In this issue we have guest editor Nayia Yiakoumaki, who curated Archiving:Theory and Practice in the theory and the project room section. Contributions in the theory section include: Hal Foster's Archives of Modern Art, Nayia Yiakoumaki's In an Archive Fever, Andrew Renton's and Kitty Scott's Bankside Browser, Anna Harding's POTENTIAL:ongoing project, Elpida Karaba's Charta project, Naomi Salaman's The Taxonomic Effect. The project room features The Horse Collection project by Ella Gibbs and the 'Changed Press Marks of the Private Case' project by Naomi Salaman.

Starting with this redesigned issue, we thought that it would be more appropriate to remove the news and the links section and to focus on the project room and theory section.
However, we kept the feature section in order to highlight those art events and exhibitions that we think are of a particular interest.
Dimitris Foutris joined the editorial team and Simone Rondelet kept her inspiring regular column "Petites miseres de la vie humaine".

The editors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

copyright © 2000-2004, www.art-omma.org and the authors, unless otherwise stated, design .plex

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Petites miseres de la vie humaine" from Simone's Diary

How harmful an artwork can be if not for its message?

I remember that a few years ago The Electronic Disturbance, a small format book published by Autonomedia, was a very popular book among the students studying art and new media. A few years later, a founding member of CAE (Critical Art Ensemble), the collective which realised art projects since 1987 and wrote five books all published by Autonomedia, Steven Kurtz, is accused of violating the U.S.A Law on "Bioterrorism" because he was using bacteria for one of his art projects.
Read below an excerpt from the www.caedefensefund.org
Press Release, July 8, 2004.

Dr. Steven Kurtz, Associate Professor of Art at the University of Buffalo, was arraigned and charged in Federal District Court in Buffalo today on four counts of mail and wire fraud (United States Criminal Code, Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1341 and 1343), which each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The arraignment of Dr. Robert Ferrell, Professor of Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh, who was indicted along with Kurtz, has been postponed for a week for health reasons.
The defendants were charged not with bioterrorism, as listed on the Joint Terrorism Task Force's original search warrant and subpoenas, but with a glorified version of "petty larceny," in the words of Kurtz attorney Paul Cambria. The laws under which the indictments were obtained are normally used against those defrauding others of money or property, as in telemarketing schemes. Historically, these laws have been used when the government could not prove other criminal charges. (See http://www.caedefensefund.org/ for background and full text of indictment.).
Under the arraignment conditions, Kurtz is subject to travel restrictions, random and scheduled visits from a probation officer, and periodic drug tests...more

How did all they start?
Press Release May 25, 2004 (exept)

Kurtz's wife, Hope Kurtz, died in her sleep of cardiac arrest in the early morning hours of May 11. Police arrived, became suspicious of Kurtz's art supplies and called the FBI.
Within hours, FBI agents had "detained" Kurtz as a suspected bioterrorist and cordoned off the entire block around his house. (Kurtz walked away the next day on the advice of a lawyer, his "detention" having proved to be illegal.) Over the next few days, dozens of agents in hazmat suits, from a number of law enforcement agencies, sifted through Kurtz's work, analyzing it on-site and impounding computers, manuscripts, books, equipment, and even his wife's body for further analysis. Meanwhile, the Buffalo Health Department condemned his house as a health risk.
Kurtz, a member of the Critical Art Ensemble, makes art which addresses the politics of biotechnology. "Free Range Grains," CAE's latest project, included a mobile DNA extraction laboratory for testing food products for possible transgenic contamination. It was this equipment which triggered the Kafkaesque chain of events.
FBI field and laboratory tests have shown that Kurtz's equipment was not used for any illegal purpose. In fact, it is not even _possible_ to use this equipment for the production or weaponization of dangerous germs. Furthermore, any person in the US may legally obtain and possess such equipment.
"Today, there is no legal way to stop huge corporations from putting genetically altered material in our food," said Defense Fund spokeswoman Carla Mendes. "Yet owning the equipment required to test for the presence of 'Frankenfood' will get you accused of 'terrorism.' You can be illegally detained by shadowy government agents, lose access to your home, work, and belongings, and find that your recently deceased spouse's body has been taken away for 'analysis'.
Though Kurtz has finally been able to return to his home and recover his wife's body, the FBI has still not returned any of his equipment, computers or manuscripts, nor given any indication of when they will.
The case remains open.....more

S.R

All I want is a rubber..

The summer and the Olympic games are almost over. Here, in post-olympic Athens the perspective of a changing metropolis turned into a blurred and slowly fading polluted cityscape. . During that hot summer, tourists and Athenians were hanging about in the centre of Athens contemplating and enjoying the excessiveness of everything. Art objects, street theatre, concerts in every single square, hidden ruins, covered facades, images everywere, security officers instead of museum attendants and all-night public transport constituted the scenery of a cctv monitored, metropolitan, polished and slick Athens. In this fullness of multi-cultural entertainment and everyday fiesta, the Olympic Athens seemed an ideal metropolis where the homeless are invisible and the drug addicts vanished. Being there in August I felt that it was an urgent necessity for the people to stay so close together, in order to ensure that nothing happens. There was no space left for terrorist attacks or bombings, just a collective fear of the emptiness, which was bringing people closer together.. At the end of the day, all I wanted was a boring empty landscape with nothing in it, only that blurred, hot, midday horizon. Just erase the centre from the urban map.
K.B