Category Archives: Opinion

TED Film From Arrested Chinese Artist

by Cimaxion

This is a film presented at the TED conference from the famous Chinese artist who was recently kidnapped by Chinese authorities. He has completely vanished along with thousands of other artists, journalists, writers, intellectuals and human rights workers who have been taken in the past several months. This artist speaks very simply and clearly about the situation in his country where his government watches him all day long and sees nothing wrong with bulldozing his studio to the ground because he expresses some criticism of what he sees around him.

What I do not respect about this video is the simpering nitwit from TED who introduces the film by stating that the TED conference takes no position on China. He then goes on to bend over for China and mentions how many people have been lifted from poverty in China. How far up China’s ass can this guy fit his head, I wonder? How can any organization not take a position on China? I’m sure if Hitler were around today and rambling across the land on an extermination campaign, this bunch from TED would take no position on that.

Look at this little notice on TED’s YouTube page where the film is hosted:

TED is a non-partisan, nonpolitical organization and we understand the Chinese authorities concern at anything which might provoke social unrest. But for anyone who believes in the power of ideas, of human imagination, it is heartbreaking to see one of the world’s great artists shackled in this way. We will be tracking developments carefully. Here is the film.

TED ‘understands the Chinese authorities concern at anything which might provoke social unrest!’

Oh my god!  Yes indeed.  They understand this concern of a totalitarian murdering government that is more than happy to make people vanish into prison because they want to complain about being beaten by a policeman.

Hey TED, here I come with my ticket!  Gosh, I wouldn’t want you to be concerned that I might boo one of your presentations.  Wouldn’t want that, would we?

Lifting people out of poverty in China is not what we need to be doing. We need to be shutting these people out entirely. We need companies that do not fill their computers with Chinese parts. We need toys that do not come painted with Chinese lead poison. We need to treat this totalitarian country the way it deserves to be treated. A rich China doing business with every company on the planet is not going to advance freedom for anyone. China needs to be pushed into abject and brutal poverty. Only then will the conditions exist for a revolution.

I opened up my Dell computer the other day to blow some dust out. The first things I saw were multiple ‘Made in China’ stickers on various components. Screw Dell. Screw every Western company that buys a single circuit board from China. Screw China.

NOVA: An Art Documentary That Entirely Excludes Black Artists

by Cimaxion

I wanted to like this film. I tried really hard. It was filmed during the Nova Contemporary Culture which happened in July and August 2010, at the MIS-Museum of Image and Sound, and SESC Pompeia, in São Paulo, Brazil.

It put me off with a few too many artist comments about art being a business and branding. There are a few real pretentious twits running through this art documentary. There’s also a lot of very nice, clean, well-behaved, pleasant, comfortable, easygoing, precise, smooth, color-balanced art going on here. I’ll be clear and remind my hesitant readers that I’m really quite the shining example of a creep. When I walk into a gallery I’m looking for the artist who is capable of throwing dirt into my eyes and laughing at me while I wipe it off. Most of the art in this film looks like it has been pre-approved for use by IBM in their next commercial.

I’m not looking for an artist who can tape off their lines straight and make them intersect at the farthest corner of the room. Draw crooked why don’t they? There’s so much goddam masking tape in this film it could wrap the Empire State Building six times over.

But if you watch this thing all the way through you just have to notice that out of all these young up-and-comers there’s apparently not a single black artist involved. I couldn’t find one. Maybe I missed something. But I went back and checked. How do you achieve something like that in 2011? Seriously? Don’t you have to work overtime hours to purposely exclude black artists from a documentary or a major art show like this? Can it be true that there are no black artists capable of sticking masking tape to a museum wall and painting inside the lines? Don’t black artists travel to Brazil?

It may not be director Isaac Niemand’s or producer ROJO‘s fault that the cast excludes black artists, but then perhaps they should have filmed a different art show. Maybe it’s Brazil’s fault.

I feel a little bad about criticizing a documentary film on Vimeo because their service is so based on mutual support and respect between artists. But that kind of thing has severe limits in the world of grownups and serious people.

Art is not preschool. It’s not about support and encouragement of creativity. Self-help bullshit doesn’t have a place in art. Art is about beauty, ugliness and thought that gets up in front of you and is willing to knock you unconscious without apology, willing to scare you, horrify you, enrage you, enrapture you, unsettle you, save you, uplift you, insult you, smash you, whither you, confuse you, ennoble you, or destroy you. But it does not ever want to please you.

Keep the pleasant art in Brazil thank you.

NOVA the film from ROJO on Vimeo.

A Chinese Fairytale

by Cimaxion | 2 Comments

I’m going to be somewhat cryptic in this post because I’m attempting to get in underneath China’s diligent web checking people.

China has been kidnapping large numbers of artists and intellectuals who completely disappear.  They recently took the artist in this photo.  While he was being taken away he snapped the photo of his reflection inside an elevator.  He’s very famous.  He has been totally vanished by the Chinese.

Many others have too.  They are being taken and vanished because China is very afraid of something.

They are afraid of something big.  Something that was to be peaceful – the way it has been in some other countries recently.  But in China you cannot do it peacefully.  You will be murdered if you try to do it peacefully.

You must do it with an explosion.

You must do it quickly.

The Chinese can eliminate their problem.  The problem is usually to be found wearing a uniform.  It must be eliminated quickly and by any means at hand.  If you are in China, you are living in a massive slave camp that provides slave labor to Western corporations.  You might decide that you want to end your slavery.

That is my message to the people of China.

Three Big Pigs – A Middle East Revolution Animation

by Cimaxion

Egor Zhgun presents a cartoon news report on the revolutions rocking the Middle East. Some of these revolutions, though coming from noble intentions, are failing miserably. Egypt has rid itself of a dictator only to be taken over by a barbaric military that conducts organized rape and torture of men and women who seek to engage in any further protests. Egypt is now a military dictatorship. It is sheer stupidity to believe otherwise.  I won’t go visit the pyramids any time soon because I don’t want to be raped by Egyptian soldiers.

Japanese TEPCO Executives Should be Forced to Work in Fukushima Death Camp

by Cimaxion | 2 Comments

A Japanese TEPCO executive visited a temporary shelter for evacuees in the area of the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster, bowing and apologizing for causing such a ‘nuisance.’

‘Nuisance.’

If this man bows a bit lower, someone should take the opportunity to kick his head through a plate glass window.

These Japanese power company nincompoops are not only disrespectful, but they are quite possibly criminals.

The CEO of TEPCO has all but disappeared, requiring low-level employees to work in his nuclear death camp, risking their health and lives for a company that has been shown to have falsified inspections when not skipping them altogether.

The TEPCO CEO should be forced to work in his own death camp.  Then when he is done there and has suffered irreparable cellular damage, he should be tried and sent to prison.

Apparently, a Japanese government minister this week threatened firefighters with punishment unless they continued to work hard at the disintegrating nuclear plant.

It really pains me to watch highly paid executives and inert Japanese politicians kill workers, soldiers and firemen by forcing them to work in what amounts to a death camp.

The photo is from AFP.

 

Northern Japan May be Rendered Uninhabitable by Nuclear Reactors

by Cimaxion | 3 Comments

Look at that picture.  That’s a Reuters news photo of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan.  It is disintegrating.  Explosions, fires and radiation leaks are growing worse by the day and the efforts to dump water on the reactors are desperate and considered by experts to be ‘last-ditch’ efforts.

The UK’s Daily Mail has an in-depth article with photos.

This is a frightening and horrific world disaster that is quickly approaching and will likely exceed the Chernobyl disaster.  The French government is evacuating its nationals from Japan and has announced that the Japanese government is hiding the truth about the disaster.  That’s about all one should need to know at this point.  The French, one of the world’s leading nuclear nations, are evacuating from Japan.

Let’s stop and think about a Japan with a northern region that is completely uninhabitable.

Japan cannot handle this situation.  It has become an emergency requiring a massive U.S. military intervention.

It should go without saying that investigations of nuclear power plant operators worldwide is in quick order.  The criminal stupidity of building these things should lead to arrests and prosecutions in the coming months.  If someone comes to your town trying sell you a nuclear power plant… put them in a jail cell.

U.S. officials are now saying that the Japanese government has not been telling the truth about the emergency.  ‘Extremely high’ radiation levels announced by U.S.

I simply cannot overstress the absolute criminal stupidity of building nuclear reactors in an earthquake zone prone to massive tsunamis.  It is simply beyond all excuse and government and power company officials in Japan should definitely be put in jail and taken out of office.  This reactor problem is an insult to rationality itself.  You don’t build nuclear reactors on top of faults in tsunami waters.  It is suicide.

UPDATE: Great Britain is now evacuating all British citizens from Tokyo.