Political theorist and philosopher Simon Critchley has diagnosed a conflict between two forms of nihilism at the heart of the (post)modern age: ‘Passive nihilism’ is likened to the ‘European Buddhism’ first thematized by Nietzsche as the panacea of Christianity without heroism, more recently conceptualized by neo-Stalinist Slavoj Žižek in terms of the obscene and relentless superegoic injunction to “Enjoy yourself!” (yoga/pilates/tantric sex); ‘active nihilism’, however, is Macbeth’s nihilism - the desire for the destruction of the world, his defeat and his death (“and wish th’estate o’th’world were now undone”) – which finds its contemporary translation in what Baudrillard identified as the simulacra of spectacular terror, the apotheosis and impasse of which is to be found in the recent works of Al-Qaeda. Against this impasse of expression (the endless looping of spectacular terror), Tom Pounder, expanding on the End of Everything/MySpace/.GIF period 03-04, pitches these recent works – which anticipate Gilbert and George’s authorship of the 2005 London bombings with eerie prescience and meaningless depth. Providing a ‘third way’ – a route out of the nihilist schism identified by Critchley – these works should situate Pounder at the forefront of Anarcho-Toxic Terror Funk.

Referencing trends such as the Geek Crew’s ‘AIDS lol’ text-craze and the Four Words’ ‘Most Insulting’ fetish (the culmination of which was the unsurpassed ‘Brown Cunts Toddler’s Face’), in these works Pounder exposes the aporia at the heart of modern liberal democracy (thrown into question by Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe) between autonomy and heteronomy. ‘Armies – of Anything!’ in particular employs the corporeally affective qualities more often associated with Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke’s ‘Glaciation Trilogy’. Through sheer nausea (Final Fantasy/lurid green stick-man), the spectator is moved from passivity to activity. Amongst Pounder’s prime targets is, of course, Gary Jackson, CEO of US-based ‘private military contractors’ Blackwater, whose email subject heading “BUSH WINS FOUR MORE YEARS!! HOOYAH!!’ could serve as epigraph and epitaph to this fine collection of works.

 

 

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