Blog

by Omar Muñoz-Cremers

When entering the V2_Studio our snacks disguised as bombs were draped over our bodies in suicide bomber belts after which we were instructed to “Go! Go! Go!” to our seats. Andrea Natella of guerrigliamarketing.it gave us an overview of his latest exploits as part of an alternative advertising agency, from the hilarious Reality Personal Trainer (a real paid service where a trainer explains to managerial types “how reality works”) to easy and cheap methods of questioning discourse on terrorism and media. This culminated in the controversial where-next.com project, which “borrows” templates from corporate websites to build a sardonic game where participants are able to gamble on the location of the next major terrorist attack.

Second was Naiem Mohaiemen who talked at length about his Muslims or Heretics documentary. This film on Islamic movements and counter movements in Bangladesh produces quite interesting questions on the type of audience one envisions as a filmmaker. What happens when one incorporates their reactions in the film, the role of violence in political conflict, the western stereotypes of Muslims and their reuse by radical Muslims as a way to gain visibility?

An extra layer of technological uncertainty was added to the chaos of language when a live stream was set up with the Emergent Geographies project in Extremadura, Spain. After a shaky start their multifaceted project at a disused nuclear power plant was explained. An intriguing observation was made on-site by Brian Holmes that the collective was looking for a way out of the city, an experience somewhere in between protest and festival. With a participating class of schoolchildren in the background the whole thing came off as a joyful happening, theoretically non-centered and perhaps possessing a welcome lightness in the post 9-11 world of (all too necessary) tactical media.

Photographs Copyright (c) 2007 Jan Sprij.