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Underground > Switchboard >

US starts arresting artists

Disco is My Class War

03:22 / 05.06.04

FBI ABDUCTS ARTIST, SEIZES ART

Feds Unable to Distinguish Art from Bioterrorism
Grieving Artist Denied Access to Deceased Wife's Body

DEFENSE FUND ESTABLISHED - HELP URGENTLY NEEDED

Steve Kurtz was already suffering from one tragedy when he called 911 early in the morning to tell them his wife had suffered a cardiac arrest and died in her sleep. The police arrived and, cranked up on the rhetoric of the "War on Terror," decided Kurtz's art supplies were actually bioterrorism weapons.

Thus began an Orwellian stream of events in which FBI agents abducted Kurtz without charges, sealed off his entire block, and confiscated his computers, manuscripts, art supplies... and even his wife's body.

See The Critical Art Ensemble Defense Fund for the ongoing saga.

This is just insane. Critical Art Ensemble do art projects that use 'fake' biological science in an effort to get people to question/interrogate genetic engineering. They really aren't terrorists -- they're university lecturers, state-funded, pretty straight, if very left. It's so surreal that people can't quite believe it: on the nettime email list (trendy geek media arts folk, lots of whom know this guy) some people asked whether it was all a hoax. Nope, no hoax, perfectly serious.

So are you folk in the US feeling like the days of COINTELPRO are about to repeat themselves? Anyone been drafted as an undercover agent by the CIA yet?

14:00 / 05.06.04

Well, when you live in a country where journalists get arrested, imprisoned and deported for not getting an obscure visa, then you shouldn't be surprised.
Reminds me of the Pilger interview where he asked one of Bush Snr's former advisers if the US was entering a pre-fascist phase. The reply?
"I hope so, because I feel like we passed that stage a long time ago."

11:06 / 06.06.04

(snort) No-one cares when it happens to cartoonists (Mike Diana, Frank Thorne), but god forbid a "Legit" artist should be put through the wringer. Reminds me of Wilhelm Reich, too.
Why can't they arrest Jeff Koons, just for being a cnut?

captain yossarian

13:00 / 06.06.04

i´m sorry to say that as an austrian, with all our nazi-history and stuff.... but the USA are marching (sic!) straight into dictatorship. maybe they are still there. the USA have become a restrictive and paranoid police state under a very dangerous government.
these are the first hardcore effects of lobby-based neoliberalism (not to be misinterpreted as capitalism) with scientology-guided leaders.
if i look at the history of middle europe and especially my country and germany the coincidences between the upcoming nazi-regime and the "bushism" are appalling. "homeland-security", extended rights for secret services and intelligence agencies even against own people, a highly developed and overpaid military state-in-state including "black budgets" for illegal or unethic operations. a government-created paranoia against anyone and anything that or who is "un-american" (whatever that means). "zero-tolerance"? this is another word for "fundamentalism" and "totalitarism".
but the cherry on the cake of bushism is the ongoing denial of global environmental problems highly strengthened by us-lifestyle in or outside america, adored and shared by friendly nations, apologized with "economic interests".

"1984" should become the first book to read in schools. it explains many things.

dear americans: overthrow your government as soon as possible before the whole world is burning. or just don´t re-elect bush and his crew. don´t forget: america owns the hugest and most developed weaponry in the world. it´s in your hands to let your government use it against other countries and even yourselves or vote for a better way.

captain yossarian

13:07 / 06.06.04

post scriptum:

i once wanted to visit america. but now i have to give the us-officials my fingerprints! even in austria we soon will integrate biometric data in our passports... when i was 20 (15 years ago) i didn´t thought about giving body-data to anyone but my doctor.
welcome to the brave new world.

many friends of mine who periodically visited the usa stopped to travel there because of the new homeland and national security laws. and we are no criminals. no terrorists.

do the usa really like to close all open doors?

don´t forget one more thing, dear americans: your country was once called "land of the free". now it´s a "land of arbitrary rules".

15:36 / 06.06.04

Threadrot

i once wanted to visit america. but now i have to give the us-officials my fingerprints! even in austria we soon will integrate biometric data in our passports... when i was 20 (15 years ago) i didn´t thought about giving body-data to anyone but my doctor.
welcome to the brave new world.

Right on! I'm kinda fucked as far as biometrics are concerned. I'll have to get a biometric passport and my partner is from the US, so I can't avoid travel there. I'm still trying to figure out a way around it.

09:24 / 07.06.04

I haven't got much worthwhile to add, but I thought I'd chime in to say this is hideous. I hope it's a case of overreaction and stupidity on seeing a misplaced biohazard sign, rather than a delibrate campaign of intimidation but the later subpoenas suggest the latter. I get the strange vision of these guys sitting around their offices thinking "hmmm..who can be really fuck with today"? LM mentioned Reich above - this reminds me of his term "emotional plague" - the vicarous satisfaction that comes through shitting all over other people.

11:22 / 07.06.04

Anybody see evidence for a case that those behind genetic engineering just want this guy shut up, and are behind this? Seems a little wack that it should have gone this far.

Irony of Ironies

08:55 / 09.06.04

Cube says: "Well, when you live in a country where journalists get arrested, imprisoned and deported for not getting an obscure visa."

This has been the case for years. It specifically states on the green Visa Waiver that you can't enter the US as a journo without the appropriate visa. It's also damn easy to find on the US Embassy web site. It's not obscure to any working journalist, and it was unprofessional of her not to know it.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

09:46 / 09.06.04

Well, hideous as it is, the guy does art involving fake bioterrorism stuff, it's not as if they saw a few tubes of gouche and thought they'd found another shoebomber.It's hardly the start of a jackbooted conspiracy by Bush and Cheney to shut down minor leftwing art collectives.

07:39 / 11.06.04

I don't think his art involves 'fake bioterrorism', it involves various kind of work with chemicals and biological samples. But I could be wrong.

What about that guy who's been charged with felony 'making terrorist threats' style charges for lame street theatre protest where he stood outside a military base dressed as a 'hooded Iraqi'. That one was pretty wack too.

08:57 / 11.06.04

It's got nothing to do with bioterrorism and everything to do with the right to do independent bio-research without harassment. The apparatus and samples were part of a mobile lab for testing whether one's food or crops had been contaminated by GM pollen. I've seen it, by the way. Kurtz presented it as a work in progress in Amsterdam, during last year's Next Five Minutes conference.

Genetic testing is still pretty expensive, and you have to wait at least a week for results. Even in crime solving, DNA testing isn't routine yet. Kurtz was trying to lower the price and turnaround on field sampling, sample integrity (to the lab) and analysis. The "biohazardous material" was E. coli samples that are safe and freely available. He had no way to make them hazardous. This was no anthrax lab, nor was it some ha-ha postmodern Spectacle-fucking simulacrum thingy. This would be a real public service.

Since Monsanto, ADM and others put their testbeds in out-of-the-way places, neighboring farmers need independent testing. Considering that Monsanto accidentally contaminated a neighboring farmer's patch and then sued for copyright infringement, this is no small thing. They've also lied about the extent of contamination.

07:48 / 13.06.04

It specifically states on the green Visa Waiver that you can't enter the US as a journo without the appropriate visa. It's also damn easy to find on the US Embassy web site. It's not obscure to any working journalist, and it was unprofessional of her not to know it.

Oh, yeah. That makes me look a bit stupid, doesn't it? Sorry. Makes you wonder if she was trying it on just to get a story.

10:29 / 13.06.04

Monsanto?! Cocksuckers contaminated my old high school's basketball court, so we couldn't use it. We were telling them for years about the freaky shit going into the river after hours at parent-teacher do's- white foam, orange liquid, green slime- and the kids coming out of the water with red rashes after going in after balls. But a few thou to the school library each year seemed to shut the adnministration up. The drunken, senile science teacher who used to masturbate in class made a big show of testing the river water with litmus paper, which he claimed proved incontrovertably that there was NOOOOO pollution. But he also thought the red spot was on MAAAARS and there were WOOOOOLVES in papua new guinea.

12:28 / 13.06.04

And as far as wanting him "shut up", well, I rest my case. We've already seen canola and corn stocks contaminated by crossbreeding with GM stock (or maybe that's just their way of modifying their produce without permission, yes?), why wouldn't the corps that run GM programs pull a few strings to fuxxor the one guy who could run independant tests to determine the full extent of their meddling?

16:53 / 13.06.04

He's just lucky they didn't "Karen Silkwood" him.

18:08 / 13.06.04

If the Feds had been layin' for Kurtz at Monsanto's behest, that would certainly have come out. It looks like it played out like a bit of panic turned into an exercise in glory-seeking and/or face-saving.

23:23 / 13.06.04

Threadrot!
dear americans: overthrow your government as soon as possible before the whole world is burning. or just don´t re-elect bush and his crew. don´t forget: america owns the hugest and most developed weaponry in the world. it´s in your hands to let your government use it against other countries and even yourselves or vote for a better way.
I don't think American citizens have the power to vote someone in who will do the right thing. Even if we vote against Bush, Kerry won't be any better. I'm pretty sure they're just two sides of the same coin(both Bonesman). Those in power aren't going to let someone run for President who isn't working for them. And overthrowing the government isn't very easy. The powers that be have spent decades/centuries/millenia cementing their power. It would take extreme devotion and creativity from everyone to change things.

04:15 / 14.06.04

Do we know who pointed the finger?
Corps could just be maintaining plausible deniability. Sounds too much like the old "Tie them up in decades-long expensive legal bullshit" strategy. You know, grind 'em down like Disney does to it's critics.