In the Beginning Was the Image, before the Beginning Was the Avant-Garde ...

Figure 1.

Terrorism Considered as One of the Fine Arts, 2009

Figure 2.

Terrorism Considered as One of the Fine Arts, 2009

Figure 3.

Terrorism Considered as One of the Fine Arts, 2009

Figure 4.

Terrorism Considered as One of the Fine Arts, 2009

Figure 5.

Terrorism Considered as One of the Fine Arts, 2009

Figure 6.

Terrorism Considered as One of the Fine Arts, 2009

Figure 7.

Terrorism Considered as One of the Fine Arts, 2009

Figure 8.

Terrorism Considered as One of the Fine Arts, 2009

Whitehead wrote this essay as a preface for La Cinéma Critique (Paris: Sorbonne, 2010), a collection of essays edited by Nicole Brenez and Bidhan Jacobs. It was originally composed in 2006, and gives an indication of Whitehead discussing and developing ideas that would later emerge in the film Terrorism Considered as One of the Fine Arts. This is its first publication in English.

By virtue of its position—avant, in a montage of texts—should the preface not aspire to be an artifice worthy of being dubbed avant-garde (by the voice of the reader)? A threat rather than an invitation, an attempt to soften up an entrenched enemy, a plan for the murder of the watchmen—avant-garde, garder, regarder ... where to begin?

PREFACE: Preface for a Proposal for an Avant-Garde film.

Title: "A GIRL, a TREE, the FALL."

Titles: Handwritten (not in copperplate style), white on black.

Dedication: To Jean-Lucifer Godard and Guillaume Apollinaire.

Epigraph: Handwritten in smudged crimson blood-spattered red ink over black-and-white "still" from the film Le Petit Soldat: "Il faut imaginer les victimes heureuse" [It is necessary to imagine the victims happy]. Sound track over titles: "Blonde" ... by Guesh Patti.

Image 1

The liminal of the forest, a huge pine tree, reverse-silhouetted in light, towering above the canopy, the edge of darkness below. A mythic image. Posed on the threshold between order and adventure. On a crucifix of bleached tree boughs, one painted in lush gold leaf, rests an eagle's nest; as neatly woven as a Pathan girl's veil. A male voice intones: "Is this the tree of life, or tree of death?"

Music: "Electronic Wind," from the sound track of the film Fire in the Water.

Image 2

A lovely young girl, long blond hair (Russian peasant style), in jeans and arctic coat, with climbing spikes on her boots and a rope around her waist and the tree, starts her climb from the base of the tree ... dissolve ... she arrives at the huge nest. Taking out a multicoloured rope from her rucksack, she ties it to the golden bough and flings it into space, where it falls uncoiling in slow motion like a molecule of DNA, creating life.

Music: Pink Floyd, "Shine on You Crazy Diamond," from Wish You Were Here.

Image 3

Several pairs of hands tying planks of wood, steel hammers, bags of nails, ropes, buckets, cartons of food, plastic containers of water; fastening them to the rope before it is hauled above by the girl.

Music: Miles Davis, "Ascenseur pour l' échafaud."

Image 4

A white-headed eagle circling in the sky above the nest.

Music: Stockhausen, "Light."

Image 5

A panoramic view from the nest. The margin of the arctic, the once tree-clad tundra now an industrial wasteland; scattered as far as the eye can see [with] the splintered remains of a million felled trees. Huts. Machines. Diggers. TV news cameramen.

Music: Sibelius: "Finlandia."

Image 6

The tree house is complete. Under her makeshift roof, the girl sleeps. At peace with herself.

Music: Kraftwerk: "Trans-Europe Express."

Images 7-70

(As we can...