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Jonas Hielscher for Warum 2.0

WARUM 2.0 ON SECOND LIFE / SLURL

DANIEL DEMOUSTIER : This is Basra, in the Southern city of Iraq. Basra was captured, in the last Gulf War, by the British army. That always has been the plan, the Americans would take Baghdad and actually the rest of Iraq, the British would occupy South Basra. Basra is actually, ohm, it has a strong history and it’s a place with many Shi’a-people live there, Shi’a-Muslims. So they also had a history with Saddam Hussein, because they were oppressed, during the Saddam-regime, the Shi’a-people got a lot of troubles from Saddam Hussein. Remember the mass graves we found later on, most of the victims were Shi’a-victims. There’s a story behind it because in the first Gulf War the Shi’as tried to oppress Saddam Hussein and at the last moment they didn’t get the promised support from the Western troops. So, when the Americans pulled out, when Kuwait was captured in the first Gulf War, these people were the victims, because then Saddam Hussein took revenge for their uprising. But now this after the… I call it the invasion of the British troops in the second Gulf War now, in 2003. And I’m here with a, in a sort of patrol… These are pictures shot from an APC or a British military vehicle, driving through the streets of Basra and at this time, everyone was still more or less quiet, I mean, the people were, there was a sort of positive feeling actually towards the British troops, I have to say. I mean, people were thinking things were now getting better and unfortunately we have to say now that it wasn’t totally the truth. But you see therefore, you see little kids waving at you, you see people being, or at least trying to be, friendly to you and, but it’s a strange feeling because, you know, you are with the army and I don’t really particularly like it but sometimes you don’t have a choice. Nowadays there’s not much more alternative to go with them because if you walk in the streets with your big camera, you might be captured and kidnapped within 10 minutes, so. This is sometimes the only way to do it. It’s also a nice way to do a nice pan shear from a higher position in the car and you can capture daily life when you pass by. People don’t, sometimes don’t know that their getting filmed because you come on a quite, you know, you travel with some speed and you capture daily life moments while driving by, so it’s a long tracking shots of daily life in Basra, after the British invasion.

DANIEL DEMOUSTIER : These people don’t have anything, I mean, Basra is a very, very poor area. Although that’s where most of the oil comes from. But it always has been. I mean, they have the most oil, they have big electricity factories, they have water but all that was going to Baghdad and all taken away from them. And this was true during the Saddam regime and is still the case now because Baghdad is more important and everything goes away from them. And they live in terrible, poor conditions. I haven’t been there this year, but, you know, they try to improve the situation slightly. For instance, of course there’s no electricity, no water and the irony is, you can see the oilfields all around you, you can see the rich, the gold coming out of the earth. And they have nothing of that; it’s very frustrating to be there I think. And therefore Muqtada al-Sadr has a strong support in this place. At night the rebels would take the ambulances and they would use the megaphones in the ambulances and they say, you know, don’t go and work for the enemy, you know, don’t go and work for the Americans or the British, you know, because we know who’s going to work, we get you, you know. I mean, there’s always been a position and, I believe, not long after I’ve done this shot, the first bomb attack happened in Basra, which was a total shock to everyone. It started in Baghdad but everyone thought maybe in Basra because they’re all Shi’a, they will, they will stay quiet but they didn’t and so some of the attacks started to happening in Basra only a couple of days after I took these pictures.

Paul Virilio says: whereas before the visible, there is the domain of the possible, after the visible, what is left then, is the unpredictable, the unexpected, plus the revelation of the accident in knowing, in understanding.

‘What is here to see? Is there anything visible?’ That could well be the ‘warum’ question some visitors might put forward. In the end, with Warum 2.0, what I would like them to see, is a way out of doom. As a maker (of documentaries), what was not possible anymore for me to do the last 10 years, could well be possible again now. Not exactly making documentaries that is, but having the tools and the posse force ready to start up processes of ‘seeing’ and ‘making visible’ out of the logic of the ‘war of images’, far from impact that is, outside the global revolving panorama in closed circuit of the audiovisual scene. WARUM 2.0 may be a practical version of that ‘delirious networked worktable’ so needed for making my (your, our) views visible.

(Paul Virilio in ‘Art as far as the eye can see’ (published by Berg, 2007). Sound on the clouds by Edwin Uytenbroek for Warum 2.0. The ‘delirious networked worktable’ concept, in This Is As If It , by Stefaan Decostere for CARGO, 2007).

“Which parts of society are exploiting this symbolic capital? Which kinds of collective memory and imaginary are at stake? Who are to benefit most (from these pictures)? Who is giving them marks of distiction? Capital value that is for the competitive market? Whose collective memory, whose aesthetics, and who benefits?”

As “capitalism is not a mode of production, but a production of modes and worlds” (engineered by corporations and sold to the people), the “planetary economic war is an aesthetic war between different worlds”.

Matteo Pasquinelli, in ICW – Immaterial Civil War (My creativity reader, edited by Geert Lovink and Ned Rossiter, published by the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam 2007)

http://www.networkcultures.org/mycreativity

Christian Decker, inventor of the DYLOS panorama software.

Setting up the 360° panorama for Warum 2.0

Life stream point by Jonas Hielscher for teleporting the hands of the Second Life visitors.

Edwin Uytenbroek working the sound.

WARUM 2.0 is an installation of installations, in each of which a host invites visitors to handle the tools and software, and to discover for themselves specific ways of relating and positioning to a selection of documenary images of war and victims, originally shot by cameraman Daniel Demoustier in Darfur, Afghanistan, Haïti, Gaza and Iraq.

VIDEO – viewing excerpts of an interview by Stefaan Decostere with Paul Virilio.
SECOND LIFE – live teleportation into SL Warum, where an avatar, steared by a robothand, walks little rounds and flies in and out of the environment.
SURVEILLANCE – joystick viewing and snapping shots of the arena.
PANORAMA – a 360° display of documentary footage set in slow motion via visitor detection inside the circle; around it 10 more projections complete the imaging.
WEB – access to online tools, such as a shoutbox and an upload module, with direct influence on the physical display.
HUMAN TETRIS – animating army shots by means of sensors, activated by taking in positions in a projection wall with cut out human figure moulds.
SOUND SYSTEM – engaging the walking visitor into deeper and intimate discovery.

Also on offer, beside this weblog: dvd’s with interviews with Daniel Demoustier and Paul Virilio; the original tape ‘Warum Wir Männer die Technik so Lieben’ (see PAGES).

Cameraman Daniel Demoustier gives comments on his shooting in Cité Soleil in Haiti. Here under a view on the arena Warum 2.0 showing how the pictures will be presented. A human tetris wall with sensors, in which hosts and visitors can massage the shots.

View on WARUM 2.0 on Second Life, by Jonas Hielscher. During the expo from 12 till 17 February live streaming from the arena installation will be added to the site.

WARUM 2.0 ON SECOND LIFE / SLURL