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34c3 intro
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Saud Al-Zaid: What I want to talk about
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today is the conundrum of reality and non-
reality of our world and the fictional or
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artificial worlds and works of art and
everything from what graces museums and
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galleries to what enters our living rooms
in the form of television or video games.
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The title as you may know is in reference
to the works of Walter Benjamin, the
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most important procrastinator in modern
history. Benjamin is a pioneer in Media
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Studies with his study of cinema and how
we consume media on a societal level in
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dark movie theaters from Berlin to New
York watching technically reproduced
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images like the one we have in this Beamer
and today streamed on the Internet over
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and over again his essay is one of the
most assigned texts in the humanities
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itself technically reproduced and
culturally consumed on a hyper meta level.
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Its primary theoretical focus is on
ideology specifically Benjamins rather
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unique Marxist perspective about political
progress and the fascist political order
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that he was working under during World War
2. What I want to connect this to is what
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I call the current conflict what others
call the war on terror and the things that
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go along with it. So over here is a the
first page of a legal memo regarding the
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applicability of federal criminal laws and
the Constitution to the contemplated to
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the contemplated lethal operations against
Anwar al-Aulaqi. Aulaqi was not a military
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general or a terrorist tactician he was
primarily a propagandist. This authorizes
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the killing of an American citizen without
trial by jury an authorized violation of
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the Constitution in both the 6th and if
you think about it the 1st amendment. The
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violation of the 6th amendment hasn't
happened in the American in the American
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context since the Civil War and this one
was executed by a Reaper drone. This is an
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artifact from reality. This artifact I
want to connect to the artifacts of our
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current fiction such as those found all
over in popular media of an intolerant
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Muslim world
raging with anger against your freedoms.
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As the West violates our lives and bodies
in the hundreds of thousands and indeed
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violating its own rules. And why art? It's
because the relationship between art and
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reality is not an easy one. I want to
point that even the most basic terms of
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our current reality say a word like
assassination or assassin have multiple
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layers and historical residues. The term
assassin comes from the Arabic Hashashin or
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those who take hashish or stoners. It was
during the Crusades that the assassin word
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entered into European languages and as
meaning specifically as someone who does
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targeted political killing. It's based on
a myth or fictional propaganda against a
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small sect in Islam known as the Ismailis.
The story went that there was an old man
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of the mountain who would take young men
to the garden and give them so much
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hashish that they believed they were in
heaven. In more elaborate versions there
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were gardens full of naked women music
wine you know you get the idea. When the
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hashish wore off and they're kind of going
over there hashish hangover the old man
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would convince the young men that the only
way for them to go back to heaven is by
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killing one of his enemies in what is
effectively a suicide mission. When the
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young assassins, the hashashin, were
killed the immediately in a sense come
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back to the garden. The purpose of this
story is to make the assassins look weak
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willed and even stupid - though the sect
may have performed political
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assassinations, marijuana was not likely
involved. The story is probably completely
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bullshit. But now we're stuck with the
word assassin. It's a fictional error or
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propaganda glitch in our current
linguistic reality. Can you spot the
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difference? In case you need the slide
explained to you: at the top its drone
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operators up there and in the bottom its
Cheech and Chong. Assassins - hashashin or
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vice versa. My argument is that the
difference between reality and fiction or
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our serious acknowledgement that this is
real and that over there is myth, just a
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story, just the TV show, just a video game
is an ideological difference on the level
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of ideas during the current conflict.
Ideas that have a life of their own that
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are animated by new technologies like
pieces of paper in the Middle Ages that
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propagated the crusader myths of the
assassins. Cultural ADIF artifacts reflect
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multiple facets those signs of human
advancement and human tragedy. The work of
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art even as an object has a political
valence the artist and the and the artwork
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are all constituent parts of what we
colloquially call the art scene. That
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somewhat kind of toxic social construct
that in turn makes up the art market and
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even more toxic construct. Does anyone
recognize the unimpressive painting? You
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normally wouldn't - except it was done by
a young struggling Austrian artist by the
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name of Adolf Hitler. Hitler was rejected
from art school struggling to pay rent in
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a gentrifying but vibrant Vienna, the
first steps in a sequence of events that
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gave us the most devastating leader of the
last century. In case you're wondering:
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yes I'm saying the art world gave us
Hitler. Speaking about art I don't want to
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make like the Fasil with the Trump
transition but it's hard to avoid.
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Television creatives were the minds behind
The Apprentice and the creation of Trump
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as a public persona with leadership
qualities. Maybe life imitates art maybe
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art imitates life but reality television
might be remembered as the highest form of
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terrorism. Okay so let's move on to good
or better arts at least. Chris Burden's
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1981 art installation a Tale of Two Cities
is composed of 26 tons of sand rocks
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plants and thousands of toys depicting a
war zone. It shows the frontier of two
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bordering states at war with one of the
states being larger and more developed
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than the other. There is a harbor and
airport and mountainous region, toy
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airplanes and fighter jets hang overhead
in flight. There is a small town an urban
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center and what looks like a tribal area
and here you can see the relief of the
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mountain side. One side
is scarred with evidence of bombing and
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devastation. The other appears unharmed
though it is surrounded by military
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infrastructure. Burdens installation was
on display several times since 1981 and
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changed kind of organically over time
until it took kind of a final shape in the
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new museum retrospective in 2013 and it
was replicated in the permanent collection
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of the Orange County Museum of Art which
I'd like to thank for the images. A Tale
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of Two Cities straddles the historical
timeframe of the so-called war on terror -
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2 decades before and one decade after 9/11
and one can help imagine that the two
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cities became a metaphor for North America
and the Middle East. Burdens work is both
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a premonition and a testament to the
nature of the current conflict. The
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juvenile nature of war from the aggressors
side no less shows how removed Western
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democratic societies are from the side of
conflict. It is a game going on over there
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far away. My question for today is how can
people in the West even make political art
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with so much historical baggage in the
contemporary moment? The following are
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collages by a Syrian artist his name is
Aeham Jaber who mixes scenes of the war in
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Syria and the refugee crisis with these
kind of kitschy surreal movie images from
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from Hollywood of the 1950s and 60s -
showing kind of the bombing of places like
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Damascus is being perpetuated by UFOs.
Instead of Russians Americans and
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Emiratis. Placing the surreal devastation
of Aleppo as an extraterrestrial
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experience as if Syria is not even on the
planet Earth. Jabbar's play on scale and
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perspective attempts to contextualize and
the historical heaviness of the current
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refugee crisis by showing these kind of
over sized children sleeping on the beach
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side or the overreaction to displays of
Western culture of Muslim culture in the
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West like the burkini incident in France.
The horror of surpassing the imagined
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futures of the past, where control centers
determine the fate of poor innocent
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people, seen through
the glassy gaze of technology, trying to
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ensure the security of faraway States that
are completely unaffected by the conflict.
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This next section I kind of put in jest
but I am also like partially serious and I
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want to kind of leave you with the idea
that for better or worse the two most
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important artists today working today are
probably Banksy and Anish Kapoor and still
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in a way that their work embodies the
issues of the art world with within the
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sent the idea of the current conflict.
From below and above the art world feels
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compelled to be political to the point
that if you make non-political art its
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some ways it's perceived as not only goosh
but devastating or shows the you are kind
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of so removed from reality that you occupy
and it's always interesting when we think
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about how art collectors seem to be
indifferent to the actual art itself and
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think of it only as market value. As
consumers and critics we need to voice our
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concern about the context and not just the
content of the art we are subjected to.
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From the artists point of view they feel
the compulsion to affect the world through
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their spray can or massives art
commissions. But those energies remain in
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their niches they become self-serving as
ways for careers to be made, they need to
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be translated into something far more
concrete, more sincere and more human than
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the absurd unending wars we're constantly
in and Pause yeah I guess we have plenty
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of time for questions as I said I found
out about this presentation 9 p.m.
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yesterday and was a little worried I was
going to take off way more time so thank
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you very much for listening. Applause
Herald: Thank you Saud. We have time for
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questions. If anyone wants to ask please
go to one of the microphones in the row.
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There is two on each area.
Saud: Don't all rush all at once. Yeah
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that's actually my second chaos in a row
speaking so Laughs this one is far more
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chaotic than the first I must say oh yeah.
But yeah thank you very much everyone.
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Herald: Thank you Saud. You said that you
had squezed in ten ...
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Saud: yeah. like
Herald: lectures into this talk, can you
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tell us about that?
Saud: Yeah I had more artists that I
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wanted to talk to but again the context of
how to fit in Harun Farocki or you know
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sort of bigger more intellectual projects
and the putting Burden
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versus Jaber for
me was in one hand using a very
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established conceptual artist who's known
to someone who is unknown who's just
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working actually entrapped in Syria and
can't leave and I went to show that there
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is a genuine difference even if the
intention of the artist is good that the
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the content and the context is an
in a sense devastating when you put it in
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the larger sphere of the war. And Pause
I to connect everything from television
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shows and video games to gallery art as
being part of the same ecosystem is not an
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easy thing you can do, yeah in 30 minutes
or in my case 10.
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Herald: And you have been working on this
for quite some years?
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Saud: This is like postdoctoral work so
this is the stuff I didn't in my PhD work
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I actually do the aesthetics of the
Islamic movement from themselves so it's
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actually kind of a more internal thing
than from the external parties, yeah. Now
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this is kind of a 1 circle removed from
what I was actually trained in but yeah.
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Herald: In this case we don't see any more
questions, unless there is anyone running
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to the microphones now - O someone is
running to microphone number 3. So
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microphone number 3 please, that is you
actually, please make sure to speak
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clearly into the microphone please.
Microphone 3: Yes, hello, yes I'm on maybe
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you can just tell us some more about the
pictures you've shown us?
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Saud: mm-hmm Oh the collages Jaber work?
He actually is a self trained well or
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Chris Burden?
Mic3: Maybe put the pictures on?
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Saud: Sure, sure, sure.
Mic3: Thanks
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Saud: So well I guess Burdens installation
is kind of famous. He himself am i on? I
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think I'm switched off. Hello? Okay, yeah
Burdens work his first work is that he got
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famous for was called shoot where he was
actually shot by a colleague of his in a
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gallery by a 22 rifle and it was recorded
on video and this was his kind of
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performance art that broke him into the
conceptual art world and his art works in
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the 70s got bigger and bigger and this is
one of the ones that culminated and kind
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of a very tongue-in-cheek anti-war - Is
the image? No it isn't. So he I was
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trying to put like the context of someone
who was kind of very very established to
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someone who's basically working on his
laptop using illustrator and Photoshop.
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And that at the end of the day I think
that Pauses the current conflict
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depicting itself in these images is in a
sense its own constant. Oh yeah.
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Herald: We are sorry we won't be able to
get the english sub right now. We are also
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still throwing all that technology in this
new location. Yes i think you have a
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question? Is there someone on microphone
number 4? Do you have a question? Please
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speak into the microphone.
Microphone 4: No
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Herald: Ok . So Thank you everyone.
Saud: Thank you everyone
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Herald: Thank you very much
Applause
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34c3 outro
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