[-empyre-] the N-space

["G.H. Hovagimyan" <ghh@thing.net>]

Right now we're in a clash of civilizations. The modernist world, the  
capitalist consumer utopia vs. The religious. Neither world is very  
appealing.  An N-space then is anything that is not this. It may be  
that Hakim Bey is right in the idea of a TAZ.

My father was born in Istanbul in 1927.  For people outside of Europe  
or on the fringe of Europe the idea of modern was anything but where  
they lived. It meant escape from religious oppression, racism,  
xenophobia and genocide.  After World War II, America exemplified  
that same idea of modern.  My father came to America. He studied  
engineering. He became an electrical engineer. He worked in computers  
and communications.  He was the epitome of an American modern  
technocrat but he spoke with a foreign accent.  The idea of modern is  
linked to the idea of Utopia which I am told translated means (no  
place.)  Now the Chinese are more modern than the Americans or am I  
mixing up contemporary with modern?

The European idea of Modernism can be summed up by a quote from the  
Futurists , F.T. Marinetti, "...war is the universal hygiene."   The  
notion of revolution is always a call for the death of an entire  
political class.  Baudrillard in his latest book the Conspiracy of  
Art  talks about how all art since the 1960's has been a simulation  
and rehashing of art historical styles. Now we are in a simulation of  
a simulation.

I can't help but think that the West is being sold a reflection of  
itself by the East (Japan, Korea, China).  It's similar to British  
bands taking American Rock and Roll and doing it better than the  
Americans or Alfred Hitchcock creating the absolute image of American  
Modern in North by Northwest or Vertigo or Marnie. If I were totally  
crazy I'd say we are living in the Matrix. We just don't know it.   
And what about the rest of the world, specifically Africa,  The  
tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, how do they define  
modern. Is it a (no place) dream?

The 2006 Whitney Biennial follows this same course of Europeans  
defining America's dark night of the soul. It's odd because I feel  
that America is the place where everyone goes looking for their own  
personal (no place).  Baudrillard in his book is interviewed by the  
press about his exhibition of photographs.  They ask him if this is a  
contradiction to his idea of being an outsider critiquing the  
system.  He says that of course you can be inside the system while  
critiquing it at the same time.

Kemel Attaturk is called, "The Father of Modern Turkey."