Michael Stipe: ‘Are we that warlike, that childish, that afraid?’

[n2doc]

At first glance Coupland's work appears to be Op Art, abstract black dots, as in this detail from The Poet. Photograph: ©Douglas Coupland


As I return to New York City from a summer in Europe, two days before the 12th anniversary of 9/11, I glance up to see the Tribute in Light – two ghostly, beautifully impossible shafts of light representing the World Trade Centre towers. Before these shafts of light stands the now single-finger gesture of the Freedom Tower, dominating the skyline just as the Twin Towers did. A sliver of new moon floats nearby. The relevance of these symbols brings me, well, back home. I’ve lived in NYC since 1987, 1993 or 1997, depending on which government agency you ask.

On the morning of 9/11, I was asleep in my apartment on Jane Street in the Meatpacking District, just north of Ground Zero. I received a phone call saying New York was under a terrorist attack and that I needed to leave as soon as possible. I sat up in bed and heard the sirens outside my bedroom window. I looked down at my naked legs, and said out loud, “Oh fuck.” My notion of home had suddenly changed. But what is home, anyway? Cue the Gang of Four song, At Home He’s A Tourist. I’ve felt that way about everywhere I’ve lived since the age of seven, when I first moved from the States to Frankfurt, Germany, with my military father and family. My life has been nomadic by both necessity and choice. I’ve looked at my homes as “bases” –places I return to when I’m away from a home-like base. I know that sounds Arthur C Clarke, but it’s true.

... But on a smaller scale, as on smartphone screens, The Poet become a chilling image of a person falling to their death from the Twin Towers. Photograph: © Doug Coupland

Where do we locate home inside ourselves? What images go so incredibly deep that, like it or not, they define our world, our inescapable home? With a small, powerful set of images, Douglas Coupland actually manages to playfully (how did he pull that off?) remind us of our collective 9/11 moment – the act that unzippered the 21st century in most of the world, and changed my notion of home and safety forever. Coupland’s at first seemingly Op Art paintings are just black dots – abstract, weirdly familiar. But then you look at them on your iPhone (because you’re going to take a pic and post it … this is 2014, after all) and you have the ahhhhhhh moment when a chill runs down your spine and you realise that it’s them: the jumpers. It’s him: the boogeyman. Doug offers us the choice to either see or not see these deeply internalised images. Having that choice is what enables us to survive from day to day without going nuts.

His images also remind me that nobody really knows how to look downtown any more without feeling, in some way, conflicted. Every time I see the Freedom Tower, I think of “freedom fries” – the term coined when the US wanted to invade Iraq, and France objected. Anything attached to the word “French” in the US was then relabelled with the word “freedom”: freedom toast, freedom fries, freedom kiss, for fuck’s sake. French wine was banned, French people were spat upon, their heads in photographs replaced with heads of weasels. Forget the Statue of Liberty and where it came from. It was a disastrous response—a horrid turn on the formerly leftist act of boycotting as protest. I’ve never been more embarrassed by my country, (except when we re-elected George W Bush and Dick Cheney). I largely blame the media for this egregious abuse of power and influence.

more

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/sep/10/michael-stipe-rem-douglas-coupland-artwork-haunt-us

[underpants]

1. Stipe

One of my top 4 REM members

[pscot]

2. In a word, yes

[Laelth]

3. No, we're that SMART.

No politician can just sit by and watch energy prices double in his or her country, and that's what this is about--Russia's monopoly on natural gas that must continue to flow to Western Europe. We fight IS to protect the Kurds who are now shipping natural gas to Europe through Turkey, and this has broken Russia's monopoly on natural gas in Western Europe. This is a good thing, and our allies are quite pleased about it.

More HERE.

-Laelth

[LynnTheDem]

4. Answers:

Yes.
Yes.
And yes.

[Avalux]

5. Love you Michael. K&R. n/t

[Puzzledtraveller]

6. Thanks for this, awesome.

Old school R.E.M. fan.