[spectre] From Rome: Death in the Age of Media

[Jeremy Welsh]

Lorenzo Taiuti wrote:

> Death in the Age of Media we could define the italian response to
> what's happening.The early italian tv news did sound strangely
> "artificial", not beeing quite able to react to the human fact of the
> thousands deaths in the terrorist's actions.Today again the political
> symbol of the Twin Towers still sounds in Tv and newspapers
> descriptions more "real" then human deaths.Tv people and newspapermen
> do not seem to be able to show or simulate real strong  feelings about
> human beeings.The death of the symbol it's much more resounding.
> Obsessive replayng of the plane crash on the twin towers go with
> comments that sound like talk shows.You get the impression from Media
> (never like this before) that we are dealing about a videogame or a
> simulated reality where only the main things (Economic and politic
> power) can  be relevant and moving.Not death.But fear creeps in: a
> long list of possible terrorist targets appears in news: american
> bases all over Italy, international airports, embassies, religious
> places like San Pietro or the Synagogue ecc...CiaoLorenzo Taiuti
> Lorenzo,
> I sat with a group of colleagues yesterday evening and all seemd to
> share a very similar feeling and the same observations
>
> 1    this can not  be real - it is a media construction, and we will
> discover it's a bluff
> 2    Hollywood special effects have tunred into reality and we have
> lost all of our human feelings in the process
> 3    the constant repetition of the video clips of the crashing planes
> pushed the real event into the aesthetic realm of pop video
> 4    None of the commentators seemed to show much concern for the
> human victims, only for the economic and political infrastructure
> 5    As you say, the death of the symbol. It became a sign crime
> instead of a crime against humanity
> 6    Our children read the situtation aa the first phase of a global
> war
> 7    The inevitable result will be the intensification of a society of
> surveillance, at every level
> 8    The racism and jingoism that immediately erupted is as
> devastating in a gloabl perspective as the physical destruction at a
> local level
>
>
> Today I am sitting with a group of  fellow participants in a
> collective media art workshop entitled "The Living Room", a project
> based on wishes to explore interactive or networked digital media
> technologies in an open way, to foster communication and dialogue. But
> our living rooms have once again turned into observation stations for
> the voyeuristic surveillance of death and destruction. How can we stop
> this process ?
>
> Jeremy Welsh