| human on Sun, 14 Jul 2002 18:23:02 +0200 (CEST) |
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| <nettime> designing secure politics |
i think it was wednesday when i heard that President G.W. Bush was going to be visiting Minneapolis on two days notice, to stump for a hand-picked republic- an Senator hoped to unseat the democrat Wellstone, and lobby for repealing estate taxes as a prime cause. oddly enough, after weeks of blazing temperatures it was clear that Minnesota had indeed become Texas, in both an increase in pollution, and in desert weather with lots of humidity added in. it was so weird to see the president fishing in Maine on his birthday, while the state of Texas was in a brutal heatwave, then, to be hit with more than two feet of water, flooding of a biblical proportion, while he is shown on a boat catching quite large ocean fish, relaxing. there has been this sense that others seem to be now sharing, an uneasiness. further, though, is a sense of disconnect. the hard part to gauge is whether the pundits are viewing it as a discrete event, this and that problem, or if in a whisper, as with mention of the president's visit to town, it was a non-event, on the whole, not much was said about it in public minds. disquiet, that's a feeling similar. some great foreboding, and concern for that which is not yet seeable, under- standable. then, to hear the punditry from all sides either talking up competence with proclamations of faith, or questioning the ability of current laissez- faire politics to address economic and social concerns. there is no stop to budgetary spending in site, _and, more importantly, an ideological constraint in the .US administration that has so vilified taxes that it is not even an option, it is sacrilege. most any social or other service could be cut before taxes, and some are, at the same time new, inefficient bureaucracies are being grown, no questions asked about how to pay for this, who will pay- yet one thing is for sure, that the estate tax is, as was said by Karl Rove possibly, going to be _the_issue_ for the next election cycle. ? estate taxes ? anyway, hopped on my bicycle, and headed for downtown, a few miles away. had a digital camera, digital voice/audio recorder, and a monopod. had heard the President would be at Target Center at 2pm until 4pm or so. so i photographed the riverfront, post monster-rain, and waited. and waited some more. as i biked back into downtown i heard that something had happened about an hour ago, and that someone had thought the event had already happened and was done. no one knew for sure what. then biked to the Target Center, a basketball stadium and ice-rink it seems, and saw that everything seemed to indicate that the President had yet to arrive or was inside already. at some point, it was said he would be around between 4pm and 6pm. i believe it was not until close to 7pm that when all was done, i left. yet, first one must arrive, and so biking about, it seemed all the activity was on one side of the four-sided building, which has basically two sides which are easy to access, two which are not. of the two accessible sides, one was blocked off by a line of police who were everywhere, along with all of those instant questioners, in regular wear, wondering about what is going on, and what one is thinking about it. police perimeter to block access to building (30k) http://home.earthlink.net/~aetherica/temp/policeline.jpg the area blocked off was the front of the building, and on that day it had a very spooky feel to it, ghost- town eery, almost grassy knoll dissonance. the charge in the air was hard to read. caution was estimated. empty office building, under construction (26k) http://home.earthlink.net/~aetherica/temp/blocke.jpg across the Target Center is a highly-political local redevelopment project which is now under construction, and some ebbs and flows of changes with police and various cadres of intelligence gathering outfits, made it seem a highly serious matter. they must be the secret service, as there were many non-uniformed but also non-civilians in the secured areas. and so, upon seeing a construction elevator going up and down at an empty office building across the street, it is not possible that anyone would be working, i imagined, and then, a tarp opened up at the top of the building, where the elevator led a fine nest above the street. the Target center itself symbolically acted its part, like a large concrete boulder in the middle of one- half of the Twin Cities. it had the embassy-zeitgeist with guards on the roof, peering over. not sure where the boundaries were for taking pictures, i tried to not take too many to press my luck. the media trucks with directional microwave antenna for remote broad- cast were there. a few trucks, Fox News, et cetera. guards on the roof (35k) http://home.earthlink.net/~aetherica/temp/embassy.jpg and, from where they were standing, it was all rather clear and clean and simple. there were police and there were protesters, and inbetween, the media, of course. on one side: protesters, police, and the media (16k) http://home.earthlink.net/~aetherica/temp/snapshot.jpg hung around for awhile, trying to guess how Bush might enter the site. what freeways were around. it is usually a big enough to-do that I thought if the President of the United States was in the building, someone would know, but nobody did. the protesters, it was said in the newspaper later, had only two-days to gather, so 300 people turned out, yet it was a vocal crowd, still very civilized and no provocations seemed to occur. it was one of two times that i realized where the line was when told to get out of the empty street while on my way to take a digital snapshot of the protesters, who were holding up a segmented sign and chanting... coordinated signal by protesters (28k) http://home.earthlink.net/~aetherica/temp/streetsign.jpg chant 1: who is a terrorist? "" is a terrorist... (104k) http://home.earthlink.net/~aetherica/temp/isa.aiff it seemed someone said to get back, and so the photo was taken while in movement back to the sidewalk. as a type of independent photojournalist one cannot assume to have any rights of the mass media, which had their own concrete islands in the middle of the street, and access to the Target Center and officials of all sorts. the upside being that it was easy to mingle and get a sense of the scene, in a way that was not shown nor heard on local tv newscasts later. basically, nothing- much of anything was said or recorded: ie, a non-event. of two laughs, one was in seeing afar a sign carried by a protester, which made a few hundred yard shot with digital zoom worthwhile. even though i could not see the sign in focus, the camera got enough of it in its context to capture a counterpoint to evildoers... one sign, evil-access (19k) http://home.earthlink.net/~aetherica/temp/evilaccess.jpg the other laugh arose when two costumed civilians went into the street, and infront of the television media to present their messages in a well-thought-out manner. it was effective, and they posed to be shot by cameras. in putting images online, of all people, their faces have been erased, both of police and others, to limit the specificity of this event, as it seemed what was happening was no less than major forces intertwined, even working together, choreographed, and respectful, yet also absurd in the limits of civil disobedience. the oilman and the taxman cometh... (35k) http://home.earthlink.net/~aetherica/temp/oiltax.jpg another chant at the time, before leaving to look around the area to see what was not visible, that was, where was the President? chant 2: out of """""",,, don't come back... (112k audio) http://home.earthlink.net/~aetherica/temp/afgirq.aiff i still didn't know, and went to the other side of the immense building. having a monopod attached to a digital camera looks a bit odd, as many do not know what one is. the reason a monopod is an excellent piece of equipment for reporting events is that, with a digital camera with either a remote control or automatically timed snapshots, and a swivel-LCD screen, one can attach the camera to a monopod, tilt the viewscreen downward, and place the monopod fully extended some 10 feet in the air, and shoot down towards the ground. a bird-in-the-tree eye's view. and so, using this technique took a photo of the street on the other side of the building. all the while, being peppered with questions from all types of lifeforms. blocked off street full of waiting police cars (45k) http://home.earthlink.net/~aetherica/temp/squadcars.jpg over the period of what seemed like several hours, going back and forth from sides, i decided towards the end to hang out in this location. and it was intense. no one was around but police and non-uniformed security people were everywhere, and standing in the middle of this while all the protests were on the other side of the building, along with the media, had me thinking. someone came up and said the President already left. suggested I should leave, i think they said. or, that it was probably going to be another hour. i decided to wait. and upon this type of intense questioning, i spotted directly above where i parked my bike, a surveillance globe rigged into the street lighting and traffic lighting system. hotwired surveillance gear (32k) http://home.earthlink.net/~aetherica/temp/fisheye.jpg it was not my intention to look and document this type of thing, but the clue was not the camera itself, but in seeing the base of the pole, earlier in the after- noon, with exposed wires. yet not thinking enough to look up and see the unusual fish-eye-lens camera, which basically 360's the entire area. i was worried about security myself, so i was wondering how such things could be left as-is, along with other trash. my theory was that the President had yet to arrive, and, after seeing a police helicopter hovering about earlier, and then, it and a small jet airplane above the Target center, it seemed a possibility that the Marine One (i think the name is) helicopter might land on the building. crazy sounding, maybe, but it was unclear how they could get him in and out on the surface streets given the traffic congestion. else, it was also possible Bush might land on another building and go underground to access the building. after a short while, the police helicopter arrived again above my head, just sitting there with the familiar sound of blades chopping the wind, yet one that is not heard but recognizable for its use as a sound-effect for those less acquainted with that form of travel, or of warfare zones. hovering police helicopter (18k) http://home.earthlink.net/~aetherica/temp/copter.jpg the helicopter just sat there, above, by that spooky building and its construction elevator, which on the far side of the building were the few hundred which could be heard much fainter but still active, over- there. i decided to take a photo, why not. nothing else to do. and snapped one or two photographs when all of the sudden, from behind me on the street a blazingly fast motorcade began flying by. i tried to set my camera straight, must have instinctively moved toward the scene and was yelled to get back by a local peace officer with their hand ready to draw a gun, and before i knew it, limousines and SUVs and other cars sped by like lightning. quiet, at first, yet swift and fast as a blinking eye. the President of the .US leaving the area (101k) http://home.earthlink.net/~aetherica/temp/lightning.jpg no other press were in the area. they were not needed. they were there to cover the protesters. the composite photo of the motorcade has mixed-sequence shots, the first few being a limo which i would guess probably had the president in it (upper left in photo) and then, to my surprise when looking at the photos on a computer, to see that someone jumped infront of my camera when no one was around me that i could see or remember, yet they seemed to block my photograph. i was moving back- wards as fast as i could while still shooting photos, and then they were gone. and the Target Center emptied of its 4,000 person crowd of Republican supporters. the odd thing about it was besides that window of about 10 seconds, nothing exciting happened the entire time. nor were the people coming out of the event in any way charged as one can tell when coming out of a big event, talking, smiling, energetic. it was a somber and docile and small but well-to-do crowd, yet seemingly greatly uninspired, or uninspiring in their response to having heard the .US President speak. at this point i was able to laugh, and to leave. yet went around the building one more time to see the other side, with the media, protesters, and the police line, and sure enough, the dance added some charge once the Target Center was emptying, and police crossed over to the protesters side of the street, for a moment, maybe to test the situation, and it seemed a bit obligatory, a play for the camera crews, and existentially absurd as all the rest of the days surreal non-events. bc, minneapolis, minnesota 7-11 2002 * images.sounds temporarily online. if archiving, download # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net