lecture

We are sitting in my flat watching the war on Iraq on BBC World. The coalition forces continue to talk about “precision bombs” despite the heavy civilian casualties. A friend of mine, a fellow filmmaker, looks at me with a sense of resentment and resignation. He then remarks that it is events like this war that make him question the significance of cinema. I am silent for a while because even though I have felt a sense of futility in making films, I can’t accept the thought. I have lived my life for cinema and the potential it has to effect change.

Friday, February 23th, 2007

Anti War I think doesn't work anymore as a word. And I want to explore why. Is it that war itself is a situated historical something and we've moved beyond that historical period? Is it that we are no longer positioned in a clear way, so that we can identify war?

- I think the last time anti-war worked, as a word, as an image, of letters, was when massive demonstrations happened all over the world, hoping to prevent the invasion of Iraq. When the invasion happened, the word didn't work anymore. Anti-War became an anti-word. Can we say anti-massacre?

Abstract wars demand abstract enemies, and the Hostis Humani Generis (or the enemy against all mankind) is a title that has been bestowed on a host of figures; starting with the pirate and now the terrorist, I seek to understand the links between property, piracy and terrorism and propose that the concept of Hostis Humani Generis helps us understand the idea of war as a continuation of property by other means.

(1) the image of people cleaning up their houses and streets, and what's left of it after they been attacked, bombed etc. (2) the myth of Trümmerfrauen cleaning up the rubble in post-war Germany, when, at the same time, the trope auf cleaning up was strong as a right wing trope of law and order, and even war (3) the antagonism of negentropic cleaning up and entropic war