Friday, July 13, 2007

Bamiyan Buddhas go laser

In a tragic move on many levels, the Taliban in 2001 bombed 3 enormous Buddha statues out of the cliffs of Bamiyan. This, as expected, spurred international outrage. Now an artist named Yamagata looks like he's gotten the job of a replacement piece for this region, a projection of 4 Buddha figures in bright laser lights on these same cliffs. A few interesting twists to this project, the area is going to be provided some electricity from the project (over 1/2 of the windmills dedicated to charging the project will create electricity for the local area); and the artist claims no religious or political motivation for his work, purely artistic.

I don't have much to say about this strange project other than I'm glad it's green-powered and provides social services as well as "art." The whole event just seems surreal to me, from the initial bombing to the replacement with an "apolitical, areligious" art piece. Weird weird weird.

1 comment:

Catherine Just said...

It doesn't fit for me - the laser thing. It jsut doesn't feel like it works there in that place. It is too modern. Feels like a different kind of bombing in a way. Or like an infiltration from a different kind of enemy. generation Y or something.