david levi strauss and hakim bey

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David Levi StraussAuthor(s): David Levi Strauss and Hakim BeySource: BOMB, No. 89 (Fall, 2004), pp. 74-80Published by: New Art Publications

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David LeviStrauss nd I got to know each otherin the '80s, teaching t the JackKerouacSchool ofDisembodied oetics tNaropaUniversitynBoulder, olorado,wherewe werepossibly irstrawnogetherbecause neither f us is Buddhist.n hosegood old dayswhenGinsberg as still aboveroom emperature"(as TuliKupferbergays),Boulder xperienced uch limpid zurecaressingfternoons nd rainbow oeticsweather hatpeoplewouldcome infor week, hen ancel their lightsome nd ingern andon,fallingnlove with hewrong eople andstaying p all night. onsequently,etails reblurred;ut do recall spe-cially evi compassionatendupsettingecture n landminesnCambodia from herehe'd ust ome), nd

episodesfrom isongoingperhaps ifelong) editation n photographyndmemory,dile & Odette.

Later spongedoffLevi nthe MissionDistrict f San Franciscowherehe'dworked s a taxidriver ndstudiedpoeticswithRobert uncan)until decade or so ago,whenwe both ndedup in he HudsonValley,almostneighbors ere n heShawangunkioregion.We've collaborated n interviews,oetry eadings,ar-

beques and a trip o Ireland o plant ,000oak trees nhonor fJoseph euys.Mypublisher,utonomedia,also published evi's etween ogand Wolf n1999.

Our chief ommon bsession-naturallyouched on in this onversationbout images- sthe Hermetic

Tradition,specially he RenaissancemagiGiordanoBruno,Marsilio icino nd Paracelsus. s anti-authoritar-

ians,we'reboth fascinated ywhat nthropologist ickTaussiganother eighbor)alls "theMagicof theState." don't know fwe constitute "school"yet,butall of us are convinced f the needforwhat call"hermeticritique." ick alls itthe "dialecticalmage" quotingWalterBenjamin),nd Levi alls t"slowingdown themachine."n ffect, is atestbook,Between heEyes Aperture,003), s devoted o thisnew-but-ancient orm fcritique.

Thedayafter heFourth fJuly 004, in nundisclosed ecure location somewhere ntheHudsonValley:

HakimBey Your two most recentbooks,BetweenDog and Wolf: ssayson Art ndPoliticsndthenewone,Between heEyes:Essayson Photographynd Politics, othuse theword between.A couple of weeksago I askedyou half-jokinglyfthat was aplan, ndyousaid no.But urelytmustbesignificanthatyou'veused thisword wicein wo book titles.

David Levi StraussYeah, tmustbe (laugh-ter), ut I hadn't hought f it until ome-bodypointed t out.Thefirstne,BetweenDog and Wolf,s translated rom he Frenchphrase ntre hien t loup, referringo thetimeat duskwhen the light iminishesothepointwhere ne can't tell whether heanimal ne sees is a dog or a wolf. got itfrom eanGenet, rom passage nPrisonerof Love bout this hour fmetamorphoses,whenpeople halfhope,half ear hat dogwillbecomea wolf." o Iappliedthat o artand politics nthe twilightf the millen-nium.And the second one, Between the

Eyes,was used byMiguelRio Branco irstna longer itle- Entre s Olhos, O Deserto(Between he Eyes, he Desert)-of a bookof his photographic riptychsor whichwrotea parable.And I wrote a piece foranother ook of hisphotographsnder hetitle"Beauty nd the Beast,Right etweentheEyes,"nwhich talked bout thepinealgland between heeyes)as the seat of thesoul, cting s a link etween he visible ndinvisible orld.

HB Is it a liminalityhatyou're ryingoexpress,r more f a dialectic?DLS A dialectic, lways. am always on-cernedwithwhathappensbetween hings,with the relation.When I put wordsandimages ogether,s in Odile & Odette anunpublishedbook of correspondence nwords nd ¡mages, etters hat 've writtenover many years to two women namedOdile and Odette thatonly xist na pho-tograph),'minterestedn the third mage(or whatBurroughsnd Gysin alled "thethirdmind"),hat s,whatwords nd magesformbetween them. n dealingwith aes-thetics ndpolitics, hich swhat amwrit-ing bout inthesetwo books ofessays, 'mconcernedwith he relation etween hosetwo realms.HB So it's not really hisanthropologicalconceptof iminalityhat's purringouon?DLS Not so much. t's whatthings o inconversationwith each other,what hap-pens when you put one thingnext toanother nd something lse happens.ButI'mnot nterestednresolvinghe relation.mean, always hink f whatHannahArendtsaid about the relationbetweenart and

politics: The conflict etweenpolitics ndart ... cannot and mustnot be solved."Everyime here's n attempt, large-scaleattempto solve therelation,thas resultedindisaster.HB Is it "aestheticization" e're talkingabout?DLS Yes,well, ither he aestheticizationfpolitics suchas under he ThirdReich) rthe politicizationof aesthetics (underStalin). oth f thosetwothings ave edto

THEORY& PRACTICE 0 75







major atastrophes.HB Yes.

DLS So I alwayswant to work between.Actually thoughtbout itrecentlynrela-tion to yourwritingn mmediatismbouttryingo find way ut of mediated xperi-ence. It struckme that that'swhat media-tion means: between." obinBlaser lwaysused to say you needn'tbe afraid f thegods,because they'reust betweenthings.They'rentermediaries;hey o between.HB Well some do, such as Mercury/Hermes,nd Iris,hemessengerf thegods.Theangelfiguresmong hegodsaremes-sengers ndmediators,heones whomeetup with humanity ace to face and go

report ackto Olympus r to heaven.Butby speaking about a relation betweenmedia and politics,you're ctually alkingabout a relationshipbetween-between-between.DLS How do youmean?HBWell, meanpolitics s also media, nasense; t'srepresentation,fter ll. At leastwe like to believe that. So you've got abetween n the one hand,which spolitics,and a between n theotherhand,which smedia, and you now have to mediatebetween two betweens.This is kind ofcomplicated.DLS You're right hat we're not talkingabout two distinct urities,wo unadulter-ated entities.HB We don'twant to reifyhem n somedreadful ay.DLS Butwe reifyhem s soon as we namethem, s soon as we voicethem, s soon aswe put them in relation.The languagemakes s do it.HB In a nutshell hen,how would youexpressthe relationbetween these twobetweens?

DLS That's not a nutshell,hat'swhat I'll

probablypendthe rest fmy ife ryingo

doHB Of course, hat's our 60-year roject,"as Ed Sanders ays.DLS And heonlyway can do it, heonlyusefulway, s to look at specific xamplesandtry o understandhemby akinghemapartto see how theywork.Partof the

approach nbeing elationals to stay n hedialectic nd nottry o getaround t.HB Inthis ase we'renotlooking or syn-thesis.DLS No. Again, don'tknow whether ouwould call that a synthesis-he aestheti-cization f politics r the politicizationf

aesthetics.But t'soften alkedabout thatway.HB Butthistotal-separationoncept alsokind f bothersme. How areyou going omakesurethat art and politicsdon'tmix?

Especially ow,when here'so much ensi-tivity ointed t this elation.DLSOfcourse heymix. 'mnotsayingheydon't mix. 'mtryingo understandwhathappenswhen hey o.HB Well,forexample,you brought p myessayon immediatism,n which proposeda militantiewof thisrelationwhere, venbeforethe question of aestheticpoliticsarose,wewouldtry o free urselves f the

mediating ualitiesof media as much aspossible by direct physical contactbetween,forexample, rtists nd peoplewho like rt,ratherhanallowing alleriesand museums o alwaysbe the mediators.Butwould t makefor differentpproachto your "between" f we could say thatthere's philosophical roblemwithmediathatwehave o solvebeforewe candiscussits relationwith the political? In otherwords, o we havea critique f media?Or

do we lookat it s somethingeutral nlessit's eliberately oliticized?

DLS Well, 'm not surewhat choice you'regivingme there.Yes,there s a critique fmedia.Andyes, here retheories fmediaand representation.ut don'tthink needto "solvethe philosophical roblemwithmedia" in orderto observe and addresstheirpolitical ffects. 'm not a formalist.When xamininghemedia, amprimarilyphenomenologist- deal withwhat'shap-pening.HB SusanSontag's ookRegardinghe Painof Othersdealswith lmost he samesub-

ject as Between heEyes nd came out atabout the same time. thinkt'sprobablyfair o

sayshe

gotmorecritical

esponsethanyoudid.DLS [laughter) eah,bya factor f a thou-sandor so.HB Haveyoubeen n ouchwithher?DLSNo, don'tknowher, nfortunately.utwhen her book came out, I read it veryclosely and taught t and discussed it. I

always read everythinghe writesveryclosely.Her earlybooks of essays made

many fthethingsdo possible. heyhadatremendous nfluence n me. But it wascoincidental hat these two books cameoutatthe sametime nd deal with lotofthe samesubjects ndthe samequestions.HB Well,maybenot such a coincidence,given he intensity ithwhich he "shock"of the image s screwed nand woundupright ow.DLSThephenomenon asdefinitelyrownand accelerated, and the pressureto

respondhas increased.As you know, 'vebeen lecturingnd writingbout theAbuGhraib mages, nd I was verypleased tosee Sontag'spiece on them ppear in TheNew York imesMagazine.No one buther







could get thatkindof coverage. She said what needed to besaid and did it ina waythatenteredthe discourse,that didn'tsit out on the edge of it.That was fantastic.HB What would you say the differencebetween herprojectand yoursmightbe?DLS I'm sorry, have a visceral response to "havinga pro-ject." I've never had a project. I don't want a project. I'm awriter,don't have a program o fulfill.HB Ifyou take that word away, t's ikesaying don't have an

attitude,or an approach.DLS Okay. But ifyou look at those two specific books, mybook is a collection of essays writtenover a longer periodof time,trying o look at how images workinpublic inspe-cific instances, beginning with two photojournalists whoworked in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 70s and early'80s, and ending with9/11 and the bombingof Afghanistan.Regarding he Pain of Others is a book-length essay examin-

ingthe changes in the way images of atrocityand war arereceived since Sontags groundbreaking work On

Photographywas published 25 years ago. The books are verydifferent n many ways,but theydid get reviewed togetherin several places, because theyboth address certain funda-mental questions about how images work and how their

effects have changed over time. They were also drawntogetherbyJohnBergers ntroduction o Between the Eyes,inwhich he says mybook is about "the pain of the world."HB Do you get the feelingthat a lot of people are resistantto the idea of analyzingthe link between ¡mages and poli-tics? Inotherwords, s there a kind of vast unconsciousnessabout this out there?DLS Yes.HB And would you say that also includes intellectuals andartists o a certain extent?DLS To some extent itdoes. There isdefinitely partof thedoctrinaireLeft that is very suspicious of approaches thatdeal withthe relation between aesthetics and politics,andthinks hat what artists and writersdo is a politically lesser

order of work, nd is not reliable.HB This goes back to Marxist-Leninist rthodoxy, I think.The psychic remnantsthereof,on the Left. One wondershow anyone whose brain sn'tcompletely pickled can go on

thinkinghatway inthe face of,forexample, a phenomenonlikeSilvio Berlusconi,who I knowyou think s a key symp-tom or figure nthisstrangecomplex of image-politics.DLS Berlusconi really interests me because people havestarted talkingabout his rule as "totalitariandemocracy,"where he's elected but there are no brakes on his authority.And he's able to do this because he has nearly completecontrol of the public imaginary, y owningalmost all mediaoutlets in Italy. o it's a populist, stillnominallydemocratic

approach that recognizes that ifyou control the fantasy ifeof the people (the phantasms),there are virtuallyno limitsto what you can do. And all of the democratic antibodies

againsttotalitarianism- freedom of the press, ivelydissent,the rule of law,an informedpublic- go away, re out of the

picture. t hasn't really happened here inthe U.S. yet,sinceit'snot preciselythe same people, but I think hat'sprobablythe nextstep. I mean, I don't know what will happen underPresident chwarzenegger,but ..HB (laughter) Right.State and media under one umbrella.Well, there are those I suppose who would say that there's

onlyabout a half degree of separation between media and

politicshere now.

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BETWEEN THE EYES: ESSAYS ON PHOTOGRAPHYBy David Levi Strauss. Intioduolion by John Beryer

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■ BiDLS But there still is some difference.mean, we saw the Abu Ghraib imagesbecause of SeymourHersh and the NewYorker,nd because Dan Rather aid hewasn'tgoing o hold off nymore, e wasgoing o putthemout there. fDan Ratherwas directly wned by the Bushteam, I

don't think hose imageswould have evercome toTV.HB Sure,you can have ten or six or threecorporations ontrollingighty, inety er-cent of the media butyou can never on-trol t all. And I'm not even talkingboutthe blessed Internet ere-you can't con-trolprint nymore ither. ooner or latersomethingwould have surfaced. But itdoesn't reallymatter f a few thousandpeople know something f the billionsdon't. o maybe ensorship eallysn'tnec-essary.DLS If fewthousandknow t and it nevercomes

upinto his tratum f

publicmedia,then t'snotgoing o have public ffect.HB You'resaying t could have a secreteffect?DLS Yes. I just saw an interview n BillMoyerswith guynamedFrank untz, PRguy. mean,he calls himself "pollsterndcommunicationsonsultant,"utthisguy spurehokum: nake oil and lakefrontrop-erty.He's the one who came up with he

name"Clear kies" orBush's ismantlingfenvironmentalrotections,nd called theestate taxthe "death ax," o make t soundunfair. ndhe's the one who said no Bushofficial houldgiveany speech about Iraqwithoutmentioning/11. s a consequence,a highpercentage f Americans till hink

Iraq had somethingto do with 9/11.Incredible.But Luntz knows how thesethingswork.He's nowtalkingbout some-thing alled the"free ime genda," ecausehe found utthe number ne issuewith 5-to-40-year-oldwomen is that theydon'thaveenoughfree ime.Whathe does withwords, thers nhis line of workdo with

images. hesepeople interestme.HB Do youthink hosepeople,bytheway,all readMcLuhan nd Debord?Are heyup-to-date about theory,these kinds ofpeople? Or do they ll do it n their leepsomehow?DLS I think here are

probablydifferent

styles, ut thisguyLuntzmakes big howofbeing nti-intellectual.ispollstellhimthatmostpeople arestupid, o ifyouwantto speak to "mostpeople," you need to

speak stupid. Propagandaor PR is likeCapital-the onlything hat matterss thenumbers. his sprobablyn old-fashionednotion,but I blamewriters nd artists orsome of the successof thiskind f "public

relations"nd the resultant egradationfthe language-fornotbeinggood enough,and for etting hese hackscontrolwordsand images.And some of our bestwritersand artistsworkforthese people,makingpropaganda.HB Ihave realproblemwith hat, ecause

whenthere's o revolution,oucan'thaveart in the serviceof a revolution.Whenthere's nlyCapital, rcapitalismfyoupre-fer,henyoucanonlyhave rt n he serviceof capitalism- r else,artthatfails. hosearetheonly ptions. o, in way,his ster-rible, ut talso means hat rtists an'tbeblamed or his ituation er e.DLS I can blamethem.My position n thisis differentrom he one thatyou ust rtic-ulated. still hink here's oom n hepublicimaginationor hange. here's till publicimaginationfter he end ofthespectacle,and this dministrationasbeensuccessfulin

manipulatingtthrough

tsuse of wordsand images.This has to be resisted ndfought. ush nd hiskeepers re increasingthesufferingn theworld, nd I sayreducethe sufferingirst.f t'spossible o do thatwithout revolution,choose that.HB Turningo some even more specificcases, some people whom we know inCritical Art Ensemble are currentlyntroublewiththe FBIfora suspectedbio-

i^Hk imm

Atright,rom eft o right:Hoodedfiguren boxfrom buGhraib.

NickUt, 972, outhVietnameseorces ollow fter erri-fied hildrenfter SouthVietnameselane ccidentally

droppedtsflaming apalm n ts wn roopsand civilians. PPhoto/Nick t.

William entridgesbufigure,nvideo till rom hadowProcession,999, nimated 5mm ilm,

video ndDVD ransfer.ourtesyf he rtist nd MarianGoodmanGallery, ew York.

Paintingn wall n adrCity, aghdad,by raqi rtist alah Edine allat, 004.

Above rom eft o right:LeonGolub,nterrogationI, 981,crylicn linen,

120x 168". ourtesyf he rtist.Firdosquare, aghdad, pril ,2003.







terrorismharge.That has to do with anattemptednterface etween rt and poli-tics that Steve Kurtz nd the CAE are verymuch ryingo deal with.And s we speak,our publisher, utonomedia,who is alsoCAE'spublisher,s beingorderedto turnovercorrespondencendotherdocumentsto thegrand ury. hen nother ase wouldbe ourmutual riend,rtist aul Chanand

hisassociates n thegroup alled Voices nthe Wilderness ho went o Iraqbefore hewar, aveawayfreemedicine,nd are nowfacing major chargefrom, believe, heTreasury Departmentfor violatingtheembargo. hepolitical mage s notgoing obe directly ddressed in either of thesecases, but the indirect mplications rethere. wonder,fyou look inyour rystalball, o yousee a Cointelproacronymorseries of FBIcounterintelligencerogramsdesigned o neutralize,solate and defamepoliticaldissidents] oward he arts, spe-cially fTheygetre-elected or, guesswe

should ay, lected)?DLS Absolutely,nd I think tsgoing o bemuchmorewidespread f heBush eam isactually lected and given mandate histime.DefinitelyfAshcrofttays nplace-he'sbarelyeashed now. t also dependssomuch n how successfulhey reat demo-nizingdissidents, s they did artists ndwriters uringhe culturewars of 89 and'90. At hatpoint t wasmostly n the basisofsexpanics nd fear fmiscegenation.utIthink nder he cover f"anti-terrorism,"thas the potentialto be a much largerassault. Anti-terrorisms the new anti-Communism.

HB People are saying that even theDemocratswill have to institute militarydraft y pringtimen order o keepa pres-ence inAfghanistanndIraq ndgoonwithwhatever lse theymight ave nmind.Andso there s thispotential or Cointelpro-Vietnam-Nixon orror how again-undertheDemocrats, owever.DLS I can possibly magine he Democrats

doing t,but t'shardformeto imagine nelected Bush administrationringingackthe draft.HBOh?DLS It ust eemstactically-HB You mean hey'reuchgreat acticians?DLS Theyhave been in erms fcontrollingimages.HBWell, hey'veost the spinbynow, o a

certain xtent.DLSThey'retill 0-50 n hepolls.But heyknow that if middle-class ids startbeingkilled n battle gain, hey'll avea very igproblem.HB No, but the point s,they're tretchedalready, they'recalling reserves,they'resending eople back nstead fgivinghemtime ff.DLS So, usthiremoremercenaries.fyou'repaying eople a hundred housand ollarsyear n raq ndAfghanistannd backhomein Maryland r South Carolinatheyearnsevendollars n hour, oucan getas manybodies as

youwant.And it all works o

muchbetter: ouhave a privatizedmilitarythatworkswell with heprivate ompaniesthat re runningverythingverthere.Youdon'thave to report eathsand injuriessmilitaryasualties. f heyget caughtdoingsomething llegal,militaryaw can'ttouchthem. don't knowwhytheywould eventhinkfbringingack he draft.t wouldbesucha tacticalmistake hat can't maginethemdoing t.HB Well,onlytimewill tell.Do you thinkthe scandal over Abu Ghraib hatyou'vebeen lecturingn,showing mages rom,sresponsible or loss ofspinon thepart f

the masters f theuniverse?DLS Oh, absolutely. he release of thosetorturemageswasanextraordinaryreach.The Bush administration ad controlled

public magesso skillfullyuring he firstyearofthe war- from aving rivate ynchto the FallingSaddam to the Top Gunspeechto Saddam's apture-but heywereblindsided by the Abu Ghraib ¡mages.

Principalush trategistarlRove uggestedthat the consequences of these ¡mageswere o great hat twould akedecadesforthe U.S. to recover rom hem.But t's oo

earlyto tell if it will be enoughto stop .Bush.And too muchcan happenbetweennow and the election to makeeveryoneforgetwhat came before. keep comingbackto this:AIQaeda needsthis dminis-

tration. o theymust o everythingn heirpowerto keepthis dministrationnplaceand to getthem elected in Novemberorallow them to suspend the election,asthey'repparentlylanning).nd heway odo that, unfortunately,s anotherstrikeclose to November.HB Justnot close enoughto killNumberOne.DLSThey'd ave o do itwithout ittinghe

Republicaneadership. ctually,t occurredto me that hemost ffectiverotestt the

Republican onventionn NewYork,fyoucouldorganize t,would be a totalevacua-tion-a kind of anti-Bush

Rapture,where

people just disappeared, and theRepublicans ame into an eerilyemptycity-no cab drivers,o subwayworkers,ohookersHB It's he old dream f thegeneral trike.DLS Yes Republicans arryingheirown

bags No one to feedorwater hemHB Ifyoucouldactually ull ff hegeneralstrikeyou wouldn'thave to because theconsciousness shiftwould have alreadyoccurred. hat's nfortunatelyheproblemwith hemythf thegeneral trike, uch o

myeternalregret. ut let'scontinue n amore Utopian evel. You and I are both

interestednhermeticismndwe know hatto a large xtenthermeticismsthe scienceof images.GiordanoBruno aid inhisbookon magic hat t was easierto controlmil-lionsof people at a timethroughmagerythan o control ne person.He wasthinkingof lovespells nthisregard.fyoutranslatethat ntomodern arlance, ou mightay tis easier to influence millionpeople

^^H^ÉÉÉlf^lTHEORY & PRACTICE Q 79







throughtheir erotic subconscious to buy a

productthan it sto make one person fall nlove with you personally. So this insightseems to be reallya potent one. And it ledloan Couliano to say that modern PR and

agitprop and advertising-infact almost allmodern media- are in this sense only anextension of hermeticism. However, you

mightsaythat's black

magic.There should

be white magic too, by which people candefend themselves against this kind of

thing. Do you think that people should

studyancient hermeticism norder to arriveat a defense against the onslaught of

imagery n the modern world? How would

you do that?DLS Coulianos book Eros and Magic in theRenaissance is a good place to start. n addi-tion to the history nd analysis, t is also asort of handbook of possible resistance tomedia manipulations throughknowledge ofitstechniques and sources. One of the rea-sons that Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit

9/11 s having uch an effect and is actuallyreachingso many people is that Moore has

figured ut how to use the same techniquesthat the other side is using in order to getdifferent ontent inthere.He's realized that,often,the way that the media organs work,content doesn't really matter. Because itsformal presentation is the focus and theobsession, you can get in all kinds of con-tent thatyou wouldn't imaginepossible.HB It's he old McLuhan "the medium is the

message" insight.But trying o subvert the

power of the media by entering into its

power mightbe a self-defeating, r even a

suicidal tactic.DLS It can be. Its treacherous ground. Ithink nall of thiswork, t mattersto have a

good heart.HB A good heart,yes, but what about thetrance state? There is a trance state weenter as connected to the media, not a self-induced trance for spiritual self-develop-ment, but trance for the purposes ofcontrol. So the point is to break t.DLS To break it or be able to emerge from

it,undamaged or at least alive. To be able tocontinue working. 'm a firmbeliever inthevalue of gettingyourhands dirty my grand-fatherwas a blacksmith nd

myfatherwas a

mechanic). The best way to learn abouthow images work is to open them up, takethem apart, and move them around. Putthem next to one another and to texts tosee how they change. Examine them

closely,over time.HB You seem to be proposing a liberationfrom he ¡mage throughthe image. Inotherwords,to master the science of ¡mages bymasteringthe science of ¡mages, not bysome iconoclastic technique of eliminating

the images.DLS That's the direction that I tend to go.Both because I take such pleasure in

¡mages- I love ¡mages so much that ¡twould be hard forme to givethem up- butalso because in my experience, abstinencedoesn't work.HB What about the idea of the media fast,of temporary bstinence?DLS Oh, I think that's fine on a personallevel.HB Clear

yourbrain.This idea comes from

Gert Lovink,who I think coined the term"media fast." 've always thought itmightbea good wayto start.Take a week or two off,

especially electronic media. All of them, if

possible. But what about other strategies?DLS I thinkfor me it gets down to basic

questions. What kinds of words and imagesare you making, nd what effects are theyhaving?Are you speaking truth to powerand making tharderforControl,or are youbeing complicitous and adding to the con-fusion? A big part of this for me is that I

really stand against the whole idea thatcame up on the Left in the 70s and '80s

that we could counter what you've calledthe "empireof the image"by turning gainstthe aesthetic and embracing the anti-aes-thetic. I consider that to have been a griev-ous tactical error.As you've said, "The blind

panopticon of Capital remains, after all,most vulnerable in the realm of 'magic'-the manipulation of ¡mages to control

events, hermetic action at a distance.'" It's

proven more and more every day that

images matter, hat it's mages that are mak-

ing the political changes that we see hap-pening around us possible. Focusing onwhat those images are and how theyworkand how theycan be changed to work oth-erwise is not a side issue anymore, it's a

necessity.And trying o separate "real poli-tics" from"mere aesthetics" is a mistake. tmatters what we imagine to be possible.Change can only happen if we imaginethingsdifferently.eino said that "The taskof Magic consists in comparing thingstoone another,"and that's also the work of

criticism. told you I've been readingquite a

good book, Rhetoric and Poetics in

Antiquity,hat argues that rhetoric ctuallycame out of poetics, not the other wayaround,which has been thoughtto be thecase (or thatthe two are distinctand unre-

lated). The author, JeffreyWalker, talksabout the art of argumentand persuasionsuitable fordeliberation,debate, discussionand decision in the public sphere as beingopposed to the mere exercise of formal

eloquence, the "epideictic," which is justadapted fordisplayor showingoff set ora-tions. I think it's an importantdistinction.

But he's saying that the persuasion ofrhetoricreally mergesfromout of poetics,which deals with aesthetic pleasure. Thereason that ¡mages work politically is thatwe take pleasure in them. Denying that is

self-defeating.Basically, refuse to choosebetween rhetoric and poetics, or politicsand aesthetics.HB Between: where we started, and willend. 0

Left o right:George W. Bush, MissionAccomplished"speech aboard the USS AbrahamLincoln,May1, 003. Unidentified heerleader.

m:'?$

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david levi strauss and hakim bey

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