weeks before the war there was a rally to prepare troops – and us - for war, performed
to a soundtrack of ‘We will rock you.’
Most of the time the presentation and performance of war was slick and fast,
moving from location to location with great speed and fluidity: the media presentation
was as much a celebration of our technological ingenuity as the efficiency and agility
of the networked war machine was. Like watching The Hulk or Terminator 3 that
summer, we could sense the power of the latest advances in networked war,
recognizing that this overcoming of the mortal body/state was necessary if we are to
remain secure. In ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Production’ Walter
Benjamin cites a quotation from the Italian futurists on the aesthetics of war made
possible by technological transformation:
War is beautiful because it establishes man’s dominion over the subjugated
machinery by means of gas masks, terrifying megaphones, flame throwers, and
small tanks. War is beautiful because it initiates the dreamt-of metallization of
the human body. War is beautiful because it enriches a flowering meadow with
the fiery orchids of machine guns. War is beautiful because it combines the
gunfire, the cannonades, the cease-fire, the scents, and the stench of putrefaction
into a symphony. War is beautiful because it creates new architecture, like that
of the big tanks, the geometrical formation flights, the smoke spirals from
burning villages, and many others…
Articulated through a variety of new technologies and medias, war becomes
beautiful in the current state of emergency: the aesthetic pleasure, however, is not a
result of our self alienation causing us to celebrate our destruction. Rather, the
aesthetic pleasure comes from an immediate spectacle of (bio)power and security
promising to deliver us from the terror of uncertainty.
As Jean Baudrillard observes in a discussion of war and the media, forgetting
is ‘built into the event itself in the profusion of information and details, just as
obsolescence is built into the object in the profusion of useless accessories.’
In the first few days of the war the speed of events cancelled out the impact of
various incidents (such as deaths resulting from ‘friendly fire’) and the impression
was of the unrelenting speed of the war, the network functioning with great
efficiency, a Hollywood fantasy with real people, a video game we could watch from
24
Baudrillard,
19
Convention