Geek Mythology

Tonite Valeria and I are giving a talk for the students of Beckmans college of design. We will be talking about art and the consumer culture and showing films from our performances and foto documentation of our installations. After our talk there will also be a question and answer session. Its an open talk so if you want to check it out then come down to Knast tonite at Upplandsgatan 7 at 6 oclock. Peace….

Wow I love youtube. Now that I have posted the John Carpenter documentary I have to share another powerfull film with you. As I said in the early 80s when I was growing up in New York there was quite an explosion in the horror genre. It became very popular amongst teenagers with slasher flicks like Halloween and Friday the thirteenth. The main actor in the Halloween films was Doctor Samuel Loomis played by Donald Plesance. The psychiatrist who was chasing the slasher Michael Myers. He would later become such an iconic figure that he would be cast to narrarate the classic horror documentary “Terror in the aisles”. This movie is basically just a huge collage of random great clips from all of the greatest horror movies of all time with Plesance and Nancy Allen guiding the viewer through the material, speaking about the psychological mechanisms behind the attraction and repulsion of horror films.

This film came out in the mid 80s and I remember going to see it on Central Avenue with my brother and these two Swedish kids, Johan and Anders Börjesson who where brothers who we used to hang out with and play Dungeons and Dragons. We would also love to watch scary movies on friday and saturday nights. It was when we saw this film that one of the kids, Johan, burst out “I love that line!!” at the top of his voice when the clip is played from Carpenters “The Thing” of the runaway head and the one guy slowly says in total shock and disbelief “…you gotta be fucking kidding me…”. This was extra funny because the movie itself focuses alot on the horror movie audience and its reactions to whats happening on the screen. So everyone in the theater when we where watching it was really going nuts, screaming, cheering and yelling at the screen. Its an interesting film, giving more of an entertaining analysis of why we are drawn to horror and fear. Im posting the first two parts of the film here, but I really recommend that you look at all the the parts on youtube, I think that there are around 24 parts in total.

Okokok I just have to share the part of the film where Johan screamed “I love that line!!!”, hehe:

This is a six page spread that I got with my art in the Turkish music and art magazine BANT:

This is a documentary about one of my favorite moviemakers John Carpenter. When I grew up in New York in the early 80s my parents had gotten cabel and I would stay up late at nite watching his movies like Halloween 1 and 2, Escape from New York and The Thing. Later he made other classics like They Live and Prince of Darkness. There was something in the anti authoritarian style of his movies that really got to me. A hero who was often a loner who had to battle against a corrupt government or a rampaging serial killer. Always on the edge of my seat the music(which he composed himself), the costumes and the set designs have had a profound effect on me and inspired me immensly! So watch this documentary to get a glimpse of a genius at work!

I have been interviewed by the Swedish magazine “Kyrkporten”. Its a magazine published by the Swedish Church and the article came out on All saints day at the end of october. I am interviewed together with author and professor Antoon Geels who has written several good books on Religion and psychology.Here is one of his books:

http://www.amazon.com/Mysticism-Psychological-Perspectives-Jacob-Belzen/dp/9042011254/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226048905&sr=8-1

Author Peter Halldorf is also interviewed. I speak about the life of one of my big sources of inspiration archbishop Oscar Romero of El salvador who was gunned down while saying mass in 1980. He was one of the main representatives of liberation theology and was a “voice of the voiceless”, and for this he paid the highest price.

Check out the article here, its on pages 17 to 19 in the online version of the magazine,

http://www.svenskakyrkansollentuna.com/upload/3690/KP%205%202008_web.pdf

Bishop Romero was assassinated by a right wing group headed by Roberto Dáubisson, who was trained at the American “School of the Americas” and was the founder of an extreme right wing party in El salvador called Arena. He helped organize together with the American government the deathsquads that terrorized El salvador during the Reagan terror war in the 80s. His nickname was the blowtorch because he used to torture people with one. Wikipedia writes that:

“On 5 December 1984, in Washington, D.C., at the Capitol Hill Club, American conservative lobbyists awarded Major Roberto d’Aubuisson a plaque honouring his continuing efforts for freedom in the face of Communist aggression, which is an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere. The closed-door dinner for 120 people, was given by the National Council for Better Education, and co-sponsored by the Free Congress Foundation; the Conservative Caucus; the Conservative Alliance; Viguerie Co.; Gun Owners of America; Western Goals Endowment Fund; Washington Legal Foundation; United States Defense Committee; American Foreign Policy Council; Public Service Research Council; The Moral Majority; The Washington Times; National Right-to-Work Committee; National Pro-Life Political Action Committee; Intercessors for America; the Young Americans Foundation; Young Americans for Freedom; and Faith Ryan Whittlesey and ex-U.S. ambassadress and Reagan presidential assistant.[11]”

These deathsquad strategies where later implemented in Iraq during the US occupation there, in the so called “Salvador option” with Shia deatsquads brutalizing the Sunni opposition. More can be read about this in the great book Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill. During an interview for Democracy now! John Pace, the Human rights chief for the UN Assistance mission in Iraq said, when asked if there are deathsquads in Iraq:

“I would say yes, there are death squads,” and “my observations would confirm that at least at a certain point last year and in 2005, we saw numerous instances where the behavior of death squads was very similar, uncannily similar to that we had observed in other countries, including El Salvador.”

By the way I am very happy that for now at least the christian right has been defeated. Bush is leaving the white house and Sarah Palin is back in Alaska licking her wounds. But they will work even harder now. They are going to organize themselves, and come back stronger in 2012. These people claim to be christian but they are in love with money and war.

Hey me and my main man Phil are in a competition with designs for tshirts, totebags and bumper stickers for ARTSCORPS in Seattle. They are an organisation that brings the arts to kids. Help us out by voting for us! Peace

Here is the link to vote:

www.artscorps.org/vote