Category: Collaboration Zones

Boris Artzybasheff's anthropomorphic illustrations are surreal and often bordering on the grotesque. But as I look at them I can't help but think that they're more accurate representations of contemporary reality than what most of us perceive as reality.

Modern citizens have become so alienated that we aren't even aware of the degree to which we've become alienated. Many of Artzybasheff's illustrations are weapons systems, like tanks and planes and artillery pieces, with human features. And actually this isn't too far fetched, because modern warfare essentially turns soldiers—and the citizens who send them into battle and support the war effort—into killing machines. Equally, our economic systems, in a very real sense, turns us into machines. We all know what it's like to feel like a hamster on a wheel that's spinning faster than we can keep up. The demands of work and commuting often don't take into account whether our duties are humanly possible. The demands of economic competition force us to become virtual machines in service of the greater economy.

In Japan, for example, the demands of education and the workplace have almost eliminated any semblance of a private life. But this is becoming true of all developed economies; and it's even more true of third world economies, where companies exist that are essentially a new form of slave labor. And the forces that drive us all are essentially impersonal; they pertain to profits and the bottom line. We all serve the numbers on bank ledgers! America is competing with Germany, Japan, and now China and India; and they're competing with us. But we're all actually competing with a single force: “efficiency.” And efficiency is a relentless master—a master that no single nation can gurantee it will always be able to satisfy. Any nation can fall out of favor with the grand master known as efficiency. Aand Artzybasheff's illustrations of humanoid industrial machines are a vivid representation of that reality as well.

So I submit that his illustrations show the true reality stripped of all pretense. They're more than symbolic and metaphorical: they remove the veil from our eyes and allow us to see things as they actually are! In fact we're more like Artzybasheff's machine-creatures than any of us wants to admit. And unless we citizens of the world reclaim our humanity and stop allowing impersonal economic forces to turn us all into machines, we'll get ground up in the gears of our machines.

It's too bad that Artzybasheff isn't still around. We could really use him to help us see the realies that we've taken so much for granted for so long that they've become invisible to us.

Artzybasheff's Human Weapons

Artzybasheff's Neurotica

Artzybasheff's Human Industrial Machines

Artzybasheff – Wikipedia

Beirut Bombing: Attacks Target Iranian Embassy, 23 Killed, 146 Injured: “An Act of War by Saudi Arabia Against Iran”

Two blasts near the Iranian embassy in Beirut killed at least 23 people, injuring 146 and causing havoc and a massive fire in the Lebanese capital. Six buildings were reportedly destroyed in the embassy compound.

 

The harrowing scene was primarily caused by 100lb (50kg) of explosives loaded into a car, according to AP. Security sources on the ground said there were two blasts – the first caused by a person on a motorbike carrying some 4.4lbs (2kg) of explosive, while the second was by a suicide bomber who tried to ram the compound with the car.

 

However, there are conflicting reports as to how the initial blast unfolded. Eyewitnesses claimed that a man was mounted on a motorbike, while a Lebanese official told Reuters that the man wearing an explosives belt was seen rushing towards the embassy’s outer wall before blowing himself up.

 

Witnesses at the scene reported that the explosions occurred within one or two minutes of each other.

 

Injured people and destroyed buildings were seen on very disturbing pictures circulated by Lebanese media in the immediate aftermath.

Witnesses speaking to Al Arabiya reported seeing smoke rising from the battered embassy compound, while footage from the bloody scene showed raging fires, with the death toll rising by the minute.

 

It is not clear who was behind the attack at this time, but the area where the blasts occurred is significant in two ways:  it is considered to be a stronghold for the Lebanese Shiite faction, Hezbollah. And secondly, it is a popular area and a home to many families of Iranian diplomats working in Lebanon.

 

The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon reacted promptly to the situation, saying that it was beyond any doubt that the embassy was the target of the attack and placing blame on a “Zionist entity.” He added that such attacks only “keep us strong and proves the righteousness of our stances.”  Minutes before it was reported that the Iranian cultural adviser for Lebanon was wounded in the blast, but shortly thereafter succumbed to his injuries.

 

Later in the day Al-Manar found out that the Yemeni ambassador was lightly injured in the blasts.

 

Iran’s foreign ministry subsequently added that the blast was the work of Israeli mercenaries. Syrian information minister Omran Zoabi to Al-Manar has come out with a similar opinion, saying that Israeli and Saudi intelligence are behind the explosions. Later in the afternoon Reuters reported that Al-Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam brigades have claimed responsibility for the double suicide bombing.

Read full article with several photographs.