Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Beyond the Beyond: Strange Culture


The story of Steve Kurtz is one that I have been following for a few years now. He was accused by U.S. federal prosecutors in an incredibly long and drawn out witch hunt of being a bio-terrorist, a suspected murderer, and eventually a pernicious mail fraud mastermind, beginning when paramedics found suspicious lab materials in his house. He had called them because his wife had just died of a heart attack. The lab materials were from an art project the professor was making about genetically modified food.

Someone has produced a documentary about the ordeal and I would very much like to see it.

Link to film blurb

"Art becomes the next suspect in America's 9/11 paranoia"
from the Guardian in 2004 when the story first came out.

Trackback to my confused muttering in 2005 and link to a case summary as it went to trial.

Guardian update from last week regarding the dismissal of the case.
`As Nature magazine put it: "It seems that government lawyers are singling Kurtz out as a warning to the broader artistic community".'

2 comments:

Pete said...

I can't decide if the boneheaded behaviour of the government is caused by anti-intellectualism or the trifling bureaucratic abyss.

Mr. Alex said...

Both?