Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.00.1411162341580.5877@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.wvu.edu>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: Background as Performance
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 23:45:46 -0500 (EST)
Background as Performance http://www.alansondheim.org/churnchurn.png http://www.alansondheim.org/churnchurn.mov chug chug kick kick chug chug kick kick (A post sent to empyre, modified here.) Some recent news headlines - ISIS uses beheadings, other violent acts to crush civilians, UN report says Newsday - .5 hours ago. UNITED NATIONS -- Beheadings, stonings and mutilation are common weapons of terror employed by the Islamic State in its campaign to subdue civilian populations that have come under its control in Syria, according to a UN monitoring group. Islamic State sets sights on Saudi ArabiaBBC News New UN report shows "relentless assault" on civilians in ISIL-controlled SyriaXinhua. Hong Kong student leaders blocked from taking democracy fight to Beijing Reuters - .1 hour ago. 1 of 3. Hong Kong Federation of Students leader Alex Chow (C), committee members Nathan Law (L) and Eason Chung react after being refused to board the plane at the Hong Kong International Airport November 15, 2014. Nigeria insurgents retake village of abducted schoolgirlsReuters Africa Boko Haram seizes town kidnapped girls are fromSydney Morning Herald - And this same ground repeats itself, day after day, night after night, no longer events or news, so much as a background of horror. Then what? A serious question: How can art, art performance, performance, heal, help one make it through the day, inspire one, against this background of continuous performance, where everything, lives, cultures, languages, are at stake? We watch other species world-wide going extinct (the rate is something like several an hour), we find ourselves on the verge of a planet so violated that the environment (cultural, global) might well collapse (yes, into something else) within the century, and we perform? And then the horrors take over again. I think of this background of horror as a performance of horror, as an ongoing performance that now seems an inherent part of the world. A second background performance - that of the 'buzzing' of the Internet of Things - the fast-forward increasing transparency of the objects and processes of the world. There are data flows everywhere, and both data and horror, digital and abject-analog, coalesce in hacking/cyberwar, and its effects. See http://map.ipviking.com/ for example - I've been following this site for a while, and the tribulations of Hong Kong come through clearly.
