"Strange Culture," Film About Steve Kurtz, Artist/Professor Charged By FBI, Premieres At Sundance

[Hissyspit]

Mods, this is via email, for activist publicity, so I am reproducing the entire text and all links. Thanks. (Please recommend this, folks. The case has somewhat fallen off the radar here.)

Background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Kurtz

Dear Supporters,

Some good news: Lynn Hershman's film about Steve and
Bob's case, "Strange Culture," got into Sundance, where
it was granted 3 screenings, including a 9PM. Here is
an early review. - best, Lucia

---
Review of Lynn Hershman's "Strange Culture", first cut -
work in progress, by Gabriella Giannachi

http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/Collaboratory/947

"Strange Culture" is written, directed and edited by
Lynn Hershman Leeson, shot by Hiro Narita, with Tilda
Swinton, Peter Coyote, Thomas Jay Ryan, Josh
Kornbluth, and Steve Kurtz with an original score by
the Residents, 85 minutes. The film also features Greg
Bordowitz, Steve Dietz, Robin Held, Claire Pentecost,
and Nato Thomson. The producers are Lynn Hershman
Leeson, Lise Swenson and Steven Beer.
---

Strange Culture is a film about Steve Kurtz. Because
it is a film about one of the most prolific,
innovative, as well as aesthetically adventurous and
politically active artists bridging between the old
and the new millennium, it is also a film about the
contemporary, its politics, art, and life. This is a
film we should all watch.

To talk about Steve Kurtz, is also to talk about
Critical Art Ensemble, a leading US theatre company
whose texts have been translated in at least eight
languages and whose work is shown internationally, in
galleries, museums, cinemas and on the web. Through
their publications, web-activity, and performance,
Critical Art Ensemble, founded in 1987, have been
working to denounce the dangerous connections between
corporate homogenisation, globalisation and the
biotechnological industries. The company have been
working at the point of intersection between art,
technology, critical theory and political activism.'

The film starts by showing Steve and Hope at work on
their exhibition. It intercuts with the actor
performing Steve, Thomas Jay Ryan, in character
telling us 'My name is Steve Kurtz. I'm an artist.
Since 1987 I've worked in a collective of five
artists. We call ourselves the Critical Art Ensamble.'
We then see CAE at work and hear Steve Kurtz's voice
continue: 'What Critical Art Ensamble does is identify
things that we think are counter to the advancement of
social justice and then we are trying to do something
about it and we are trying to do that at a cultural
level.'

Strange Culture is a film about America - today's
America. In fact, it is a film about what has become
of America after 9/11. It is a film that shows the
profound impact of fear on society. It shows us a
world that no longer protects its own citizens, a
world that confuses art and research with terrorism.

Strange Culture is a personal, moving film. It is a
film that tells the story of a man, Steve Kurtz, who
on May 11th 2004, awoke to find that Hope, his wife of
over twenty years, had unexpectedly died. Subsequent
investigations found the cause of death to be a fatal
heart attack. However, the paramedics at the scene had
become alarmed at the scientific materials in Kurtz’s
house and called the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task
Force. The property was then cordoned off, Hope
Kurtz’s body, their computer, books and papers seized
and Steve Kurtz arrested.

As this remarkable film progresses, we see Steve and
Hope Kurtz at work, making art, Steve teaching, Hope
arriving home with a suit bought especially for Steve.
Everyday life. Then see Steve Kurtz waking that tragic
morning. Interestingly, I find, in watching the film,
that I experience the same utter horror and disbelief
that I felt when, shortly after these events, I heard
the news of Steve Kurtz's situation. Hershman's
carefully crafed film subsequently follows the
nightmarish sequence of events, always intercutting
between Kurtz's own testimony, as well as those of his
friends and colleagues, who were caught up in this
extraordinary miscarriage of justice, with the film,
as well as the actual filming of the film, thus
reproducing, through this continuous act of doubling,
the multiple ambivalences and presences formed in this
story.

Thomas Jay Ryan and Tilda Swinton. Courtesy of Lynn
Hershman

The film shows how it emerged that under the PATRIOT
ACT it has become illegal in the United States to use
biological research material and that ‘Whoever
knowingly possesses any biological agent, toxin, or
delivery system of a type or in a quantity that, under
the circumstances, is not reasonably justified by a
prophylactic, protective, bona fide research, or other
peaceful purpose, shall be fined under this title,
imprisoned not more than ten years or both’. Kurtz, in
collaboration with Beatriz da Costa, was in fact
utilising some harmless bacteria for the
performance/exhibition ‘The Interventionists’ due to
be held at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary
Art where the company aimed at determining whether
certain foods contained genetically modified organisms
and thus raise awareness about genetically modified
food.

Shortly after Kurtz’s arrest, subpoenas were issued to
a number of people working with him: Adele Henderson,
Chair of the Art Department at University of Buffalo;
Andrew Johnson, Professor of Art at University of
Buffalo and member of Critical Art Ensemble; Paul
Venouse, Professor of Art at University of Buffalo;
Beatriz da Costa, Professor of Art at University of
California at Irvine and member of Critical Art
Ensemble; Steven Barnes, Florida State University and
Critical Art Ensemble member; and Dorian Burr and
Beverly Shlee, also members of the collective.

Image courtesy of Lynn Hershman

A Grand Jury was subsequently convened at the behest
of the FBI with the apparent intent to collect
evidence to indict Kurtz on charges of possessing
biological materials though Kurtz and his colleague Dr
Robert Ferrell, Professor of Genetics at the
University of Pittsburgh, who allegedly had helped him
to procure the bacteria, were finally arraigned on
charges of mail and wire fraud which carry a maximum
sentence of 20 years in prison. Under the arraignment
conditions, Kurtz was subject to travel restrictions,
random and scheduled visits by a probation officer and
periodic drugs tests. The trail will be in 2007.

Steve Kurtz talking about the fact that Tilda Swinton
is playing Hope. 'I can't think of any better gesture
of remembrance'

Tilda Swinton. Courtesy of Lynn Hershman

Tilda Swinton reflecting about Steve's situation.
Tilda Swinton: 'The second she died even the gesture
of making art changed.'
It is interesting to note that following Steve Kurtz's
arrest, various letters and petitions were circulated
and signed by scholars in fields as diverse as Art,
Computing, Theatre and Performance Studies, Chemistry,
English, Music, New Media, Photography, Visual
Culture, Politics, Biological Sciences, Electronic Art
and Architecture. Many individuals also signed –
teachers, film-makers, artists, industrialists,
architects, museum curators, software engineers,
general practitioners, students, art critics, poets,
biologists, publishers, microbiologists, teachers,
community health specialists, museum and festival
curators, epidemiologists, environmentalists, lawyers
and attorneys. The signatures came from the United
States but also countries as diverse as Macedonia, the
Netherlands, Scotland, Switzerland, Russia, Serbia and
Montenegro, New Zealand, Sweden, Slovenia, Israel,
Malta, Finland, the UK, Argentina, Slovakia, Taiwan,
Australia, Denmark, Iceland, South Africa, Singapore,
Wales, Italy, Germany, Austria, France, Canada,
Ireland, South Korea, the Slovak Republic, India,
Belgium, Norway, Spain, Venezuela, Hungary, Brazil,
Portugal, Greece, Turkey and Japan.

One of the petitions, signed by some thirty-six US
West Coast academics, including Lynn Hershman – the
top researchers in the field of new media at the
Universities of Santa Barbara, Berkeley, Irvine and
San Diego – sums up the general concern:

we see here a pattern of behaviour that leads to the
curtailing of academic freedom, freedom of artistic
expression, freedom of interdisciplinary
investigation, freedom of information, exchange,
freedom of knowledge, accumulation and reflection, and
freedom of bona fide and peaceful research. All of
which are fundamental rights and cornerstones of a
modern academic environment
(http://www.caedefensefund.org/).

---
For more information on CAE see their website at
www.critical-art.net/ or on wikipedia and for
Steve Kurtz . The CAE defence site is at

My article on Steve Kurtz and CAE is at Download
ctr_article2.pdf

[Hissyspit]

1. .

[alfredo]

2. Thanks for bring this movie to may attention.

[Hissyspit]

4. I know that when it comes out on DVD, I'm going to be using it in my college art appreciation class.

[alfredo]

6. Laurie Anderson has had problems at airports because of all the

electronic equipment she uses in her act. She relates a story about when she was made to prove they were for her act. She was using drumpads and voice synthesizers in her act at that time. She strapped them on and gave them a taste of her act. She said she used her "voice of authority" on them. She had an octave box that dropped her voice down to a deep bass.

[ConsAreLiars]

3. Jesus! Makes Kafka's "The Trial" look like a Disney cartoon.

i can't believe I hadn't heard a whisper of this bit of fascism until your post. Send the info to Amy at Democracy Now! and try to get more eyes on this story.

[thingfisher]

9. Welcome to the Homeland Security State.

We must protect ourselves from terrorists posing as artists! They hate our freedom! Only the government and corporations can be trusted. Danger Will Robinson!!

[Hissyspit]

5. .

[Hissyspit]

7. .

[Richard Steele]

8. Kicked and recommended.