Kain Karawahn
this is an emergency/NOTFALL
a videocamera is filming its own death while it gets burned
Burned Camera + Video
Burned Camera Video-Stills
Some aspects
of human behaviour
in relation
to brandold media art
Fire became the first medium human beings ever meditated on. Here is a short introduction about basic fire knowledge.
Fire is not an element.
Fire is a thermodynamic balance.
Fire means the beginning and the ending of the universe.
The sun is a huge fireball. Its rays are necessary conditions for all life on earth.
Inside the earth there is fire activity. Magma.
On earth every being burns food and oxygen to keep up its fundamental body functions.
Human culture has created visual and verbal fire expressions, which became international symbols for the so called "Inner Fire": the burning back, the burning heart, the burning head ... and so on.
All matter is inflammable. Whenever possible, matter prefers an inflammable transformation - liberating itself from too much energy, becoming steadier. While burning, this liberation of energy produces chemical compounds, which again generate so much energy, that rays of light and warmth are emitted.
According to science the origin of human species was in Africa. These were the best conditions to develop prehuman biological attitudes, because there was warmth the entire year. Our species still loves and needs warmth, because our genetic conditions are not adequate to survive biologically in colder regions of this planet.
The discovery of starting a fire by twirling two wooden sticks was the first act of culture. This ability split us totally from being a savage and/or an animal. It was the beginning of civilization. It was a selfmade cultural protection (shelter). It allowed our ancestors to settle down in colder environments. They started to spread out worldwide, to become the strongest species on earth and to influence nature. The inventions of fire uses were always the crucial center for all important progresses of mankind. Houses were built around fireplaces. Factories were built around fireplaces. Cars were built around fireplaces. To be in possesion of fire meant to be in possesion of power. Good fire meant strong power. The nation with the best fire weapons leads the world.
Please imagine the following situation in a prehistoric cave. A family is sitting around a fireplace cooking food. After they have eaten and drunken, they still have light and warmth, which leads the man to stay awake longer. He is feeling comfortable. He is staring in the fires dynamic development of flames. After a while he starts to think about, why he specially is able to make fire. Then he gets bored with thoughts like this, he feels for more action and so he starts to paint with sooted sticks on the cave walls. And then he gets tired and goes to sleep. Meanwhile in another space, in a farm house, another person is sitting in front of another fireplace cooking food. After the person has also eaten and drunken he is also staring in the fire. After a while he is also starting to think about, why specially he is able to make fire. He also gets bored with thoughts like this, he wants more action. So he starts to create a fire weapon. When he is finished he takes a burning branch out of the fire. It leads him through the dark forest to the cave of his neighbour. In there he shoots down the sleeping man and the sleeping childrens. He takes with him the other man's woman, food and drinks. On the way back to his house, he suddenly stumbles and looses control of his torch. It falls down, a bush catches fire, a tree follows, the forest, other forests, all forests. And with all the forests, all the creatures, animals and human beings are burned to death. Until today scientist still don't know, if anyone had survived this prehistoric fire tragedy. It became known as the Great Fire and it happened before the Great Flood.
Almost 150 years ago two inventions started to spread out all over the world. The matchstick and the profession of being a firefighter.
The discovery of the matchstick was the beginning of an unnoticed social revolution. From then on everybody could financially afford making a fire just by simply striking a match. Fire for everybody means power for everybody. Little power can grow very fast to big power, because one matchstick is enough to set the world on fire.
Simultaneously a small minority of the homo sapiens species founded the first public and professional fire department, which was actually in Berlin and actually at the same time when scientist has recombined the prehistoric fire tragedy.
It is public knowledge that regularly the job of a firefighter starts, when a fire has broken out somewhere before. It looks like the professional firefighter is waiting for re - action, waiting for arson or for materialbased defunctional accident.
But educated as a professional firefighter means more. You have learned to solve a problem without using the destructive power of fire, without burning someone to death or someone's house to ash. You have experienced, how hot, how fast and how dangerous and deadly an uncontrolled fire can develop, how long and how deep the quick loss of property and of people through fire can make relatives and friends very sad. Firefighting starts before a fire breaks out.
Concerning the way of making fire I classify two human fire types fundamentally.
The matchstick method is defined so: Using fire means being a human being.
The method of twirling two wooden sticks or other selfmade methods is defined so: Creating fire means being an artist.
Further I classify three human fire characters. According to their behaviour with fire there are firecontroller, firedecontroller, fireextinguisher.
Controlling fire means having social attitudes and being focused on civilized developments.
Decontrolling fire means having asocial attitudes and being focused on animalistic developments.
Extinguishing fire means having social attitudes and being focused on cultural developments.
The firedecontrollers have a big lead in the world.
When someone's house is on fire we call the firefighters. They show up immediately. Is firefighting not a high cultural performance? When there is a conflagration spectators come together. All of them interrupt their daily ongoing immediately, just to watch the fire and the firefighting. It is part of the human condition, that everybody, who is not personally involved in the conflagration, likes to watch burning buildings. The best art performance we all would like to witness is the burning of an opera house. The firefighters are trying in front of everybody, to protect the community against losses of materials and people. They risk their life. Total body heat, high creative decisions and social group discipline are demanded in such a moment of truth, where the end is always open. Both the firefighters and the spectators are involved in a cultural spectacle, where all emotions are on fire too. Actually they are practicing culture to protect culture. It is a real piece of art, a high cultural performance, Here the firefighters are the true artists. They get the top news in all medias. Unfortunately not in the art news, where I think their work belonges. Firefighting is true culture. Firefighters should apply for money from city's cultural departments, to invent better equipment for firefighting, fire prevention and fire education for everybody.
It is very important for everybody to learn how to use fire safety according to the freedom of your neighbours, to be educated and tested to control the burning of all fires, specially your own creations of fire uses. You have to learn to solve problems in a sociable way instead of using a gun, a tank, a rocket, a nuclear bomb and burning everything out. Why do we kill people with all these fire weapons instead of coming together by a campfire? Some North American Indians used to perform the following ritual to solve a problem. They sat together around a campfire. Whoever had anything to complain about should tell it to the fire. The wise agreement is that the solution has to be found before the fire burned out.
Today fire as a medium has become a banality. Since the urbanization of people in the western world human beings see fire as an oldfashioned medium, still good enough to ignite cigarettes and/or to entertain in print and tv-medias. The open fire became forbidden in public enviroments. New urban buildings don't have fireplaces at all. Urbanizers prefer to pay attention to the so called new medias. We all know, that a burning is a sign of reality, a moment of truth. As a human being you have an inbred fascination of fire. You are conditioned to react to fire immediately, but you have to know how otherwise you might die.
Fire in the material world means there is reality. To be alive means to be burning. How can there be any reality in the virtual world, because there is no real fire? How do fires look in the virtual world? How can a great fire in the internet be brought under control? As we know in the material world arson can be very dangerous and it is so far almost impossible to eliminate it. Are we really able to prohibit virtual arson?
As a preliminary result of all my fire and human being relation research I'm convinced that the complex of the ambivalence of the old medium fire is not nearly discovered and discussed by all of us. There is a lot to learn about fire itself and the history and presence of human behaviour with fire, which might help us to get along better with other medias, especially the new ones.
It is nature to make fire.
It is culture to extinguish fire.
Mankind need both.
© Kain Karawahn - 1996 web