Wonder if you guys can help...I'm looking for a photo that was posted a couple of days

[CTyankee]

ago of a man firing an automatic rifle with what appears to be the emptied shells flying around his head.

I am NOT arguing the gun issue here. I'd like the image because I'm doing an art project on the photographic image in terms of Walter Benjamin's thesis on "the optical unconscious" and "profane illumination" and with what art critic Rosalind Krauss calls "the object isolated in the beam of desire" dealing with the machine fantasies of the avant garde merging in with a political utopian project...and the poetics of technology back in the 1920s in the Soviet and in Germany's Weimar. I think this photo holds significance for my project.

This is about how this image and others are mediated, viewed and absorbed in a commodity culture from the perspective of "ways to see" photographic art. My art project itself will not be a "taking sides" of the political conflict, just the reality of that argument in terms of our contemporary society.

Thank you for any help you can provide.

[petronius]

1. I don't remember that, but there were some pictures recently of shock waves:

http://www.phschool.com.nyud.net:8090/science/science_news/articles/images/revealing_covert_actions_02.jpg

Is that what you meant?

Or was it more like this:

http://www.life.com/image/50695319

[CTyankee]

6. The second image is stunning, but unfortunately, they won't let me save it.

My project will ask "what is the nexus between the image and our lives?" and also "what are the artistic properties of this image in view of contemporary culture?"

Still asking questions but haven't landed on one overarching one yet...

Thank you!

[Control-Z]

8. You could make a screen shot of it.

It may not have the quality you would need for an art project, though.

[CTyankee]

10. Sorry, but I don't know how to do that...could you tell me?

I could also ask Life for permission to use it...

[petronius]

16. Open the window that contains the image, and press CTRL-ALT-Prnt Scrn

all at the same time.

Go to a Word document (or Powerpoint, or Paint, or Photoshop) and press CTRL-V (paste).

Depending on what program you paste it into, you'll be able to do various editing tasks, like cropping off the unwanted parts.

Of course, if you plan to do something public, asking permission is a good idea...

[Katya Mullethov]

2. Is this the guy ?

[CTyankee]

7. that is interesting...but the one I seek has been found and it's not a rifle

it's a rocket launcher of some sort. I confused it with a gun image but remember the shells flying around in the air, very dramatic and immediate in its impact...

Thank you!

[formercia]

3. That was in a post about a launcher found in a dumpster.

Have not found it yet. It was in one of the replies.

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. Reply #6 in this post, perhaps?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x240802#240820

[CTyankee]

5. Yes, that's the one. Thank you.

I've just started my collection. this helps.

I'm studying art of the avant gardes and have been struck by the dialectic between the artist and his/her political miiieu in the 2 decades after WWI and before WW2. It is fascinating. The shaping of public consciousness, the "intervention" of their art into the everyday lives of the people, in the face of or in the outright cause of a political movement and how the movement differed in two different countries (Russia and Germany)...an intriguing study. There is no reason we can't do that today...but I'll have more later as I go thru more images...

[one-eyed fat man]

9. The launcher is disposable.

The launcher serves as a storage and shipping container for the rocket as well. It is not re-loadable, the military routinely sells fired ones as scrap in the US.

The brass in the picture looks like someone is firing an M240 machine gun from the roof or balcony above the soldiers in the picture. The M13 links are clearly evident among the brass indicating a belt fed gun.

Those refering to it as a MISSILE launcher are also incorrect. Missiles have a guidance system or some way of steering them to the target while in flight. A ROCKET has no guidance and, like a bullet, aiming the launcher before pulling the trigger is the only way of directing it.

Except in Carolyn McCarthy's mind there are no heat seeking bullets. Nor are there heat seeking rockets. Heat-seeking missiles have been around since the '50's.

[CTyankee]

11. That is very interesting! It actually ADDS to the value of the image!

That is great input. It provides milieu to this image.

I don't know if you have ever studied the art of the avant gardes, with respect to the technological innovations of the 1920's and 30s vis a vis their political milieu, but it is quite fascinating. The Soviet artists had a very difficult go of it as did the Weimar artists of course. Soviet Constructivism gave way to a return to the old form of heroic portraits of generals and workers, a throwback to the past, which the avant gardes were trying to overthrow in order to present a new vision of modernity. We know what happened with the rise of National Socialism in Germany...modern art had a bad "go" there leading up to WW2...

Would you mind commenting on my comments? I would appreciate hearing from anyone on this forum who would like to make suggestions in view of my statement of the art question. Again, this is NOT a question of the value of either side of the argument here on guns, it is a question of presenting the image in context of contemporary life here in the U.S.

[AtheistCrusader]

12. It appears to be from Iraq.

It has no relation to contemporary life in the US, beyond someone's son or daughter, overseas, fighting to survive on the political whims of a few men in Washington DC.

[CTyankee]

17. That is an interesting commentary on its own. What do these images mean in ourlives?

This photo does have relation to our political situation in the U.S. The question of art would be: what is the relevance of this photo to the lives of most Americans? Again, please understand this is an ART project, not one of political persuasion. I am studying the photography of TODAY in order to get a picture of our society today.

Your narrative is imporant, however. It is needed to add to the art of presenting the image. It "fills in" the story.

The point here is that the "leaving out" of the contemporary situation of having a warrier class on one end of society and another society at the other end produces a dynamic in our art which tries to focus the two. This is the problem. How, in the modern day, does art relate to our lives?

This question is not new. It has been asked before. We can ask it again....

[one-eyed fat man]

21. That is more of a problem than you realize.

Never before in the history of this country have we had a "warrior class." The current strength of the Unites States Army is just under half a million soldiers. In 1969 we had 20% more soldiers in Viet Nam alone!

The All-Volunteer Force is often “out of sight and out of mind” for many Americans. It is not a joke to say the Army is at war, America is at Wal-mart. Unless someone has family in uniform, or has worn the uniform themselves they know nothing of Iraq, Afghanistan, what battles are being fought or who is fighting them. There are roughly 25 million veterans still living in the United States and their median age is 56.

The gulf between the soldier and civilian has never been wider and it has become a topic of discussion in the military. Many in the military worry about the dangers that can arise from being too divorced from those we are supposed to protect.

During world war two the Ivy League schools produced our heroes. Their graduates went into the OSS, the Air Corps, the submarine service, PT boats. The dangerous jobs. Their research facilities help produce the technological advances needed to win the war. Now military recruiters are banned from campus. Is there a better way for these bastions of liberalism to ensure that only conservatives join the Army?

Small wonder there is animosity for the 92% who have never served. Some would prefer an entire nation to be trained in warfare, as is done in Switzerland, rather than have professional armies made up of nation's poor and disadvantaged.

http://puntocracy.blogspot.com/2010/10/warrior-class.html

http://kerplunkjournal.blogspot.com/2010/08/why-america-needs-draft_09.html

http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=289

[petronius]

22. When we were in Boston last month I saw an article that, with the end of DADT,

Harvard had announced a willingness (desire?) to bring ROTC back to campus. (Currently, the few interested students go to MIT to train.) They had a bit of a Catch-22 - they need enough students to make a program viable, and it's hard to get students without a program - and there was some question of whether it was just lip service or whether they actually would support a program with facilities and so on, but it seemed promising...

[one-eyed fat man]

23. It does prove an interesting quandary

If those who fancy themselves as liberal progressives continue to view themselves as "too good" to waste themselves in military service they should not be surprised if no one in the military shares their point of view. With a population largely apathetic to the role of the military, a standing Army of professionals physically and politically isolated from the people can can make military adventurism by a government easier.

[CTyankee]

24. There is more to this, actually. My son in law is a political consultant with a

specialty in focus groups. He is currently working on a project with the USMC, which is trying to increase diversity in its ranks. It realizes, probably, that drawing from one class, with a large contingent in the South, is not a good way to go. My SIL has travelled far and wide to Marine bases in this country and abroad. Fascinating project...

[one-eyed fat man]

25. The military is more concerned than civilians

Few outside the military are aware of the discussions that the military is having it its professional journals on the population the military represents. The assumption that it is a microcosm of the population at large is to disregard the actual makeup of the force and to ignore the differences in motivation soldiers have for joining. There is a completely different ethos from those who see themselves as warriors serving their country and those who see it as a steady job.

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA402652

Combat arms soldiers, the ones who actually go into harms way are, contrary to popular misconception, NOT poor urban blacks. (It was not even true during Viet Nam.) Despite the fact that blacks are 32% of the current enlisted force they are clustered in service and service support career fields. This is NOT due to some institutional prejudice, since the inception of the volunteer force all recruits pick their career fields upon enlistment.

http://www.jointcenter.org/index.php/content/download/927/6039/file/Bearing%20theBurden%20of%20the%20Iraq%20War%20.pdf

[benEzra]

13. I'd be interested in seeing your collection at some point, if you can do a pic thread.

I'd be particularly interested in seeing the Soviet art. I have an interest in Russian/Soviet history, but know very little about 20th-century Russian/Soviet art, except for the motivational posters associated with their fight for national survival during the Great Patriotic War.

As to the relevance of that particular image to contemporary life here in the U.S., I suppose it would most relate to the ways in which we're all collectively bound up in this post-9/11 Iraq/Afghanistan "endless war" experiment, which is but one facet of the whole post-9/11 Security State. The weapons in the pic don't really have anything to do with civilian life, but the war itself sure does.

[CTyankee]

18. Yes, it does. And civilian life is the whole project with art, isn't it?

The point is, in a way, and looking historically, is that the "apparatus" of the machine (camera) became the art form at one point in the 1920s. The point of contention became between the art and the political aims. For a while in Soviet constructivism the art was enough, but things changed and the whole idea got changed and artists were confronted with a question: address the problem of art in the service of idiology or art that independently advanced the ideals of socialism and even collectism but without state sanction and with considerable latitude for creativity. A bloody crossroad ensued.

Today's situation calls for different voices in different rooms.
But the questions are the same, which is the basis of my study...

[GreenStormCloud]

14. A bit more technical info on the subject.

Look closely and you will see both expended brass and small bits of other stuff. That other stuff is metallic links that hold the cartridges in a continous belt until the cartridge is chambered for firing. Then the link drops away. So the gun that is doing the firing is a belt-fed weapon, a maching gun of some type. From the sheer number of expended brass in the air the machine gun has an extremely fast firing rate. That suggests that the gun is a motorized gatling gun, called a mini-gun.



Here is a video of one in action. The first couple of guns are regular machine guns, then the mini-gun starts in. Notice that the mini-gun does not make a Rat-tat-tat sound as in Hollywood movies but instead the sound is a very loud buzz. Usually they eject the brass and links straight down. I have no idea why the one in you picture would be on its side.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/182858/mini_gun/

[CTyankee]

19. the sound of the firing is extremely interesting. It means that my project must include

sound as well as the visual. And that's the point.

BUT, is the sound audible to most people viewing your post? If so, yes, it has an impact and thus, an "intervention" into their lives, does it not?...

[one-eyed fat man]

15. Some of that art is still there.

The former Armed Forces Recreation Center at Lake Chiemsee was full of the heroic art of socialism, particulalry the murals in the dining room. (Nazi is an acronym for "National Socialist" and much of the Nazi social programs like anti tobacco, animal rights, free health care are overshadowed by their solution as to who deserved to benefit from the States social consciousness.)



Generations of soldiers stayed there on vacations in the Hotel built as the first rest area on the first autobahn. Many, if most, unaware of the history of the place or the significance of the public art. Reportedly, much of the art was looted after US Forces abandoned the facilities in 2003.

http://travel.webshots.com/album/562520018BJFuwK

Similar art was in the old General Walker Hotel in Berchtesgaden. Much of the Obersalzberg which was like a Nazi Camp David. Homes of the party elites were used for the recreation of generations of soldiers and their families, the "spoils of war." The General Walker was the "Platterhof" and when US Forces scaled back their presence and went to consolidate the recreational facilities the German government tried to get them to keep the old Nazi buildings to avoid them going on the open market.

Much more from that period and it's remains. Any soldier who served in Germany from WW2 to the present will know many of these places if not all the history.

[CTyankee]

20. I am getting an "address is invalid" when I click on your link...so you should know that...

Art in the service of ideology presents its own problems. If the artist has been influenced by the avant gardes in, say, cubism and the government says "No" because it doesn't "fit" the ideology, then what does the artist do? He/she either "gives in" and relinquishes their artistic vision or they "go over" to that side to insure their survival.

this is the historic fight in many ways and in many times. Don't you agree?

[one-eyed fat man]

26. Link works in my browser.

Here is an alternative site with pictures from the period as well as current views of the Rasthaus at Chiemsee.

http://www.thirdreichruins.com/chiemsee.htm

A story from the "Stars and Stripes" in 2003 reporting the closing of the AFRC at Chiemsee.

http://www.stripes.com/news/afrc-resort-at-chiemsee-closes-its-doors-1.11018