There's a lazy tendency to slander the past when something happens in the present. In today's New York Times David Carr writes that the firing of Don Imus for his racist remarks is a "sign of the times."
Mr. Imus is an old-school radio guy caught in a very modern media paradigm. When he started 30 years ago, if he made the same kind of remark, it would have floated off into the ether — the Federal Communications Commission, if it received complaints, might have taken notice, but few others.
You may have first heard about the work of Steve Mumford via something or other in relation to Steven Vincent's murder, on Daily Kos. Later, n+1 online hosted a nice engagement with Mumford's work – final installment and links to the preceeding three may be found here:
Grad programs train artists in political response, yet few responded to our new war. This summer’s Greater New York show contained more painting about fake wood paneling than about the situation in Iraq. Ironic retrospection was the wrong strategy for the new historical situation, but most artists continued knitting and referencing video games anyway. In this context, Steve Mumford’s Iraqi watercolors stood out.
The intimacy, both of the situations he painted and of his brush on the paper, gave us something we hadn’t seen from this war. As the publication of his Baghdad Journal approaches, some have begun to question the attention he’s received. Such questions would be more interesting if he had any competition. His work alone has dared to confront the war where it happens, as it happens. If he deserves anything, it is precisely our attention.
Today, Mumford was interviewed by NPR on the occasion of his book's publication. Worth a look, read and listen, all
Oh, radio...Following on from here, and for all you libertarians out there, a fascinating discussion of surveillance cameras from WBAI. (Who are the real paranoiacs, those thinking and talking about the implications of public surveillance, or those putting the cameras there in the first place?) It's an hour long mp3, but worth it.
Update: If you'll permit me a lengthy side note, I thought I'd share some excerpts from an essay John Berger wrote in response to Susan Sontag's book On Photography. It seems rather pertinent.
Update II: See also this issue of Surveillance and Society (courtesy of wood s lot).
Recent Comments