Hell is our own creation. We cannot move forward in our lives without facing that which torments us. The more we understand and face our fears, the less power they have over us. -Kat Black, Golden Tarot
Since the discussion has once again recently turned to the intersection of art, music, politics (...and Germans), I thought I´d finally archive (in part) the documentation surrounding Karlheinz Stockhausen´s comments regarding the September 11th attacks:
After Stockhausen described the WTC bombing as "the greatest work of art ever" a journalist asked him if he equated art and crime. He answered:
"It is a crime because the people were not agreed. They didn't go to the 'concert.' That is clear. And no one gave them notice that they might fly apart [draufgehen]. What happened there spiritually, this jump out of security, out of the everyday, out of life, that happens sometimes poco a poco in art. Otherwise it is nothing."[1]
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There is one other point. Whether it was "the greatest work of art ever" or "Lucifer's greatest work of art," why would someone want to refer to an act of mass murder as art?
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Asked at a press conference on Monday for his view of the events, Stockhausen answered that the attacks were "the greatest work of art imaginable for the whole cosmos." According to a tape transcript from public broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk, he went on: "Minds achieving something in an act that we couldn't even dream of in music, people rehearsing like mad for 10 years, preparing fanatically for a concert, and then dying, just imagine what happened there. You have people who are that focused on a performance and then 5,000 people are dispatched to the afterlife, in a single moment. I couldn't do that. By comparison, we composers are nothing. Artists, too, sometimes try to go beyond the limits of what is feasible and conceivable, so that we wake up, so that we open ourselves to another world."
Documentation of Stockhausen's Comments re: 9/11
After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, Stockhausen was alleged to have made the statement that the attacks were "works of art". In a subsequent message, he stated that the press had hideously misinterpreted his meaning, and clarified as follows:
At the press conference in Hamburg, I was asked if Michael, Eve and Lucifer were historical figures of the past and I answered that they exist now, for example Lucifer in New York. In my work, I have defined Lucifer as the cosmic spirit of rebellion, of anarchy. He uses his high degree of intelligence to destroy creation. He does not know love. After further questions about the events in America, I said that such a plan appeared to be Lucifer's greatest work of art. Of course I used the designation "work of art" to mean the work of destruction personified in Lucifer. In the context of my other comments this was unequivocal.
Wikipedia: Karlheinz Stockhausen
Having documented the above controversial comments, it appears that there might still be a great deal of confusion about what was actually said and what it all really means. Considering also that Stockhausen was seventy-three years old at the time, the apparent confusion surrounding his comments should not come as much of a suprise.
I must say, however, that I´m still a firm supporter of Stockhausen´s music and a have a deep respect for his contributions to experimental music, specifically the electroacoustic genre and especially his utilization of voice samples, which serve as sort of phonetic poems to create beautifully strange and bewitching moods for the listener. And I actually very briefly met and assisted one of Stockhausen´s former students. All of this would probably best be served in another blog entirely; one focusing on art, film and music--which might be the direction I will be headed in the future.
Regardless, this entire line of thinking brings me back to the concept of supporting the product, but not really considering in depth who produces the product, how the product is produced or what the money a ´consumer´ gives to a corporation (a legal individual according to US code) or in this case, a composer of experimental music, is subsequently used for. Here is an excerpt for a previous archive entry, in which I briefly touched upon this subject:
A corporation is considered a legal 'person' in the United States of America. It has all the similar rights of a real human being. Theoretically, if one is to enter into or continue a 'relationship' with this other 'person,' then the other in the 'relationship' (you) should be able to inquire into the past and present history of said other 'person' or corporation. Otherwise, one is perhaps just engaging in a loveless solicitation of prostitution or fetishizing over pornography--which consists only of a lust for this other 'person's' (or corporation's) 'product.' Credit card companies, for example, do not divulge information to 'consumers' regarding their financial holdings, and are protected by federal guidelines in their decision to make this financial 'relationship' as one way as possible. Next time you 'talk' to a credit card 'corporation' (legal person) ask them if they can give you the name and address of the 'head' of their person, the CEO, and see what they say. Additionally, inform them that you are also 'recording' the telephone conversation for your records, as they might be, and see how quickly the conversation comes to an end.
These are all just basic and common sense 'dating tips.' My Mother always used to tell me not to go out on 'blind dates' with 'masked' persons--they just might turn out to be lobotomized amnesiacs, serial killers, heroin dealers, Yakuza, pedophilles, rapists, or even worse... Republicans.
This and other similar types of 'relationships' are replicated daily in the 'professional' and 'personal' affairs of 'men,' and take on many different forms and guises.
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If one is to examine a 15th century German etching of the Whore of Babylon (ironically, I suppose, in light of Stockhausen´s Lucifer comments) one can easily see the concept of supporting product versus producer expressed visually:
In the case of HSBC (the world´s second largest bank by market value according to the NYSE), supporting the ´product´ might also mean supporting an endless cycle of terrorism, military interventions, and the continuing downward spiral of eroding civil liberties. For the consumer of HSBC´s ´product,´ it might additionally mean supporting a vast opium money laundering operation--probably one of the many ´deals´ Bush struck with the British and Chinese governments in regards to Afghanistan's opium production, which harvests opium to the tune of something like a billion US dollars a year, if I´m not mistaken. The Chinese and British, of course, have been at this opium business for many decades now and Bush borrows one billion US dollars a day from the Chinese government to support the war in Iraq, the country which coincidently contains the location of the ancient city of Babylon and the Tower of Babel.
In the case of Ars Electronica (not to be mistaken with Ars Electronics of Van Nuys, California), a prestigious digital art and music competition, electronic music festival, symposium (and I suppose, a think tank of sorts), based in Linz, Austria, it might mean supporting the following comment for one of their symposium announcements, via Chapter Two of The Critical Art Ensemble´s anti-capitalist, anti-eugenics polemic, Flesh Machine:
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´They´ have, once again, hacked into the human gene pool and now the human genome in a wide variety of ways. Not only have ´they´ hacked the genome, but ´they´ have also hacked human consciousness as well, and expect ´us,´of course, to pay for the privilege of hacking 'us' toward our complete enslavement.
´They´ have hacked into just about fucking everything.
Who are ´they?´ Let´s answer that question right now... once and for all:
The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, according to a new study by a United Nations research institute.
The report, from the World Institute for Development Economics Research at the UN University, says that the poorer half of the world's population own barely 1% of global wealth.
I disapprove of the use of the word ´household´ in the above BBC News article. What this news item is actually attempting to say is that 2 percent of the world´s population controls more than 50 percent of the world´s wealth. How much more is unknown.
Lucifer and the Whore would have it no other way.
I don´t wish to continue linking Wikipedia documents here, but they are convenient, and have been an invaluable resource in previous research. For example, the link from Microwave Hearing to the research papers of John J. McMurtrey-which would otherwise have been impossible to locate.
There are still many missing pieces to this puzzle and I will attempt to explore them in subsequent entries.
Posted by: ce399 | 01 March 2007 at 18:49