[-empyre-] Bare Life / Camp Campaign

["Nicholas Brown" <nicholas.senn@gmail.com>]

Just learned of a current project that is very relevant to the "Bare
Life" theme....

<< CAMP CAMPAIGN >>
http://www.campcampaign.info/

How is it that a camp like Guantanamo Bay can exist in our time?

We would like to begin our campaign with this simple question and join
other organizations, lawyers, thinkers, and activists in contesting
not only the existence of this camp but also examining its relation to
other phenomenon we are confronted with in the social and political
landscape.

We feel that Guantanamo Bay is only a more acute or extreme version of
what is taking place around us in the name of security. And our
campaign attempts to draw out those connections and link them to
historical precedents as well as everyday phenomenon .

The Italian philosopher, Giorgio Agamben, has introduced two critical
questions that pertain to our current political crisis and to our
campaign.

First, that the state of exception, in this case, the suspension of
the rule of law (e.g., Patriot Act, illegal combatants, military
tribunals, extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo Bay), have become
increasingly common devices of governance, perhaps the norm, in
"democratic" states in this last century.

Second, that the camp should not be seen exclusively as a historical
fact (e.g. Auschwitz) or as an exception reserved only for the
"inhuman" (e.g. Guantanamo Bay) or displaced refugee (e.g. Palestine),
but as the paradigm, the "hidden matrix and nomos of the political
space in which we are still living." This second theme is interesting
because it is closer to a question which relies on discussion to first
understand and then to interrogate and explore....

In this context, Camp X-Ray, Echo, Delta* become more than exceptional
sites of the suspension of law, or mere examples of America's
unilateral policies and ignorance of international law. Instead they
serve as glaring examples of what remains one of the critical
apparatuses and unspoken structural underwriters of modern governance
(including democracy). With this understanding the exception is not a
freak occurrence, but rather a means of conditioning and establishing
(a relation to) the norm.

For these reasons, we believe that Guantanamo Bay is a critical site
for developing a discussion with a public about various timely themes
in politics today (e.g., security and terror, citizenship and
statelessness, human rights vs. political and legal rights, the coming
/ unavowable / inoperative or terrible community)....

Continued @ http://www.campcampaign.info/about.htm

The next stop on the "Camp Campaign" tour will be at Mess Hall
(Chicago) on Wednesday, July 12, 7:30-10:00 PM
(http://www.messhall.org)

Links to a couple recent interviews with organizers Ayreen Anastas and
Rene Gabri....

NYC / JUNE 24, 2006 / WKCR
"Camp Frequencies - Security and Its Discontents"
http://www.campcampaign.info/audio/wkcr-live.mp3

A live radio program by artists Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri,
including conversations, readings, and interviews with former Legal
Director at Center for Constitutional Rights, Jeff Fogel, and a prayer
from Reverand Billy.

NYC / JUNE 19, 2006 / WBAI
"Ayreen, Rene and Sofia interviewed by Janet Colemen"
http://www.campcampaign.info/audio/060619_WBAI1.mov

Monday, June 19, Ayreen and Rene, and Art in General's curator Sofía
Hernández Chong Cuy, were interviewed by Janet Coleman for on WBAI.
Ayreen and Rene discuss key questions of the campaign, and Sofía made
brief interjections about some of the aesthetic and exhibition
strategies that are being discussed.

See also: The Guantanamobile Project
http://vectors.iml.annenberg.edu/index.php?page=7&projectId=3
http://guantanamobile.org/


Nicholas Brown

www.walkinginplace.org
criticalspatialpractice.blogspot.com