At Jazzit on Saturday there were two guys doing visuals for the party. One was a friend of Bill’s, the other was a friend of J Montonn’s. During one of Katsue’s songs, I forget which one, J’s friend played his pre-prepared visuals. They included images of the 9/11 attacks, of the tsunamis in Sri Lanka and Phuket, of the Challenger space shuttle, and of the Tiananmen Square protests in which a student blocked the path a number of tanks.

These were all very provocative images but were they suitable for a pop concert? The visuals opened with a recording of the first plane flying into one of the Twin Towers. I saw it and was surprised, and then a little shocked. Bill pointed it out to me and he was also shocked. Nobody else seemed to mind, which made me think that perhaps I was overreacting. It was just an image that we had all seen hundreds of times before. It’s a taboo, I guess, and as such it borders on the line of bad taste… or is it art?

I personally didn’t bat an eyelid when Princess Diana died, but I am certain that if someone made a video for a pop concert of the footage of the fateful crash (if there even is any) people would be outraged. It seems that 9/11 has crossed firmly over into popular culture and the initial shock of the images has been lost. We treat the whole thing as we treat any other image in pop culture; it loses its humanity and realism. It’s not even a symbol of the real. I am certain that Hollywood has played a large part in this transition.

The visuals didn’t fit the song and I didn’t think they were artistic in the slightest. When the images moved onto the tsunami in Phuket I felt angry. Why was he undermining these powerful moments for the sake of a two-piece electronic band? Don’t get me wrong, the music was great, but the visuals were not suited.

The Tiananmen Square protests gave the world what I consider to be the greatest single image of the twentieth century. The most famous photo of the incident was taken by Jeff Widener. It showed an unknown man with two bags standing in front of a procession of tanks.

We don’t know who he was, where he was from, or what his story was. But he was there, doing this amazing thing that the entire world saw. I remember seeing it when I was younger and being transfixed with how beautiful an image it was. I didn’t know anything about what it meant (I was only seven) but it struck me and left a lasting impression. Seeing this image at Jazzit on Saturday totally undermined all meaning it contained for me. Using these images to evoke emotion in anyone was cheap.

Perhaps I’m just cynical, but it saddened me a little to see such powerful images being misused. The irony was that our flyer for the event had a picture of the Challenger space shuttle on it. I didn’t design the flyer and at first I didn’t even know what it was (I thought it was just smoke), but then someone pointed it out to me.

Techno’ tags: Challenger Space Shuttle, September 11 Attacks, World Trade Center, Thailand, Bangkok, Tiananmen Square protests

I finally finished reading George Owerll’s ‘Burmese Days’. It is a fantastic book, very funny and scathing in its narrative, and also rather depressing and melancholic throughout. I wanted to quote a small section from it, because it made me laugh so much. I think this must be the best introductory description of a character I have ever read. It was not even a character of any real significance:

Then a young man entered the lounge, unbuttoning a long raincoat as he came. He was a stout, rollicking, chuckle-headed youth of about twenty-five, with fat fresh cheeks, butter coloured hair, no forehead, and, as it turned out afterwards, a deafening laugh.

What a fantastic way with words Orwell has at times.

“Some people look at my pictures for a long time. I don’t know how to feel about this. They tell me that my pictures are too blurred and seem unfinished and lonely in appearance,” says Kornkrit Jianpinidnan, speaking about his photos. “For some people, my pictures are right, and for some of them, my pictures are wrong. When people see my work, I want them to make questions for me. I want them to ask themselves what is happening in that moment. They have to ask ‘why?’”

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