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Estranged Culture

This week Artvoice spoke with University at Buffalo professor and Critical Art Ensemble co-founder Steve Kurtz as he was awaiting a return flight to Buffalo, having just attended a biotechnology conference in Denmark. It’s just the sort of trip he might have been taking before things unraveled for him in 2004, when his wife and artistic partner, Hope, died suddenly of heart failure, setting in motion a series of events that have made Kurtz a poster boy for Bush administration paranoia and prosecutorial overreach.

(If you don’t know Kurtz’s story, refer to the preceding review of the film Strange Culture; better yet, attend the screening of the film at Hallwalls on Saturday, September 8.)

For some time after he was arrested and charged, however, international travel was difficult—Kurtz had been placed on the terrorist watch list by the FBI. Eventually he was removed from that list, however, and he thinks he knows when and why.

“It was in Winnipeg,” he said, “and there was one guy, and you know they put you through US Customs in Canada before you get on the plane so they can land you anywhere? I walk in, my name comes up and he says, ‘Why are you on the list?’ I say, ‘Because the FBI thinks I’m a terrorist.’ And he said, ‘Oh really?’ He thought it was kind of funny—you know there are two types of Customs agents: those who thought it was a joke and the ones who treated it dead seriously. Kind of nothing in the middle.

“So, they rifle through my bags and begin to get out the paperwork you need when someone like me crosses a border, and in walks a hunting party of about a dozen guys, and they are armed to the teeth. They’ve got guns and knives, and the agent is looking at all that. He’s got to handle that all by himself, and he’s having to deal with me, and it kind of pissed him off. Because he had a real job to do.

“After that I was never bothered again, Kurtz said. “After a while these agencies learn that you’re not a dangerous person and that the Department of Justice has fed them bad information that’s causing them a lot of work. So they just take you off the list themselves.”

We asked Kurtz to talk about the status of the case and the effect it has had—and might yet have—on individuals and institutions who take on subjects the empowered would prefer were left unexamined.

Artvoice: Given that legal proceedings continue, how much can you talk about? Can you talk about the disposition of your case?

Steve Kurtz: I can talk about that. Except I’m in an airport so I have to be a little delicate. [He laughs.] We’re in a sort of neutral zone, where the first round of motions has ended and the second round is about to begin. So there’s really at this particular time nothing interesting to say about it. I’m just in this slow, bureaucratic grind. The judge I have is very elderly and prone to illness these days, and that throws even more of a wrench into the time table.

AV: Do you feel that dragging this out is part of the prosecution’s game plan—that this long embroilment is part of your punishment?

SK: Well, yeah, but I don’t think it’s personal to me. It may be somewhat personal at this point, because you know the Department of Justice has gotten so much flack because of this case. They won’t even talk about it anymore. But it’s not really personal to me; I just happened to be the example. It could be you, right? They could have arrested you and decided to make you the example, but it happened to be me. They’re hoping to intimidate academics and artists and journalists and anyone else they possibly can with this. Saying, “Yeah, don’t think we won’t put you in jail if we can, if you continue with any kind of dissident agenda.”

It’s working, too. It’s win-win for them, whether they win or lose this case.

AV: Why do you think it’s working?

SK: A lot of people are scared, particularly in the sciences, where they have so much money on the line. Researchers have to be able to stay in close with the National Science Foundation. Academic scientists, they’re just screwed, their careers would be over if something like this was done to them.

It’s had an effect on distributors of perfectly legal goods. They are now much more cautious and have put restrictions on things because they don’t want the FBI on them. It’s affected cultural institutions, in that they are not as willing to participate in the kind of live projects than they might have before this case—and that one is maybe more particular to us, to Critical Art Ensemble.

I generally find that there is a palpable chill. It hasn’t gone the way that I had hoped, that people would become more adamant and more radical about what they wanted to show and support.

AV: But this event at Hallwalls represents a rallying of the troops, and you’ve had successful fundraisers and exhibits and screenings of the film. Isn’t there a lot of support for your cause?

SK: There is and there isn’t. There is in the sense of helping with fundraising, showing Lynn’s films, showing Critical Art Ensemble’s films, having us out for talks—there’s been tons of that. Everyone is real supportive of that. But if you say, “Let’’s do a real project,” everyone says, “Oh, no, no…” That’s when next thing I know there’s a lawyer in the room.

AV: In other words, it’s okay for you to talk about the case, about past projects that led you into this situation…

SK: Yeah. “We can talk about that, and we’ll show images of what you do, just don’t come do it.”

AV: Just don’t show up yourself to present new, critical art that might draw additional heat from the feds or from donors.

SK: Yeah. “Go and make a video of it and bring it back and we’ll show that.”

One of the places that we used to buy reagent from has pretty much stopped selling to amateurs; you can’t call them up and say, “Send out some food-testing kits.” They won’t do that anymore. What’s really kind of strange about is they’re not even an American company, they’re a British company. That’s how far the rings of this have spread out…it has gotten international attention. And we do know the FBI investigated them.

AV: In the film you talk about the number of Steve Kurtz personae at work in this saga: the prosecution’s Steve Kurtz, your defense attorney’s Steve Kurtz, the actor’s portrayal of Steve Kurtz in the film…

SK: …the everyday version, my students’ version. There’s a lot of me these days. I think all people have many different subjectivities and many different representations. No one gets to escape that. The difference is I have tons of people looking at mine. Most people don’t have tons and tons of people that see each one; they have a very select group that are part of the context that each identity was made in. Whereas my context has gotten really kind of large.

And then there are versions of myself that I have almost no control of. The Department of Justice is going to say what they’re going to say, and there’s not much effect I’m going to have on them.

AV: But the persona they’ve created is on trial for a felony, and all of you have to go to jail if that persona is convicted. Does that possibility seem real to you?

SK: There’s the rational level where I realize it’s quite likely that I will have to go to jail, that that is a very real and plausible possibility. But then there’s the level that I have to have to get through everyday life. Because if you dwell on that, right, you’ve basically lost. You’ve given them the victory. They’ve already won. So there’s a way that I resist it as well.

I don’t think I have very bad anxiety over it, actually. That will probably change as I get closer to trial. The other thing is I’ve had a lot of years to live with it. It’s been three years now. It’s amazing what you can get used to.

AV: Do you ever worry that all this—the events of that night and those that followed, the charges, the legal battle that has come to signify a great deal to many people—will become your last subject as an artist? That you’ll be stuck addressing this one issue for the rest of your creative life?

SK: No, that won’t happen. It’ll happen as long as the case goes on because I’ll do whatever we have to do to win it. Because we can’t let the Department of Justice get this precedent. I don’t even want to begin to think about the damage that would be done. If they are successful in making breaches of contract law an occasion for theory of felony, that is going to be so bad for any kind of free speech movement. It’s really imploding the two branches of law.