2005-12-09 - 1:19 a.m.
A Neil Nakadate writing and some comments
"Autumn 2001: New World Order"
"Target: 10/07/01 "
Imagine 28 televisions in two eye-level rows, identical sideline-to-sideline pictures in a redundant loop of rappers, video games,
and HBO, plenty of ego, eros,accessories, and attitude in sharp focus and living color.
In the middle, disconnected from the in-store tape, one fugitive unit offers a snowy image and static from Afghanistan, night-vision penumbras in milky green. Something glows, expands, can almost be felt
from here. A young woman name-tagged
"Kerrie" wanders over, wiggles the antenna, ponders the bad picture, shrugs and goes off to ring up phone cardsand DVD's. She doesn't see a bearded man in turban and camouflage fatigues making oddly-expressionless threats in an English that doesn't fit
the movement of his mouth. Pre-recorded in broad daylightin some country that has no name, he is saying something like, What you see is what you get.
Kabul is ten hours ahead of Minneapolis,
nine ahead of NYC. Imagine that.
Artist's Voice
Whether you're an artist or not, you have a right and a responsibility to voice yourself in this country. And I think particularly if you're an artist, and you're aware that there are many places in the world where artists can't do this, then you have a kind of an obligation to not waste that opportunity, that right, that privilege. Right after that, in my classes, I mentioned to students that it was a good opportunity for us to take a close look and articulate what it is that we really believe in�what really matters, finally, to us.
Role of Art
Art gives us alternative ways to understand our experience. When things are very confusing, it's important to have alternative ways of examining the problem or the dilemma or the feeling. And it's often that alternative point of view that gives us a way to begin to get a handle, and to kind of start moving beyond the immediate emotions. And I think, at that point, there's as much need for art as there ever is.
By contrast, some people might say, Well, we don't have time for art at moments like this; it's a frill, it's a whatever. But I think by the nature of art and artists, it's exactly the time when they have to continue to do their work. It's not like being a firefighter and going into a life-threatening situation, but writers, or painters, sculptors, go where it's very hard to describe that feeling, and they find a way to do it. That's where they go. And so there's a need for it.
