Mikey and Dano went down to the river zone to study the exhibit FARSITES in the gallery at CECUT.
Troubling photographs of Beirut (we think) all bombed and shelled, beautiful old buildings shattered stone, empty streets that should be crawling with life, no. Other drawings, paintings, photographs, scuplture, all about city space breaking down into crisis. A row of TV monitors playing video about three different blackouts in New York City.
And then to the right of those bubetubes, there's this video, back in the left-hand corner of the gallery, in that dark room behind a curtain, up on a great big screen
it's called Dial H-i-s-t-o-r-y , and it totally, really, disturbed us, which we agreed is Is IS a sign of its power and strength as piece of art.
It's all about the history of hijacking, in the general context of cold war terror from the skies, from which grew this new terror of civilian airline terror. The video is replete with lots of old news films from the sixties ("take this plane to Cuba") and then reporters' feeding frenzy around the Japanese and Palestinian terror skyjackings of the 70s and 80s. Good, solid, real film at eleven that will shiver the pants off of any naked David or Michaelangelo or just you or me, but more: it has a running commentary by a narrator man voice in English (subtitles in Spanish) that puts an edge onto the piece that just has to be heard to be believed. We sat through the whole thing, thirty some minutes of killing and blood and witness interviews, with the usual media jackals hovering around hot news of human sacrifice up on the video silver screen and we all safe and snug in the museum gallery we were frightened, too, oh yes there they were, lots of reporters running after the story, it's interesting when people die give us dirty laundry etcet.
But the commentary puts a whole new narrative edge to the story. It seems a writer is reflecting on how novelists no longer tell the story, the hijacking terrorists have taken control of world narrative.
Sometimes the narrator seems to be musing on his lost power to tell a story, and then sometimes it seems one of his characters is narrating his story within the story of hikacking.
Sometimes this video is about hijackers skyjackers. Sometimes this video is about one writer complaining that airline terrorists have stolen his power to frighten the audience of readers. Sometimes this video is about reporters and newsjacker jackals running and barking after death and the threat of death. Sometimes this video is about bubbleheaded bleachblonde stewardesses who were all liquidated and replaced by flight attendants in much less sexy outfits don't excite the P -assengers no.
You will note the video was made in 1997, four years before September 11, 2001. In the post-light of that subsequent atentado this work is truly dangerous, in fact and in deadly force, in the best sense of the word and the worst of words.
But don't say we didn't warn you.
As the heavy metal rockers like to say, it is sick.