Steve Kurtz Interview
R.U. Sirius’ blog, 10 Zen Monkeys, has published an interview with SUNY Buffalo professor, artist and accused bioterrorist, Steve Kurtz. Kurtz was arrested in 2004 following the sudden death of his wife. Upon entering Kurtz’ home, police found some unusual chemicals — chemicals that were completely harmless and that he used in his art/science installation pieces for the Critical Arts Ensemble, which “explore and critique bio-issues like our contemporary use of biotechnology for weapons programs, reproduction, and food.”
A film has been made about Kurtz’ experience. It’s called Strange Culture and it’s playing at the film festival this year. The film is part documentary, part fictionalized re-enactments, and partly a meta-film about the making of the film itself. Thomas Jay Ryan and Tilda Swinton star as Kurtz and his late wife.
Here’s the trailer for the film…
Read the recent R.U. Sirius interview here. Snip…
STEVE KURTZ: Three projects seemed to really bother law enforcement. Critical Art Ensemble was working on a biochemical defense kit against Monsanto’s Roundup Ready products for use by organic and traditional farmers. That was all confiscated.
We had a portable molecular biology lab that we were using to test food products labeled “organic” to see if they really were free of GMO contaminant. Or, when in Europe, to see if products not labeled as containing GMOs really had none. We’d finished the initiative in Europe and were about to launch here in the U.S. when the FBI confiscated all our equipment.
Finally, we were a preparing project on germ warfare and the theater of the absurd. We were planning to recreate some of the germ warfare experiments that were done in the ’50s (which were so insane that they could only have been paid for with tax dollars). We had two strains of completely harmless bacteria that simulated the behavior of actual infectious diseases — plague and anthrax. To accompany these performances, we were in the middle of a manuscript on the militarization of civilian health agencies in the U.S. by the Bush administration.
Everything described was confiscated. We had to start from scratch on the project and the book. Happily, we did eventually do the experiments, and published the book — Marching Plague: Germ Warfare and Global Public Health.
RU: Would you say that originally, they authentically suspected they had found some sort of bioterror weapon, and once they realized they hadn’t, they found other reasons to remain hostile?
SK: What I think they thought was that they had a situation, along with a vulnerable patsy, out of which they could manufacture a terrorism case. After all, the rewards that were heaped on the agents, prosecutors, and institutions that brought home the so-called “Lackawana Six sleeper cell” case — another railroad job — were witnessed by others in these agencies and noted. This made it too lucrative to pass up turning anything they could into “terrorism”.
They also had plenty of other reasons to be — and remain — hostile.
Strange Culture will play on Friday October 12th at noon and 7:15 pm at the Waterfront Theater in Burlington.