[-empyre-] Sustenazo - Part II

[Monika Weiss]

Hi, 

After posting some visual materials I think my initial "introduction to the work"  is done. I am happy to take it on from there and to form a dialogue....

Interesting question below from Alan about the nature of video as a catalyst for memory, pain and lament and later I would like to expand that part of our discussion towards the performative and the circular in terms of the relationships between cinematic mirroring and lament as well as pain. Just briefly for now -- about torture. I am more preoccupied with torture inflicted by governments, institutions and systems that often hide their violence -- as you know only recently in my city of origins, Warsaw, a CIA compound was found in which "suspected terrorists" were kept for a number of years and tortured by US forces, without any real knowledge amongst the civil part of the Polish government. There are thousands of examples of course. Massive, systematic pain and torture systems, the ones that are pre-designed by others, "enlightened", designed by those who are in power or who represent structures of power and hegemony not because of hate, anger or any other emotion but because of fulfilling some abstracted and pragmatic goal, akin to Zygmunt Baumann's idea of "gardening" . 

Finally, I look forward to the post about Pain and other related posts expected this week and will hold off with posting major things for now (such as the City's memory and pain) until maybe later in the week.

Looking forward to our discussion----

Monika


M o n i k a   W e i s s   S t u d i o
456 Broome Street, 4
New York, NY 10013
Phone: 212-226-6736
Mobile: 646-660-2809
www.monika-weiss.com
gniewna at monika-weiss.com 

M o n i k a   W e i s s
Assistant Professor
Graduate School of Art & Hybrid Media
Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts  
Washington University in St. Louis 
Campus Box 1031 
One Brookings Drive 
St. Louis, MO 63130 
mweiss at samfox.wustl.edu
http://samfoxschool.wustl.edu/portfolios/faculty/monika_weiss

On Oct 2, 2012, at 9:35 PM, Alan Sondheim wrote:

> 
> 
> Hi - some questions occasioned by what I've been reading here, and also thinking about torture, living through torture. Lamentation seems to imply an other, often disappeared or disappearing, that one mourns for, after, or almost within; torture applies to the self to the depths that there is no other. They are related by suffering, by anguish, and they both seem elsewhere than new or other media - they seem unmediated, even though lamentation may and often does, follow traditional cultural forms. They also seem to involve a pouring out or into; the self is dissolved. Lamentation seems to imply, as well, the second (still living or just alive) dissolving into the third (the dead), in an uncanny way paralleling the second person, 'you,' dissolving into the third, 'he' or 'she' or 'it' as the body might be. So how is all this manifest - or is it - through media? Is, for example, a video then a catalyst - of affect, memory, mourning? I ask myself these questions in the work I do in Second Life or 3d printing as well -
> 
> Thanks, Alan, and please everyone, join in -
> 
> 
> 
> ==
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> ==
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