaunt its wealth in times like these, etiquette guru Charlotte Ford (daughter of Henry) urged caution over dinner-party disaster jokes.

A surge of national pride swept America after the terrorist attacks. Sparking the beginnings of a new, more difficult debate over the balance among national security, free speech and patriotism. Many people were threatened by patriotic thugs and institutionally backed bullies, for saying what they believed was the real reason why such an event happened. No one was allowed to work it out on their own terms. A propagated version of 9-11 was handed down by the ever untrustworthy Mr. Bush. Therefore actively crushing questions of why such a massacre of civilians on their own soil had come about.

Yet there were some people in the media spotlight who dared to question at their peril. One of the most visible examples of this was when Mr. Maher said that the hijackers were not cowards but that it was cowardly for the United States to launch cruise missiles on targets thousands of miles away. He was later forced to apologized for the remarks. The White House press secretary, denounced Mr. Maher, saying of news organizations, and all Americans, that in times like these "people have to watch what they say and watch what they do."

Of course the more informed know that the terrorist attacks happened because of America's aggressive and selfish drive for global domination. In Afghanistan in the 1980s, Washington deliberately fomented (and financed and armed) Islamic fundamentalism, one of the most right-wing ideologies on the face of the earth, as a weapon against the Soviet Union. Carter and Reagan thereby set in motion a political process two decades ago that produced the September 11 atrocity. So America in its irresponsible approach to other cultures has caused world unrest via its own actions. Of course, Bush would never admit a truth such as this and will continue to make the problem worse for all civilians in the world. He is not interested in world peace, his personal agenda of corporate/military domination is what must prevail, and if more peolpe die in the process, he will silence them by whatever means possible.

Anyway, lets move back to the subject of art and war.

Even though I am personally able to put aside the mistake of Stockhausen for saying such a spectacular statement at the wrong time. There have been other expoundings by various Internet based artists who proclaim that war, terrorism, mass death supersedes art. Such comments were first suggested on the 'Rhizome.org' list after 9-11.

This kind of misjudgement creates more negativity and takes away questioning the validity of the artist who does not wish to kill to justify their ideas. Supporting the assumption that if one does not kill, then one is not worthy of being an artist. If you take this fickle idea seriously, it defines the lack within art culture itself and its individuals, to actually recognise what creativity is in its true sense as a whole.

The need for one (or more) individual(s) to kill other person(s) is much more to do with a lack of imagination to communiate to other people on mutual terms. Sectarianism is not an imaginative place to be. It reflects the frustration of one's loss of hope with humanity and it also declares one's own personal failings to be imaginative enough to explore alternatives. This failing triggers off a child like sentiment diplaying of pseudo existentialism that in its core is a misinformed simplistic form of romanticism; wrapped up in a shell bolstering egotistical motives. The lost child will hit out when the world or parents are not dealing with its emotional needs. The Gravity of War is more a reflection on how unthinking humanity is when dealing with life and death issues. The irresponsible (old fashoined) actions by despots, corporate stupidity, greed, religious ignorance, lack of empathy for other living beings, national bigotry has plagued the world for too long. There has been many writers, artists and thinkers who have tried to warn and deal with such fundamental issues in many cultures world wide, but they have been ignored by the blood hungry gangs who rule each of our cultures for it serves their own purposes and shallow agendas.

To name such an event as the WTC attack as 'Art' surely acts more as a reflection of the non creative individual's failure to manage or attain attention for their own artwork. This serves only to declare that certain creative individuals value 'recognition' or an 'idea' above life. Well sorry folks, Art is more than an excuse to kill. So you can put your toy guns away for now, until you find another excuse to justify killing that is.

The psychology of War goes back centuries and has naturally formed its own lineage which is separate from art, in fact it has its own purposes and possesses its own questions and reasonings. The role of the warrior, a fighter who kills in the name of honour has been traditionally used, orally, in text and films for many years and has impressed many males through the centuries. The lack of the male is what we are dealing with here not Art.

Love and War historically has sparked up many a romantic novel. The romanticism of the man going off to fight for his country and his family is an honourable act, yet regurgitated endlessly. Love of War is a fundamental reflection of our own need for primal out-letting. We have named planets in the name of War and Love, but not in the name of Art. This tells us a bit more where subconscious priorities do rest in our cultures. It bares an attractive darkness, a void that needs to be filled which everyday life cannot fill. Many cultures have their unofficial and official bibles, all be it old fashioned, yet entwined deeply in humanities psyche via mediation of culture. 'War Books' have given many a historical and romantic (modernist) appraisal of such maleness, masculine actions such as; the Mahabarata and its Bhagavad Gita, the Iliad, the Aenead, the Celtic, and the Norse Edda. The Bible also gives us long accounts of battles, wars. The ultimate masculine scenario - the cumming of the day. The 'Revelations'itself, declares the ultimate coming and becoming one with God, man (the male) and his reckoning. The Great subconsciously desired Armageddon which has been given too much press as a myth and used as a easy option blueprint.

The warrior has been given the ultimate medal, a reason for bypassing all humanistic empathy, the ultimate prize in our mediated histories. With it comes many attributes, a special class status, to be warrior you must have certain credentials; the virtue of honour, nobility, courage, loyalty, steadfastness
and comrade love. This forms a type of feral male bonding that battles or causes must have to succeed in a War. But war has become larger than battles now. War has now come of age, it is now part of the 'Spectacle', a double feedback loop. The media seems to lust after people's pain, filming deaths repeatedly like non-stop blockbuster movies, backwardly transcending any sense of realism and then placing it out of our reach. It is no longer a local function between towns or countries, it is an epidemic. It escapes realism and moves into the surreal, a mythical arena of stupefaction, we are drunk on War.

It seems as if a perpetual fire is burning. As in the Bhudda's sermon 'All things, O priests, on fire... the mind is on fire, ideas on fire...mind of consciousness is on fire'. Or like that passage from the Bhagavad Gita which came to Oppenheimer when he saw the atomic blast: 'If the radiance of a thousand suns Were burst at once in the sky That would be like the splendour of the Mighty One'.

James Hillman said that 'The nuclear imagination leaves the human behind for the worst sins of all: fascination by the spirit. Superbia. The soul goes up in fire'.

The reaction by certain artists to claim that the WTC is Art, in a sense is a very natural and emotional function declaring a feeling of worthlessness. If one gives any respect or space to such an idea, soon we will be dealing with life as an end game - not Art.

There can be no poetic function or quality in the act of killing, for death has connotations that smacks of lack of 'want to live and to love'. To kill is an act of failure to live. Art is part of life. The killer is a lost child, empty of love for others and for themselves. Western art demands in its fickle desperateness the notion to be seen. To be noticed in the crowd, a short cut to fame and recognition. Killing is the ultimate form of decadence.

The addiction of the Apocalypse myth, is an architypal image planted in our minds by people who have succumbed to a darkness without a wisdom to handle it. No definition, no humanistic potential other than the ultimate orgasmic - death. Orwell feared that we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared that we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the 'feelies', the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal 'bumblepuppy'. As Huxley remarked in the 'Brave New World' Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who ever on the alert to oppose tyranny 'failed to take into
account man's almost infinite appetite for distraction'. In 'Brave New World' they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short Orwell feared that what we hate would ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love would ruin us. (Neil Postman, Amusing ourselves to Death.)

I personally believe the text above have come true but we all possess both attributes.

Our mediated cultures have resigned to accepting and treating the essences of life like 'a hand held remote control', if you do not like one program, turn it over for a better one. Life and living and Art after the WTC event of live's needlessly being wasted by inadequate male insecurity; needs to have people who are willing to take on the challenge of 'Knowing how to know', thus maturing as individuals to pursue reinvention, openly daring to gain wisdom beyond the limits of the tradition of the mediated spectacle and violence as normal.

Art presently falls short when compared to the spectacle - that's the whole point. Why have art if it childishly chooses the easy option of being the 'spectacle', the comfort of sensation alone?

People don't notice that they are, nowadays, reduced to getting their information from sources which specialise in providing it, not by thought, observation, informal contact, or instruction. Only the other day I met someone whom I hadn't seen for a long time. I said 'What's the news?' He said 'I don't know; I haven't read the papers yet'. (Idris Shah)

We have always possessed our own choices on how we perceive the world, Art and its workings, in what ever context we wish to choose. If someone says that Art is Dead - that's their problem. If someone says that love is dead - that is also their problem. Reality is situational and can only be measured
realistically via personal experience. Do not fall into the easy trap of becoming a voice of someone else's personal fetish such as War, killing and violence as an act named as Art. Grow up, put your childish insecure masculine, tendencies back in the playground and untie that knotted knot. Become masters of our own minds...

1/10/01