kagablog

dear kagablog readers
tonight i will be at the klubb k3 in malmö in the company of bo reimer and oscar hemer
please interact with us live by clicking here after 9pm

So why hasn’t Iran started by wiping its own Jews off the map?
by Jonathan Cook

Iran is the new Nazi Germany and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the new Hitler. Or so Israeli officials have been declaring for months as they and their American allies try to persuade the doubters in Washington that an attack on Tehran is essential. And if the latest media reports are to be trusted, it looks like they may again be winning the battle for hearts and minds: Vice President Dick Cheney is said to be diverting the White House back on track to launch a military strike.

Earlier this year Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s opposition leader and the man who appears to be styling himself scaremonger-in-chief, told us: “It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs.” Of Ahmadinejad, he said: “He is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state.”

A few weeks ago, as Israel’s military intelligence claimed – as it has been doing regularly since the early 1990s – that Iran is only a year or so away from the “point of no return” on developing a nuclear warhead, Netanyahu was at it again. “Iran could be the first undeterrable nuclear power,” he warned, adding: “This is a Jewish problem like Hitler was a Jewish problem … The future of the Jewish people depends on the future of Israel.”

But Netanyahu has been far from alone in making extravagant claims about a looming genocide from Iran. Israel’s new president, Shimon Peres, has compared an Iranian nuclear bomb to a “flying concentration camp.” And the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, told a German newspaper last year: “[Ahmadinejad] speaks as Hitler did in his time of the extermination of the entire Jewish nation.”

There is an interesting problem with selling the “Iran as Nazi Germany” line. If Ahmadinejad really is Hitler, ready to commit genocide against Israel’s Jews as soon as he can get his hands on a nuclear weapon, why are some 25,000 Jews living peacefully in Iran and more than reluctant to leave despite repeated enticements from Israel and American Jews?

What is the basis for Israel’s dire forecasts – the ideological scaffolding being erected, presumably, to justify an attack on Iran? Helpfully, as George Bush defended his Iraq policies last month, he reminded us yet again of the menace Iran supposedly poses: it is “threatening to wipe Israel off the map.”

This myth has been endlessly recycled since a translating error was made of a speech Ahmadinejad delivered nearly two years ago. Farsi experts have verified that the Iranian president, far from threatening to destroy Israel, was quoting from an earlier speech by the late Ayatollah Khomeini in which he reassured supporters of the Palestinians that “the Zionist regime in Jerusalem” would “vanish from the page of time.”

He was not threatening to exterminate Jews or even Israel. He was comparing Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians with other illegitimate systems of rule whose time had passed, including the Shahs who once ruled Iran, apartheid South Africa and the Soviet empire. Nonetheless, this erroneous translation has survived and prospered because Israel and her supporters have exploited it for their own crude propaganda purposes.

In the meantime, the 25,000-strong Iranian Jewish community is the largest in the Middle East outside Israel and traces its roots back 3,000 years. As one of several non-Muslim minorities in Iran, Jews there suffer discrimination, but they are certainly no worse off than the one million Palestinian citizens of Israel – and far better off than Palestinians under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.

Iranian Jews have little influence on decision-making and are not allowed to hold senior posts in the army or bureaucracy. But they enjoy many freedoms. They have an elected representative in parliament, they practice their religion openly in synagogues, their charities are funded by the Jewish diaspora, and they can travel freely, including to Israel. In Tehran there are six kosher butchers and about 30 synagogues. Ahmadinejad’s office recently made a donation to a Jewish hospital in Tehran.

As Ciamak Moresadegh, an Iranian Jewish leader, observed: “If you think Judaism and Zionism are one, it is like thinking Islam and the Taliban are the same, and they are not.” Iran’s leaders denounce Zionism, which they blame for fueling discrimination against the Palestinians, but they have also repeatedly avowed that they have no problem with Jews, Judaism or even the state of Israel. Ahmadinejad, caricatured as a merchant of genocide, has in fact called for “regime change” – and then only in the sense that he believes a referendum should be held of all inhabitants of Israel and the occupied territories, including refugees from war, on the nature of the government.

Despite the absence of any threat to Iran’s Jews, the Israeli media recently reported that the Israeli government has been trying to find new ways to entice Iranian Jews to Israel. The Ma’ariv newspaper pointed out that previous schemes had found few takers. There was, noted the report, “a lack of desire on the part of thousands of Iranian Jews to leave.” According to the New York-based Forward newspaper, a campaign to convince Iranian Jews to emigrate to Israel caused only 152 out of these 25,000 Jews to leave Iran between October 2005 and September 2006, and most of them were said to have emigrated for economic reasons, not political ones.

To step up these efforts – and presumably to avoid the embarrassing incongruence of claiming an imminent second Holocaust while thousands of Jews live happily in Tehran – Israel is now backing a move by Jewish donors to guarantee every Iranian Jewish family $60,000 to settle in Israel, in addition to a host of existing financial incentives that are offered to Jewish immigrants, including loans and cheap mortgages.

The announcement was met with scorn by the Society of Iranian Jews, which issued a statement that their national identity was not for sale. “The identity of Iranian Jews is not tradeable for any amount of money. Iranian Jews are among the most ancient Iranians. Iran’s Jews love their Iranian identity and their culture, so threats and this immature political enticement will not achieve their aim of wiping out the identity of Iranian Jews.”

However, this financial gesture may not only be unwelcome but self-fulfilling too, if past experience is the yardstick. Israel introduced a similar scheme a few years ago, when Argentina’s economy plunged into deep recession, broadcasting an offer of $20,000 to every Jew who settled in Israel. Months later the Israeli media reported a rise in anti-Semitic attacks in Argentina, only adding to the pressure on Jews there to leave. Of course, there was no mention of a possible causal connection between the attacks and Israel’s generous offer to Jews to abandon their homeland as other Argentinians sank into poverty.

But if financial enticements – and a possible popular backlash – fail to move Iranian Jews, there is good reason to fear that Israel may resort to other, more dubious ways of encouraging them to emigrate. That is certainly a path Israel has chosen before with other communities of Arab Jews, whom it has regarded either as a pool of potential spies and agents provocateurs to be used when needed or as “human dust,” in the words of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, to be recruited to Israel’s “demographic battle” against the Palestinians.

In “Operation Susannah” of 1954, for example, Israel recklessly recruited a group of Egyptian Jews to stage a series of explosions in Egypt in a bid to discourage Britain from withdrawing from the Suez Canal zone. When the plot came to light, it naturally cast a shadow of disloyalty over Egypt’s wider Jewish community. Following Israel’s invasion and occupation of Sinai two years later, the government of Gamal Abdel Nasser expelled some 25,000 Egyptian Jews and, after others were imprisoned on suspicion of spying, the rest soon left.

Even more notoriously, Israel went to greater lengths to ensure the exit of the Arab world’s largest Jewish population, in Iraq. In 1950 a series of bombs targeted on Jews in Baghdad forced a rapid exodus of some 130,000 Iraqi Jews to Israel, convinced that Arab extremists were behind the attacks. Only later did it emerge that the bombs had been planted by members of the Zionist underground, supported by the Israeli government.

Now, Iran’s Jews may find themselves treated in much the same manner – as simple human fodder. Stories are growing of Israel exploiting the free movement between Iran and Israel enjoyed by Iranian Jews and their Israeli relatives to carry out spying operations on Iran’s nuclear program. Such reports have come from reliable sources such as the American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, citing US government officials.

The fallout from such actions is not difficult to predict. Besieged by the US and the international community, Tehran is cracking down on dissent and minority groups, fearful that its own grip on power is shaky and that the well-publicized subversion being carried out by US and Israeli agents is likely only to be stepped up. So far most officials in Tehran have been careful to avoid suggesting that Iran’s Jews have double loyalties, as has the local Jewish community itself, both of them aware of Israel’s interests in provoking such a confrontation. But as the strains increase, and Israel’s need to prove Tehran’s genocidal intent grows ever stronger, that policy may end up being forfeited – and with it the future of Iran’s Jews.

More important than the welfare of Iranian Jewish families, it seems, is the value of Iranian Jews as a propaganda tool in Israel’s battle to persuade the world that coexistence with the Muslim world is impossible. For those who want to engineer a clash of civilizations, the 3,000-year-old Jewish legacy in Iran is not something to be treasured, only another obstacle to war.

this article first appeared on antiwar.com

“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”
Norma Desmond
Sunset Blvd.

“Film will only become art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.”
Jean Cocteau

“The future of filmmaking is changing and mobile-generated art is fast becoming the next medium for film. In five years, I believe we will be watching films in movie theaters that have been shot on a mobile phone.”
Spike Lee
(April 2008)

I stopped laughing years ago.

Back in 1995 I had a friend tell me she was getting married to someone she had met on the Internet. That was uncharted territory back then and fodder for many jokes.

Four years later when the creative team behind The Blair Witch Project stunned Hollywood with the use of their unusual marketing on the Internet it got everyone’s attention.

Now almost ten years later it seems as if the whole world has jumped on the Internet bandwagon. Video for the web is exploding and it’s hard to be surprised by the technological breakthrough of the month.

There is a new cinema coming and for the screenwriter that means new opportunities. So in two parts I’ll attempt to give a sweeping overview of this new world.

In May of 2005, I was on a shoot in Cape Town, South Africa when I read an article about a director in the United States who was making a national commercial with a cell phone. That’s when I thought to myself, “Someday, someone’s going to make a feature film with a cell phone.” In December of 2005 in Johannesburg, South African filmmaker Aryan Kaganof, shot the first dramatic feature film, SMS Sugar Man, entirely with a cell phone. A cell phone.

Kaganof, an accomplished filmmaker, told Ryan Fortune of Johannesburg’s Sunday Times’, “We are re-writing the book on cinema here…things will never be the same…from now onwards, all you’ll need (to make a film) is a good idea, a cellphone, a laptop and you’re off. It opens up a whole world of possibilities….” Fortune commented that the film is a perfect example of leap-frogging meaning a technological leap had occurred much like it had ten years previously with the advent of DV cameras and non-linear editing systems.

Unfortunately Kaganof was killed and I have not heard if this film was ever completed.

But also in 2005, the first feature documentary shot entirely with a cell phone was being shot. Italian directors Marcelo Mencarini and Barbara Seghezzi co-directed the 93-minute film, New Love Meetings. “With the widespread availability of cell phones equipped with cameras, anybody could do this,’’ Mencarini said, “If you want to say something nowadays, thanks to the new media, you can.”

Within a year of the cell phone feature breakthroughs, cell phone film festivals began popping up around the world. For the naysayers out there who question the quality of the equipment or films being made need to view the first copyrighted film, Fred Ott’s Sneeze. It was made in 1894 and features, well, Fred Ott sneezing. Yes, I paid a lot of money in film school to learn that, but you can see it free on You Tube.

In fact, you can see quite a lot on You Tube. Not just silly videos of teenagers lip-syncing pop songs, but there’s a mini film school hidden in there. Classic clips from Charlie Chaplin films, the opening tracking shot in Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, and the shower scene from Hitchcock’s Psycho are available for you to study.

And you have to admit Judson Laipply’s The Evolution of Dance is original and funny. You have to take notice of a video that gets viewed 10 million times in its first two weeks and a year later as I write this is still the number one all-time viewed video on You Tube with more than 83 million views.

Things have evolved very quickly in digital filmmaking and distribution. I don’t know if there are more people making money in the digital world but there is a heck of lot more content. And that is a start and gives us a taste of what is to come. We know that the Internet is shaking up the industry as more and more people spend time on the Internet and less time watching TV programs and going to movies.

We know that in a few years video stores will probably revert back to the small mom and pop stores that sprang up in the 80’s with the demand for video rental. Stores like Blockbuster will have to diversify what they do to survive. I don’t think the need for people renting movies will ever totally go away, they’ll just become more like those funky retro record stores. (Heck, people still collect 8-track tapes.)

One of the good things that may come out of this is the rebirth of the filmmaker as artist. Because of the high costs of making films, filmmakers have always had an uneasy agreement with commerce. Only certain type of films could be made. Ones that could find a large audience. The goal was a high return on investment.

With the rise of the super blockbuster it was once believed that the studios would then make more smaller, less sensational films. That didn’t happen. Once studios got a taste of 100 million dollar box offices then that became the goal for every film. Bruce the shark in Jaws killed more than people.

Over the years I’ve read article after article where actors, directors, writers, and cinematographers lament over not making the kind of films they really want to make. Part of the problem is they too are caught up in the machine. But every once in a while a flower breaks through the concrete and gets made for the joy of it. Because the writer and or director have a vision beyond simply the box office. The real exciting part is when those films make money.

Not all digital films will turn out as well as Sketches of Frank Gehry, but that is part of the process. Remember, before Francis Ford Coppola made The Godfather he cut his teeth on Roger Corman films. Ditto that for Titanic writer/director James Cameron and many other filmmakers. Let’s look back and how far we’ve come in a short time.

I remember in the late 90’s when a filmmaker from New York told an audience at the Florida Film Festival, “I am a filmmaker, I make films with film—I’m not interested in video.” Many film festivals didn’t even allow films shot on video. Looking back it reminds me of the days when snow boarding was outlawed at ski resorts in Colorado. (Snow boarding now represents more than half the revenue at some resorts.) Things change. And these days they change rapidly.

When I was in film school in the early 80’s there was a line drawn between the film and video world. The film students looked down on the video and TV students, just as did film actors looked down on TV work.

As the 80’s progressed both the VHS videotape market and cable TV opened new opportunities for filmmakers and the lines between film and video became blurred. The year 1994 was the year that I gave up being a film snob. That was the year that Hoop Dreams was released.

I didn’t care what it was shot on it was simply a great film—even if it was shot on video.

Film critic Rodger Ebert would later call it the best film of the 1990’s. Up until that point there had been a lot of dabbling with video in Hollywood. Jerry Lewis was the first to use video assist on a film for his directorial debut The Bellboy. The first feature film shot on video was 200 Motels, co-directed by Frank Zappa in 1971. Coppola explored with video on The Outsiders back in 1982 mostly for a reference point while working with young actors.

This is a good place to end part one of New Cinema Screenwriting. My last post touched on David Lynch shooting Island Empire on DV and swearing not to return to shooting film. Whether that is another one of Lynch’s bizarre dreams or in fact reality time will tell.

“I think there’s a slight trend toward embracing new cinema, non-Hollywood blockbuster cinema. It’s not erupting, but because of the Internet, I think people have more of a chance to get buzz going on alternative cinema, so I think it’s hopeful out there.”
David Lynch

Granted this is all in the beginning stages which reminds me of an interview I saw last year with the founder of the Geek Squad who said, “What people don’t realize is the internet has not yet started.” Keep in mind that it wasn’t too long ago when Bill Gates dismissed the power and future of the Internet.

There is nothing wrong with having Big Budget Technicolor Hollywood Dreams but keep in mind that today in little towns and villages all over the world there are people experimenting with little digital cameras (even cell phones) and making movies. Writing words and making movies. And tomorrow we’re going to be watching some of those films.

It’s kind of like the golden age of Hollywood when they cranked out film after film to hungry audiences in a pre-television era. Films were sometimes made start to finish in a couple weeks. That’s how some directors directed over 100 films. Most of those films are forgotten but the ones that survived shine brightly.

The first John Ford film that most people have heard of and perhaps even seen is Stagecoach which he made in 1939. (Though he did win acclaim for Arrowsmith and The Informer in ‘31 & ‘35) Before he directed Stagecoach Ford had made 94 films in 22 years. (Think about the learning that went into the simple process of making that many films.) There is a reason that Orson Welles’ is reported to have watched Stagecoach 40 times before he directed Citizen Kane.

He was in his 40’s when his career got rolling and making the films that we remember him for making. And he directed into his 80’s. There are some great older directors and screenwriters out there that the Hollywood system has forgotten even though they have some films still in them. Maybe if they pick up a digital camera they can make their best films yet.

Speaking of 1939, has there ever been a single better year for movies than 1939?

Maybe this new cinema is a return back to the future.

“I’m ready for my close-up now, Mr. DeMille.”
Norma Desmond
Sunset Blvd.

Copyright 2008 Scott W. Smith

this article was first published here

AFTERMATH ARTEXTRA 7 MAY - 7 JUNE / www.artextra.co.za

Artists: Joni Brenner, Guto Bussab, Natasha Christopher, Adam Davies, Stephen Hobbs, Bronwyn Lace, Churchill Madikida, Sandile Zulu

In his book, Scene of the Crime (1997), curator and theorist Ralph Rugoff discusses artists from the west coast of the States, who, over a period of 35 years, produced a body of work that embraced the logic of forensics - evidentiary markers, traces, and residues that speak of an ‘aftermath’ of an event, action or happening.

In the introduction to the catalogue, Rugoff outlines his conceptualization of this aesthetic - an artistic practice that suggests a link to forensics, or addresses the art object as if it were a kind of evidence, where emphasis is placed on the viewer’s role as investigator, and where works often have a trace, or reflect a history, of prior actions and motivations. The use of such an aesthetic offers a moment where we may ‘raise reasonable doubt’ around any given narrative, or more rhetorically, around the very instability of Narrative as a concept. The word ‘aftermath’ also refers to the concept of consequence, a ‘given result’; the term may also refer to a trauma suffered, or an event endured.

This show seeks to engage with a group of contemporary practitioners who embrace this ‘aesthetic of the aftermath’, and whose works are linked by ‘”…the type of approach they demand from their audience. Taken as a whole, this art puts us in a position akin to that of the forensic anthropologist or scientist, forcing us to speculatively piece together histories that remain largely invisible to the eye.” (Rugoff, 62)

work is the memory of survival
now remember to remember..

so here i am in the middle way having spent fire and brimstone toiling to bring these here images culled from my own unconscious consciousness
a journey into my own heart of darkness.. joy inside my own tears. i have written and remixed my histories making them beautiful. never finding my way, but lay waiting, the falling down down, like drums and tinkling symbols.
you who sit there now clicking and clicking through the mind so bloated at its onw judgement consequence of energy given in silence, language less than act.. .. miraculously
they said i stood there and watched them slaughter the goat and the bleeting, my god the bleeting, is like the pain and anguish of my own vision.
so now you know god has become cannibal in her giving and taking.. i promise you marvels of the noontime hour bra,

my heart is hurting now as i write these lines
..is my art is gonna save me.
the act so far beyond all forms,all voices,chanting
for safety
read on and see that in my own deep quiet.. my visions are heavy with it, deep with it
sensitive to the heavy burden of going up that hill again..
towards golgotha
the cross burning our privates.. to be all ways hollywood .
revealing again our quiet lynch stories.

All the contributors to this book come from different parts of the world and different backgrounds. An upcoming biologist, a 15-year old secondary school student, various award-winning poets, and scholars are just a few examples of the diversity this book was created from. This diversity is what makes this book an unforgettable read. The essence of post-colonialism is also very apparent. This book grabs the reader and ignites one’s own desire to wake up and feel what is happening in the world. The concept that issues and concerns are universal and should never be limited to specific continents is what is expressed. All the poets have made impressionable contributions to the memory of Okogbule Wonodi. His work in life itself has been multicultural and diverse.
In the poem “An address to the elders” by Lupenga Mphande, the concept of religious views and the afterlife is shown.
Bury me in the byre
To survey herds return from pasture
Reminisces of my youth,
Bury me standing upright with your spear
So that I meet Chiuta and our ancestors
On my feet, ready to bow or fight,
Bury me in the river to befriend water nymphs
And live with the torrents (8)
The very idea of being prepared to continue the fight, to continue establishing relationships-even with water nymphs-, and to be able to have recollections of one’s life after death is endearing. It shows that not only in life was the fight for basic humanity present, but that even in death one can continue to do their part for the community as a whole. One person dies and many get to reap the benefits from the experience and struggle that the person had to endure. It shows how even in death one still has the ability to teach and learn from wherever they end up. This concept shows the hope and the willingness to be a part of something that everyone takes for granted and to never let that die.
As the book progresses, the poem “Port Harcourt” by Pious Okoro, makes one aware of the effects of the everyday life experienced. The poem embodies past, children, hope, present reality, and the truth that is unbearable. Words as “love,” “lured,” “dreamed,” “milked,” “bitter pills” and “reek” allow the reader to see the shift of emotions that the people are facing.
Walk your streets of old again
Serene-we dared play
Street football as boys
The pride and prized gem
Of a people still asleep
The lie we believed (45)
…………………………..
What pains we must bear
For being the phantom
Of boom bewailed (46)
The devastation is palpable and the idea that everything that they thought they could fight for was falling apart. The hope that was instilled and then taken away shows the desperation for the suffering to end. Pious let’s us see the internal and external exile, talks about the childhood experiences, discusses future hopes, and shows migration.
Despite all the emptiness that was felt, they never stopped believing and never stopped loving. Although many other poems described the love for one’s country, Nnorom Azuonye reveals that insatiable love in “My homeland”.
They lie like bitter, twisted ruins
Battered by wind, age, and rain
Because once in them, they exude
A generosity of spirit, second to none.
Poverty, sickness, and diseases
I do not deny
The tantalizing taste of uziza
The tingling sensation of suya
Are all witnesses to my secret deal
With Africa, my beautiful homeland. (68)
Words as “bleak,” “corruption,” “deceptive,” “awe,” and “allure” all describe what is seen that the eyes cannot behold. Azuonye uses these words to describe the overall physical and emotional devastation. Even though only remnants remain of what once were there, the memories that live in those remnants, no matter how small, are never forgotten. That force to never letting go, no matter what ails them, is vivid.
Songs for Wonodi, as diverse as it is, is just a small piece of what the real situation is. With the magnitude of award-winning poets/accomplished poets/writers such as Tanure Ojaide, Elechi Amadi, Frank Chipasula, Uche Nduka, Timothy Wangusa, Amatoritsero EdeWith, its not hard to see how they have expressed themselves. The collective work that was brought together is inspirational and innovative. Along with all the issues that surround the people, this book enables the reader to get a picture and thought into their head. When reading this book, the possibility that everything being described can be held relevant to everyday life is important. A mutual moral understanding needs to take place. All the reader has to do is absorb it and let oneself feel the message intended. This book allows for that overall feeling to occur. Without feeling, one cannot appreciate the complexity that this book holds true.

“work is the memory of survival
now remember to remember”

i’m gone now.
gone till i caint
go no mo
but where am
i now?
where can
i be?
among shadows
cast coldly
left in the corner
like web
chum
gummed.
indistinct
smudged
obfuscated irony.
plain truth
‘ hindsight’

(voiceover)

..is art gonna
save me
the act so far
beyond all forms,
all voices,
chanting
for safety.
my own deep quiet..
my visions are heavy
with it,
deep with it
sensitive to the heavy burden
of going up that hill
again..
towards
golgotha
the cross burning our privates..
revealing again
lynch stories.

mia makila’s wonderful website is here: http://www.miamakila.com/art.html

thanks to tobbi for this link

När mitt ansikte fylls med blod, blir det rött och obscent. Det förråder samtidigt, under förvridna reflexer en blodig erektion och en oumbärlig törst för oanständighet och kriminell sedeslöshet.

Av denna orsak avskräcks jag inte att hävda att mitt ansikte är skandalöst och att min passion endast kan yttra sig genom JESUVET.

Det världsliga klotet är täckt med vulkaner, som tjänar som dess anus. Trots att detta klot inte äter någonting, slungar det ofta ut sina tarmars innehåll.

Innehållet som skjuts ut med oväsen och faller tillbaka, strömmar ned längs Jesuvets sidor, sprider död och förintelse överallt.

Djurlivet kommer i sin helhet av havets rörelser, och inifrån kropparna, fortsätter livet att komma av saltvatten.

Havet, har spelat rollen som det kvinnliga organet som fuktas under penis retning.

Havet runkar av kontinuerligt.

Solida element, som inhyses och frodas i vattnet väcks till liv av erotisk rörelse; slungas ut i form av flygande fisk.

Erektionen och solen chockerar, i likhet med kadaver och källarens mörker.

Vegetationen är enhetligt riktad mot solen; människor, erigerade likt träd, skyller trots sin uppenbara olikhet med djuren, även de av nödvändighet sina ögon.

Det mänskliga ögat tolererar varken sol, coitus, kadaver eller det obskyra men dess reaktion är av annorlunda natur.

Tallkottögat, som särskiljer sig från det horisontala systemets normala okulära syn, uppenbarar sig således i en slags tårfylld nimbus, likt ett träds öga eller, möjligen, ett mänskligt träd. Samtidigt är detta okulära träd inget mer än en väldig penis, som under solens berusning vittnar om eller påkallar ett vämjeligt illamående, en kväljande ångestladdad svindel.

Enligt denna omgestaltning av naturen, under vilken synen i sig, attraherad av det vämjeliga, dras ut och slits sönder av solflammorna som den stirrat in i, slutar erektionen sin smärtsamma omvälvning på jordytan och i en uppstötning av smaklöst blod, förvandlas den till ett svindlande fall i den världsliga rymden, åtföljt av ett fruktansvärt skri.

Att vara medveten om världen och lemmarnas organiska puls.

Ständigt närvarande i köttet: blod, märg, slem.

Buken pressar mot marken, pryglar den nakna jorden.

Rygg och måltavla ständigt utelämnad åt ers nåd: vråk, hyena.

MODERGAM

MODERSCHAKAL

Din grymhet gödde mig: din livsfrukt.

Det som står till svars inför mig; mitt kött och livsgärningar.

Ditt avträde.

Din livsfrukt.

De fria lemmarnas krig;

ett organens anarki, vrålet efter vedergällning och utlösning.

MODERGAM

MODERSCHAKAL

Jag håller eggarna

Jag pekar dem mot dig

Jag för dem tillbaka upp genom dig

Jag möter motståndet inuti dig,

tillbaka in genom grymheten;

den farsot som gödde mig.

Solen, benägen på himlavalvets botten likt ett kadaver i avgrunden, besvarar detta omänskliga skri med förruttnelsens spöklika attraktion. Ofantlig natur bryter sina bojor och kollapsar inför det obegränsade tomrummet. En avskuren penis, mjuk och blodig, är substitut för tingens invanda åtgärder. Inom dess ramar, där smärtfyllda käftar fortfarande biter, var, spott, och larvägg lagda av enorma flugor frodas: exkrementalt likt ögat som målats på botten av en vas, lånar Solen sin strålglans i döden, begraver existensen i den stinkande natten.

Det världsliga klotet har kvarhållit sin storhet likt en kal skalle, från vars mitt det vulkaniska ögats påle öppnas upp mot himlen. Det breder ut sitt katastrofala landskap ned i det håriga veckade köttet, och håret som formar dess buske är översvämmat med tårar. Men de upprörda känslorna av förfallet, mer främmande än självaste döden, har inte sitt ursprung i en ordinär hjärna: tunga inälvor pressar i ensamhet detta nakna kött, lika laddat med obscenitet som en bakdel - en som är lika satanisk som den likaså nakna stjärten som en ung besvärjerska reser mot den svarta himlen i samma ögonblick som hennes fundament öppnas, för att mottaga den flammande facklan.

Kärleksvrålet som slits ur denna komiska krater är en febrig snyftning, en alarmerande åskknall.

Solens exkrementala öga har alltså befriat sig från dessa vulkaniska inälvor, och smärtan hos en man som sliter ut sina egna ögon med fingrarna är inte mer absurd än detta solens anala moderskap.

Kärlek, skriker då ur min strupe; jag är Jesuvet, den smutsiga parodin på den heta och bländande solen. Jag vill få strupen avskuren medan jag skändar flickan till vem jag fått tillfälle att säga: du är natten.

Solen älskar uteslutande natten och riktar sitt flödande våld, sitt skändliga skaft, mot jorden, men finner sig inkapabel att nå varken blicken eller natten, även då nattens världslighet kontinuerligt vidgar huvudet mot den skändliga solära strålningen.

Solar annulus är hennes kropps intakta anus vid 18årsålder mot vilket inget, undantagsvis solen är tillräckligt bländande, även då anus är natten.

Jag skiter ned mig i solen imorgon, öppen - naken med skuld.

Sedan impotens, fortsatt förlust - triumf eller förtvivlan?

Är detta vad allt handlar om;

Negation? Inversion? Fascination? Terror? Njutning eller tortyr?

Ja, här finns en ekonomisk skyldighet.

Profit/förlust,

spendera/inkassera,

förlösning/utlösning.

Varför blir dessa fotografier och videoband min spegel?

Varför denna vackra förpackning; intakta vägg av kött och ord?

Brustna ådror, O-kompletta meningar synbara genom huden.

Så vad får dessa ord att bli sanna?

Så vad är egentligen en upplevelse?

Ett altare, det olycksbådande verk som rests i mitt badrum?

Ett gömt lönnfack bakom bokhyllan i mitt vardagsrum?

Konturerna av mitt ansikte, lår händer och skrev?

Vid brantens rand*jag vill förbrännas, upplösas på samma sätt som dessa fotografier framkallades.

Vid brantens rand*jag vill suddas ut, leva dessa ord; ta dem på mig, bokstavligen.

Vad jag gör blir slutgiltigt; en outtröttlig process; en privat implosion av överflödiga ord, av ständigt upprepade bilder.

Nära en rund grop, nyligen grävd i den frodiga vegetationen, kämpar en långarmad aphona med tre män, som binder henne med långa rep: hennes ansikte, lika idiotiskt som det är gement, släpper ut fruktansvärda skrik av fasa, skrik som besvaras av andra tjut från mindre apor i det höga grenverket. Sammanbunden som en kyckling - med benen bakvikta mot kroppen - binder de tre männen henne runt en påle som rests i gropens mitt. Fastbunden på detta vis, sväljer hennes monstruösa ylande mun jorden, medan den andra sidan, hennes enorma vrålande rosa analöppning stirrar upp mot himlavalvet likt en blomma: endast delen vars obscenitet överväldigar är synlig över gropens kant.

I den absurda himlens tomrum, spydde solen som ett sjukt fyllo över munnar fyllda med kosmiska skrik…Och så förenar sig hettan och omtöcknaden i en allians - lika överskridande som tortyr: som en avskuren näsa, som en utsliten tunga - firar ett bröllop (firade med rakbladets egg mot näpna, oförskämda små stjärtar), denna lilla kopulering mellan det stinkande hålet och solen…

Jorden, skakad i sina grundvallar, besvarade denna naturens tvivelaktiga kolik - utlöste, i skogarnas klibbiga halvskugga, genom oräkneliga köttblommor - med den högljudda glädjen av inälvor, med kräkningar från otroliga vulkaner. På samma vis som ett plötsligt skratt utlöser andra, eller en gäspning utlöser gäspningarna hos en folksamling, en burlesk exkremental kramp har släppts lös, under en svart himmel härjad av åska, en krampaktig eld. I detta underland, bröt en vind, tyngd med blodig rök, då och då ned enorma glödande träd, medan floder av pryglande rödglödgande lava strömmar fram överallt, som från himlen. Som offer för en vansinnig tortyr, flydde the stora aporna, deras kött halstras, deras munnar förvrids i infantila skrin.

Många av dem fälldes och klämdes skrikande fast på rygg eller mage, under brinnande trädstammar; de fattade snart eld och brann som fnöske. Emellanåt, hände det, att några enstaka som hamnat på en trädfri strand, räddades undan lågorna, skyddade från röken av en motvind: de var dock inte mycket mer än utmattade sår, oformliga silhuetter, halvförtärda av elden, som tog sig upp eller låg kvar och gnydde på marken, ragglandes i fruktansvärda plågor. En kaskad av röd lava - mardrömslikt bländande - en apokalyptisk lava som verkade blödas ut ur deras egna anus (precis som deras egna håriga kroppar ursprungligen hade visat, och enligt sadistiskt manér stuckit fram sina vidriga anus - som för att skända och förolämpa existensen) dessa olyckliga varelser blev i likhet med kvinnans fruktbara livmoder, någonting fruktansvärt…

Likt rovdjur sliter ni sönder min oskyddade muskelvävnad,

mal den mellan rakbladständer,

suger näring ur märg och blod,

för att slutligen svälja ner mig i ert uttänjda innanmäte.

Öppna ert universum av röda implosioner,

maligna undervattenstumörer,

låt dem svälla och föröka sig i den fertila myllan.

Jag er outvecklade livsfrukt,

Jag ert stympade krymplingsväsen,

Jag som delvis undkommit urmoderns käftar,

låt mig sakta upplösas i er gigantiska apparat,

låt mig smekas av tarmtrådar och enzymer

på väg mot slutstationen

på väg mot undergången

låt den yttre världsbilden avlägsnas

länken: den evigt uppstående,

reser sig ur sitt predestinerade stålbad

Svärdet, Lemmen, Armen,

jag för er tillbaka in i skapelsens svällande kötträdgårdar.

Ögat som på toppen av huvudet, öppnar sig mot den glödande solen för att skåda den i dess ödesdigra ensamhet, är inte sprunget ur förnuftet, det är en omedelbar existens, som öppnar och bländar sig självt likt en eldsvåda, likt en feber som äter varat, eller mer precist, huvudet. Det fungerar som ett brinnande hus; där huvudet, istället för att låsa in livet som pengar i ett kassaskåp, spenderar dem urskillningslöst, för att vid slutet av metamorfosen, ha tagit emot den elektriska kraftens punkter. Detta enorma brinnande huvud är bilden och det motsägelsefulla ljuset av utgiftens föreställning, omsorgsfullt utarbetat enligt den metodiska analysens basis bortom den fortfarande tomma förbrukningens föreställning.

Ursprungligen identifierades myten inte enbart med livet utan med dess avsaknad - med förfall och död. Det börjar med varat som bar det inom sig, det är inte alls en extern avkomma, utan formen som detta vara tar in i hans slippriga uppenbarelser, i och med denna extatiska gåva gör han sig själv till ett obscent naket offer - inte ett offer inför en obskyr och immateriell kraft, utan inför skrattet från vrålande horor.

Existensen påminner inte längre om en detaljerad karta som leder från en punkt till nästa, utan istället om en sjuklig glöd, en bestående orgasm.

All jordens plantor reser sig mot himlen, och slungar kontinuerligt ut myriader glänsade spottstrålar mot solen i form av blommor, och enbart en obscen Van Gogh, omgiven av galningar kan slunga sina ögons falliska lorska mot samma sol. De andra människovarelserna släppar runt som stora erigerade impotenta fallosar, med ögonen fastlåsta på den sövande omgivningen.

Det är nödvändigt att bryta upp sig själv i bitar och känna vansinnet slingra sig i kroppen; samtidigt måste man bli fetischist på gränsen till slav, en ögonfetischist, en fetisch för skinkor och fötter, allt i ett, för att i sig själv kunna återväcka vad som olyckligtvis aborterades i den ursprugliga människokroppens konstitution.

Anus kala höjd har blivit centrat, svärtat av buskage, på den trånga ravinen som klyver skinkorna.

Den spöklika manifesteringen av denna teckenförändring representeras av en främmande mänsklig nakenhet - nu obscen - som är substitut för den håriga djurkroppen, och speciellt av pubishåret som uppstår på exakt samma ställe som apan var hårlös; omgiven av en dödsgloria, en varelse som är för blek och för stor står upp, en varelse som, under en sjuk sol, inte är någonting annat än det himmelska ögat det saknar.

Som universums medelpunkt kommer mitt kött att förtäras av er hunger:

fäder, mödrar, söner, döttrar.

Jag är obegränsad.

Jag finns till för er alla.

Svarta och livlösa ser mina svarta dockögon ner på er från den helgade platsen ovanför altartavlan.

Mitt kall innebörden av mina gärningar och dagliga iscensättningar.

Ett kött av oändliga möjligheter och uttrycksformer.

Hur jag fann mig själv - Länken: Logos.

Hur ni hörde kallet, tog mig i er famn.

Bar mig till altaret och reste mitt podium.

Allt är nu väldokumenterad historia.

– London, April 4th, 2008.

Aryan KAGANOF : I just want to thank Max for organizing this event. Then I want to thank my collegues from the Universtity of Malmo : gunnel, Lotta and lajos for being here. And very special thanks to my friend from Paris Dionysos Andronis who is here tonight with an extraordinary man who is the father of the independent filmmaking not only in England, not only in Europe but also in the universe : Peter Whitehead.

Peter Whitehead : «Je détruis donc je suis ». It’s about renewal, it’s about anarchy.
Dionysos Andronis : The destruction will lead to reconstruction.
PW : Absolutely. At the time when I said that and wrote it, it was scandalous. People where not supposed to admit it. There were the auteur destructivists, there were the destructivists in England and then there were the American destructivists that I used in my film « The Fall ». But my choice of title was very much in relationship to the french «Je détruis donc je suis », comme « Je pense donc je suis ». Well the essence of « the Fall » is a chalenge to rationality and to objectivity, but it was also obviously linked to the essential theme of « The Fall » which is the collapse of protest. The legal protest, which you could say and argue, is rational because it is within the legal space. It’s condoned and accepted. The point that protest as it did started to become illegal and to push it beyond, to the point that it became anacrhy, to the point that it became finally terrorism. Because the people at « The Fall », who were in the Columbia University and on the streets, were within 4 months of becoming the Weathermen who were terrorists, not even anarchists.
DA : Mark Rudd ?
PW : Mark Rudd, Rap.H Brown, Tom Hayden. All these people were associated in one way or another to what happened after May 68. And all of that came ahead to Columbia. Columbia was at the point this whole developping thing because it wasn’t just the University that was occupied by the students. Some were students but it drew in all the other radicals who were on the point of making that break saying : « Listen, legal protest isn’t going to work. They condoned us, we’ve been conned. Protest has become fashionable, you can read all about it in the magazines and dress up and look good on the Aldermarston march. That isn’t politics, that’s public relations, that’s consumerism ».

A point was reached clear to me. That point at that time that there had to be violent confrontation because we were being violated. You talk about political correctness. Political correctness was an act of violation of the freedom of individuals, not just women, which is why if you’ve been acted upon violently, if you’ve been violated, you do not have the moral right according to the laws of the state to stand up to it and fight back. You’ll bloody well have and if they are working out a strategy……..
DA : Ahh…here is Aryan !
AK : My apologies for being so late. We had a real crisis. There was no machine to play the DVD.
PW : Ill met by moonlight, well met by sunlight or by any old light.
AK : It’s a great, great honor to meet you.
PW : And for me to meet you too. And seeing your films and knowing what you’re up to and reading your poerty. Come and sit down now.
AK : You know, « The Fall » is one of those documents of the 20th century that defines kind of everything that went crazy and mad for the last 30 years.
PW : Well I didn’ look at « The Fall » for 40 years and having been forced to do it now in all those festivals and retrospectives and hear the way people talk like you do now, I look at it again and say : « yes, I did capture something at that moment, it was made at the spur of the moment but I captured it ».
AK : Everything in that film is so !…. You look at how media will develop after you and I think you are operating outside of yourself.
PW : Everybody says it could have been shot last year which is true, I assume it. I look at it now. Where did it come from ? It was a fascinating moment, it was in a transe. The whole thing was made as a long hallucination. Now I like «The Fall » and I try to make a sequel at the moment. The film I’m making now – I have not made a film for forty years – is in a way a sequel to it, it’s not a sequel, it’s developed from it. I just hope to get recognition with it.

PW : « The Fall » starts with the TV screen, the white dots, and it ends with it. It’s as somebody has been sucked. I’ve taken that idea and I’m making it the whole way. This is why I like what Dionysos brought with him. It reminds me of Yves Klein’s blue and I’m actually using it in « The Fall ». In the « Fall » you’ve got the little portable Sony recorder with me sucked in the image at the beginning and ending. It is really about being transformed. It is pure Debord.
AK : Before Debord. (Note : AK means before the film « The society of the spectacle » which is a 1973 production, 4 years after « The Fall »)
PW : Before Debord. It’s all about spectacle according to one persona, loosing touch with authentic experience. I’m trying to take one step further and deal with the idea of death, psychic death and that deep profound self-murder. If you are exposing yourself on that.

PW : Ah, look !
AK : It seems they are talking a lot ! They talk the English.
PW : About you !
AK : No , they talk about the future.
PW : You are the future ! ….. I’m going to start walking up. It’s going to take me twice as long. Might as well start now.

PW : I didn’t get the recognition I wanted at the time. So I thought it doesn’t matter, there are some things I much prefer and I decided to give it up. And I gave it up. But now it’s giving me the desire to start again. I’ve been very introverted for 30 years or so. Living in the desert is very introverted but using mountains as part of my scenery is good but I’m alone. I’m on my own. So it’s a little bit of a threat to feel that I have to communicate. If you write novels and you do like I’ve done for 30 years, its about that kind of solitude. I think it was Kawabata who said : « I write novels because I’m learning how to write novels », or something like this. I have my reasons, it’s not a big problem. The advantages I suppose outweight this. I don’t know whether I said that to the others. The chalenge of making a new film is to say : « Right, I wanted to relate to my novels. So I’m making now a film from my last novel ». Now the language that I had on my films in the sixties, you talked about it in « The Fall » which I abandoned and went off, I had developed in my writing, not in my filming. So now having got to the point where I’ve been writing french novels for fifteen years and getting no recognition, at last people are looking at my old films and say : « they are french films ». So I can say «Right it’s the french thinking, it’s Debord and Derrida ». It’s not writing in the english way. They are neither canadian novels.
So it gives me certainly a certain confidence. What I try to do now in my new film is quite openly and obviously to use some of the techniques and things I discovered and developed from the writing into the film.

PW : That’s the new film.
AK : It’s a good idea to go through the different chapters or sections.
PW : That’s what is going to happen. This was originally a novel or three novels on the website. The first one is called « Terrorism considered as one of the Fine Arts » which comes from the play by Thomas De Quincey « Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts ». The second novel is called «Nature’s child » which is about eco-terrorism and assassination. It relates the eco-terrorism and assassination and various things. The third novel is called «Girl on the Play ». It’s a pastiche and plagiarism of Kawabata’s novel «Snow Country ». Do you know it ? You must know it ! He made an amazing film in Japan. This film is a version if you like of the original novel which was put on the internet as a kind of interactive novel. All the things of the novel were developed in the satellite website. You could click on one of them and go on each one of them. So, in fact this one is related to the japanese Noh play. If you want to know more about the Noh play, you can click on the Noh play and say « it’s an assassination ». So, you go in the assassination thing and it opens actually « The Old Man in the mountains and the Hashishin ». You can develop the myth, you can read about the mythology of the Hashishin. There’s also another website called « The Absent Father ». I relate it to the myth of the assassination. So if you want to explore some of the themes that are in the three novels, you can do so. That’s all words. This is now going to be a film.

The novels are about largely one single feminin character called Maria Lenoir. She is the girl to commit an act of assassination. It’s like an eco-terrorism and she is part of the revolutionary cell called The Rainbow Warriors. The person she is going to assassinate actually turns out to be someone now considered in the french nuclear industry, working for the « Echelon Network ». He turns out to be the guy who set up the operation that sunk the Rainbow Warrior boat in the New Zeland harbor thirty years before. I’m taking the idea of that original state terrorism and now dealing with a young intelligent sophisticated young girl who is prepared to become an assassin. Because she has the perfect victim. Because by killing the Satin Woman she brings all the things together. So, the original novel was set in Cumbria and was about a nuclear plot. It’s actually about selling fake plutonium to Japan which is why the three novels are about. It starts in Cumbria and goes to Nature’s child. One is about the murder. The assassination involves the guy Michael Schlieman. It’s much closer to «Daddy». It’s actually a novel that explores that sort of sado-masochism, sexual sado-masochism, which can put in this particular character. That’s the novel’s characterization in a certain context. This is how a particular woman has been pushed so far. She is snapped. She is prepared to sacrifice herself. The word « sacrifice » comes from the latin « sacrefacere » which is to be related to what the muslims are doing with their suicide bombings. I’m not related with that specifically but it’s there.

____________________________________________________________

Each and everyone of us as an individual as a body, especially women, much better or different or more extraordinary sacred attitude to the material world and my feeling is that all this is about this transformation. The idea if you like is about this total transformation into virtuality, into severance. « Sévérance. Différence comme sévérance » or whatever. Actually it’s about how we are destroying the environnement. This is our environnement, this is the food we eat, this is the air we breath. So in fact it’s about this gap opening up now, at such extraordinary speed, between the human being who no longer feels himself or sees himself an authentic part of nature.

___________________________________________________________

PW : What’s your next film ?
AK : I think we have to make a documentary about your film ! It’s so extraordinary ! The dots are joined for us because I picked this book this morning at the Tate Modern. It’s an essay called «The sick man » and it is about pollution. «Pollution is in fashion today, exactly in the same way as revolution. It dominates the whole life of society and it is represented in illusory form in the spectacle ».
PW : The two key words are here : « spectacle » and «fashion ». When things become totally fashion, you’ve lost everything. This is why in «The Fall » you have Alberta dressed in the fashioners and you have Gloria Steiman saying : « Protest has become fashionable ». Once again, it’s easy to protest. You’ve been conned. You’ve been brought out. That is not the spectacle of the violent revolution but the spectacle of the State and of the whole thing called consumerism.
AK : It was in 2000 when I discovered the mobile phone and made this film in 2005 (note – he means « SMS Sugar Man »). Since then it has become fashionable, an example is this conference. And I realized that the moment when the mobile phone was actually subversive, it was then actually a vehicule. The film hasn’t been released yet. I don’t have a cellphone. I came to this conference with the film but I refuse to be part of the banalification of what was a subversive moment.
PW : Just there the difference is between the banal and the anarchic being subversive and being submissive and being enslaved in it. I’m just going to it now. People forget that for this cheap cellphone is why the Americans are bombing Iraq. Because they need the economy and the energy to sustain the technological advance. To «feel » it litteraly. Yes, to feel it ! I said that to my novels.

PW : You see, Schlieman who writes novels and writes for MI6 is sent to Vienna to infiltrate the Rainbow Warriors and find out who Maria Lenoir is. His front is that he is making about subversive culture in Vienna. So, they are filming him. There are two films. This film ends with the death of Michael Schlieman and him being interrogated. It is an imaginary interrogation, 90 minutes of film, with your soul being weighted by agony. It’s the moment of truth. And everything is in his «memoirs », his memories. He is remembering the real time. Is it filmed or no ? So the film is an interrogation. It starts from the very beginning with him being interrogated, being chalenged, by those two people, the male and the female, that he will never see. Because the guy, when Daumal is finally murdered with his gun (it’s Michael’s gun and his bullets that commit the murder), it is possible that he fell in love with Maria Lenoir. He conducted her assassination. When they got the computer in front of him, in front of them, when you click on this now its not going to eclipse. That’s the key. When they, depending on the question, when they are asking a question, but what does he answer ? Then they might think. They go on and they may look at it to say anything because he is drugged on morphine. Because his time is opium or whatever (Thomas de Quincey, etc). We are quite sure about it. Deliberately. Telling lies obviously to cover up his Maria’s murder. As I was saying in a way, once you’re into this website, which it’s really going to exist, those satellite websites in clip of his film, which - I suppose it - Michael Schlieman wants to put together. These two people who are asking him questions are finally editing the film. And they might go back, but we pulled the rug. Finally and absolutely and utterly. From one objective truth. It is actually about pure Debord or Baudrillard. Everything has become this diaspora or fragmentation and fractal kind of disintegration. So I’m now in Baudrillard rather than Debord because Baudrillard’s the one who said «Nothing dies anymore ». Michael Schlieman cannot die or he doesn’t want to die because he wants to tell the truth about what he did for MI6.
AK : He wants to tell the truth, what truth ?
PW : Well, he has to tell it in his memoirs on the internet. This is the Michael Schlieman memoirs. This is the truth about what really happened with him working as an agent. His truth, his version of the truth, his memoirs. And he has to be careful because MI6 can erase them. So the memoirs have to be fluid, protean, they have to be forever moving around from one place to another. From one different website to another. «Fiction becomes infinity ». We don’t know, nobody ever knows what will happen next, the story that Michael Schlieman tells in his memoirs which are on the website. And in this film is the truth about the real event. « Fiction becomes infinity » is a great chapter. It was in fact the subtitle originally of the Nohzone.com website.

PW : And the «in-terror-gation » goes on. He has to be «in-terror-gated ».

AK : I have one more quote here for you (he writes with his pen on a piece of paper ) :

« Just say NO to the war on terror »

Transcribed by Dionysos ANDRONIS
Transcription par Dionysos ANDRONIS

By Tom Chivers

Many people are uncomfortable with the march of the surveillance state – but a Manchester band has used it to their advantage.

Unable to afford a proper camera crew and equipment, The Get Out Clause, an unsigned band from the city, decided to make use of the cameras seen all over British streets.

With an estimated 13 million CCTV cameras in Britain, suitable locations were not hard to come by.

They set up their equipment, drum kit and all, in eighty locations around Manchester – including on a bus – and proceeded to play to the cameras.

Afterwards they wrote to the companies or organisations involved and asked for the footage under the Freedom of Information Act.

“We wanted to produce something that looked good and that wasn’t too expensive to do,” guitarist Tony Churnside told Sky News.

“We hit upon the idea of going into Manchester and setting up in front of cameras we knew would be filming and then requesting that footage under the Freedom Of Information act.”

Only a quarter of the organisations contacted fulfilled their obligation to hand over the footage – perhaps predictably, bigger firms were reluctant, while smaller companies were more helpful – but that still provided enough for a video with 20 locations.

“We had a number of different excuses as to why we weren’t given the footage, like they didn’t have the footage. They delete after a certain amount of time, so if they procrastinate for long enough, they can claim it’s been deleted,” Mr Churnside said.