-
There's this quote by activist and punk
rock musician Jello Biafra that I love.
-
He says, "Don't hate the media.
Be the media."
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I'm an artist.
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I like working with media and technology
because A, I'm familiar with them
-
and I like the power they hold.
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And B, I hate them and I'm terrified
of the power they hold.
-
(Laughter)
-
I remember watching, in 2003, an interview
between Fox News host Tony Snow
-
and then-US Defense Secretary,
Donald Rumsfeld.
-
They were talking
about the recent invasion of Iraq,
-
and Rumsfeld is asked the question,
-
"Well, we're hear about our body counts,
-
but we never hear about theirs, why?"
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And Rumsfeld's answer is,
-
"Well, we don't do body counts
on other people."
-
Right?
-
It's estimated that between 150,000
to one million Iraqis, civilians,
-
have died as a result
of the US-led invasion in 2003.
-
That number is in stark contrast with
the 4,486 US service members who died
-
during that same window of time.
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I wanted to do more than just bring
awareness to this terrifying number.
-
I wanted to create a monument
for the individual civilians
-
who died as a result of the invasion.
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Monuments to war,
such as Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial,
-
are often enormous in scale.
-
Very powerful and very one-sided.
-
I wanted my monument to live
in the world, and to circulate.
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I remember when I was a boy in school,
-
my teacher assigned us
this classic civics assignment
-
where you take a sheet of paper
and you write a member of your government.
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And we were told,
if we wrote a really good letter,
-
if we really thought about it,
-
we would get back more than just
a simple formed letter as a reply.
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This is my "Notepad."
-
What looks like an everyday,
yellow legal tablet of paper
-
is actually a monument
to the individual Iraqi civilians
-
that died as a result of the US invasion.
-
"Notepad" is an act of protest
and an act of commemoration
-
disguised as an everyday tablet of paper.
-
The lines of the paper, when magnified,
-
are revealed to be micro-printed text
-
that contains the details, the names,
the dates and locations
-
of individual Iraqi civilians that died.
-
So, for the last 5 years, I've been taking
pads of this paper, tons of this stuff,
-
and smuggling it
into the stationery supplies
-
of the United States
and the Coalition governments.
-
(Laughter)
-
(Applause)
-
I don't have to tell you guys this is not
the place to discuss how I did that.
-
(Laughter)
-
But also, I've been meeting one-on-one
with members and former members
-
of the so-called Coalition of the Willing,
who assisted in the invasion.
-
And so, whenever I can,
I meet with one of them,
-
and I share the project with them.
-
And last summer, I had the chance to meet
-
with former United States Attorney General
and Torture Memo author, Alberto Gonzales.
-
(Video) Matt Kenyon:
May I give this to you?
-
This is a special legal tablet.
-
It's actually part
of an ongoing art project.
-
Alberto Gonzalez:
This is a special legal pad?
-
MK: Yes. You won't believe me,
-
but it's in the collection of the Museum
of Modern Art; I'm an artist.
-
MK: And all of the lines
of the paper are actually --
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AG: Are they going to disappear?
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MK: No, they're micro-printed text
-
that contains the names
of individual Iraqi civilians
-
who have died since the invasion of Iraq.
-
AG: Yeah. OK.
-
AG: Thank you.
MK: Thank you.
-
(Laughter)
-
The way he says "thank you"
really creeps me out.
-
(Laughter)
-
OK, so I'd like each of you
to look under your chairs.
-
There's an envelope.
-
And please open it.
-
The paper you're holding in your hand
-
contains the details of Iraqi civilians
that died as result of the invasion.
-
I'd like you to use this paper
and write a member of government.
-
You can help to smuggle
this civilian body count
-
into government archives.
-
Because every letter
that's sent in to the government,
-
and this is all across
the world, of course --
-
every letter that is sent in
is archived, filed and recorded.
-
Together, we can put this in the mailboxes
and under the noses of people in power.
-
Everything that's sent in
-
eventually becomes part of the permanent
archive of our government,
-
our shared historical record.
-
Thank you.
-
(Applause)
-
Tom Rielly: So, tell me Matt,
-
how did this idea
come into your head, of "Notepad"?
-
Matt Kenyon: I'd just finished a project
-
that dealt with
the US Coalition side of the war
-
and it was a black armband that was called
the "Improvised Empathetic Device"
-
which accumulated, in real time,
-
the names, ranks,
cause of death and location
-
of US service members
who had died overseas,
-
and each time the Department of Defense
or CENTCOM released their data,
-
it would stab me in the arm.
-
And so, I became aware
that there was a spectacle
-
associated with our own people
who were dying overseas,
-
but a disproportionate
amount of casualties
-
were the civilian casualties.
-
TR: Thank you so much.
-
MK: Thank you.
-
(Applause)
Brian Greene
The headline for this talk has been updated.
The new headline is: A secret memorial for civilian casualties