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34C3 - The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Assassination

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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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Title:
34C3 - The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Assassination
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Video Language:
English
Duration:
16:17

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