Riley Harmon, ‘What it is without the hand that wields it’ (2008)
As gamers die in a public video game server of a modified version of Counter-strike, a popular online first person shooter, the electronic solenoid valves dispense a small amount of fake blood. The trails left down the wall create a physical manifestation of virtual kills, bridging the two realities. The title is inspired by the Telefon Tel Aviv song of the same name.
Pencil and watercolor by Lt. Francis Meynell, “Slave deck of the Albaroz, Prize to the Albatross, 1845”, shows Africans liberated by the British Navy. The Albanez (erroneously identified as Albaroz) was a Brazilian vessel, captured by the Royal Navy ship, Albatross, off the mouth of the Coanza/Cuanza River (in present-day Angola) in 1845. Meynell was mate on the Albatross, captained at the time by Reginald Yorke. According to the NMM records, the Albatross was commissioned in 1842 and cruised African waters until 1849.
Jumping is done from the top platform. From the underlying floors, as well as from the audience seating opposite the building, spectators can watch the suicides happen live.
A change in military thinking is taking place these very days, in which the military understands that future wars will take place in cities. If in the past symmetrical warfare was conducted by state militaries in the open fields, today militaries are fighting enclaves of resistance that withdraw ever deeper into the density of the urban fabric. ‘Walking through walls’ is the military tactic of tearing down holes in the façades of people’s homes (and the walls between rooms) in order to expand the battle field from the public to the private space.
Transcript of lecture by Eyal Weizman here, essay here.
Jeremy Deller
‘The Battle of Orgreave’ (2001) by Jeremy Deller.
A large scale performance re-enacting a confrontation between the police and striking miners from the 1984–85 miners strike.