This just showed up in the inbox. Adbusting might not be en vogue anymore but Tibet certainly still is so check it out as it’s quite good. Here’s what Samantha Simmonds and Jessica Fraser, the duo responsible, have to say.

We are two Canadian filmmakers who had the privilege of witnessing the March uprising in Dharamsala, India (where the Dalai Lama and Tibetan government in exile reside). For three weeks we documented the courage and perseverance of the Tibetan people and have created a two-minute un-commercial to support their efforts.

Our hope is that in the final month leading up to the Olympics – and after – we will inspire citizens around the world to ask their governments to intervene on behalf of the Tibetan people. We encourage President Hu Jintao to meet with the Dalai Lama and establish Tibetan cultural and religious autonomy while keeping Tibet as a part of China.

If you feel inspired after watching it you can go to takeuptherace.com for more information.

That’s fair. And to be honest, while there is something vaguely Escher-esque about Pirrie’s work, I was mostly talking out of my ass. The two artists have little in common.

Pirrie, a BC based visual artist, is currently working on and showing a project titled Risk Analysis. He describes it to me as being about “technology and the arc of human vulnerability; about how we assess risk both metaphorically and in our day to day undertakings.” He also says “Through strict composition and repetition, I am trying to formulate an idea of a conceptual moment in time, a static reminder of our own vulnerability.” That’s artist talk. Basically, it’s pictures of cars. Cars that are alternately smashed up and wrapped around trees.

Before you write him off as a pompous, academic spewer, keep in mind that I often tease artists about their verbose and oh-so-serious statements, and many don’t take it well, but Pirrie doesn’t seem to mind. He himself uses the phrase “intellectual wanking.” On one hand, he says he regularly struggles with the challenge of describing his own work and isn’t a fan of the sort of jargon-filled academic language you so often hear in the artistic community. On the other, he says, “art can and should be sometimes difficult… I don’t have a lot of time for people who are too lazy to really try and understand ideas.” Maybe I shouldn’t have said that thing about it being about smashed up cars.

Regardless, he’s not keen on intellectual wanking, which he blames on French post-conceptualists. Pirrie says, “Sometimes there is no other way to write or think about art.” Particularly since, he says, an artist is a “cultural commodity”. In other words, if an artist or a gallery is going to make a go of it, stuff has got to sell. And, let’s face it, if you’re buying art you’re also buying the idea of yourself as a person who collects art. That doesn’t always come cheap, so emphasizing seriousness can be important.

Pirrie is not one of those artists who seems to be suffering. He is well-known, which you’d think would be a bit of a relief, but he is surprisingly blasé about his own success. In fact, talking to him you’d think becoming an artist wasn’t such a big risk. “I can’t think of a better time to be an artist,” he says, because making a living is actually an attainable goal.

“Today’s contemporary art scene is like nothing ever seen before,” he explains. “Every city now in the western world has to have a major contemporary art institution. Curators must be found, and artists must be found to fill them up. Collectors are snapping up works by artists in their 30s for hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes even millions … This is what I mean as cultural commodity and what is at stake, and why the language of art is becoming so specialized.”

Speaking of specialized language, in our conversations about his work, Pirrie also says he’s interested in “using imagery that floats a tenuous divide between attraction and repulsion. Mortality, illness, geological breakdown, car crashes, all these ideas are in my head as objects of study.” It might sound novel, but in many ways, this isn’t an original idea. A lot of contemporary artists are currently working with the concept of beautifying the terrible. However, Pirrie’s art still feels original and you’re not likely to have seen anything quite like it before.

Born in Montreal, but raised in North Vancouver, Pirrie spent his university years back in Quebec, and had short stints in Paris and Toronto before settling back on the West Coast where he says he’s happy. “Vancouver is very much my city,” he explains. “It’s a quality of life thing … I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”

Regardless of where you live, you can get a taste of his art through the Douglas Udell Gallery that displays and sells his work in Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary; on his personal website and at Dadabase in Vancouver, where his t-shirts are distributed. He has also shown work in Toronto, Seattle, and Turin, Italy, among other places.

-Jen Selk
Jen Selk’s Website

Have you received any threats?
There were a handful of threats made to me—a few of them were death threats to me and I think Karen, the festival director [at the Toronto International Film Festival] got one too. But again, that initial knee jerk reaction came at a time when people didn’t know anything about the film other than it portrayed the assassination of George Bush. People imagined it would be this liberal fantasy, some sort of wet dream.

“Liberal porn” is the term I’ve seen used.
Right, that it was this sort of bloodletting where people would be dancing up and down the aisles in great delight at seeing President Bush being shot. Anyone who goes to the cinema with the sole expectation of having this great cathartic moment in seeing President Bush being shot will be disappointed. It’s not what you think. You have to judge the film for yourself.

One person in particular who blasted you was Hillary Clinton. She said you’re despicable and you make her sick. She could be the future leader of the free world. That’s pretty heavy.
Well I think it’s terrifying. How can she say a film she has not seen is despicable? That doesn’t bode very well. On that basis, she could invade a country without looking at the intelligence dossier. It’s not very reassuring.

What has the right’s reaction been?
t’s difficult to say… In America, I don’t think I have a lot of fans on the Rush Limbaugh show. There are plenty of people who were very quick to condemn the film. Of course, there are some people for whom just the idea is too much. But I think they are the minority. I think most people will want to have a look beyond the controversy and have a look at what this film really is. The film, I hope, poses some serious questions on how the war on terror has been prosecuted in the last five years. It poses some really serious questions about the polarizing effect of the invasion of Iraq. These are all things we need to be thinking about and we have good reason to be alarmed by some of things that have happened.

Do you enjoy the stir you’ve created?
I enjoy the fact that people are talking about the film. This was not the purpose of making a film about the assassination of Bush as a starting point. It was not about taking the assassination as a form of entertainment. The intention of the film, I hope, is to pose some serious questions about the climate of fear we live in. There’s the political, social and counter-cultural consequences of this fear we all live in. 9/11 obviously changed the world in so many ways. It has meant that there is a component of fear in the way so many things are handled that just wasn’t there before 9/11. I do think that these are extraordinary times that we live in and I think they’re noteworthy. I guess, for America, there has never been a time like it. In Europe in the late 60s and early 70s, terrorism was very much on everyone’s agenda. Whether it was Northern Ireland or Algerian terrorism in France. For America, this is a unique time.

So in 2007 the war in Iraq is still going on and there’s still an ongoing nuclear threat from North Korea. I guess these problems aren’t getting solved any time soon?
I think you’re right. It’s pretty hard to imagine Iraq turning into a garden of Eden in the next year. If only. One of the problems with making a film that is set in the near future is you’re offering hostages to fortune in the sense that world events could take a completely different turn to the one you’re anticipating. One of things that was reassuring was on the day the film first came out in the UK North Korea announced it had successfully completed its first nuclear test. There was President Bush making very similar statements to the ones he makes in the film which is, of course, a speech from 2003. So we’re getting some things right.

At any point while you were making this movie did you have any ethical dilemmas?
I think the way the assassination was portrayed… it was very important to get that right. It was very important that it was incontrovertibly Bush who was shot. But at the same time, it was very important that it didn’t feel like we were dwelling on the assassination. Of course, you have to think about the ethics of a) portraying the assassination itself and b) putting President Bush’s face on another actor. So yeah, an awful lot of thought went into pretty much every element. One of the things, from an ethical point of view, that I think makes the film very easy to defend is, although it’s fiction, pretty much every twist and turn in the narrative is inspired by true story… it’s a patchwork of little anecdotes from the war on terror.

The eulogy that Dick Cheney delivers for Bush in the film was actually footage of Cheney delivering a eulogy at Reagan’s funeral. Is that in poor taste? Like there’s the ethics behind the premise and then there’s also the ethics in how you pull that off.
First of all, were President Bush to be assassinated, God forbid, the state funeral that’s described in the film is absolutely in character for the event that would take place. I think it’s appropriate. The remarks that Dick Cheney made at Ronald Reagan’s funeral are absolutely the kind of things Dick Cheney would say were the president to be assassinated; they are also things which he has separately said about President Bush anyways. That he’s a strong man of moral character, that he’s come along at a time when America most needed him, that he’s a simple man who trusts in God’s purposes. He’s said that word for word anyways. I think it’s entirely in character and I think it’s appropriate. I also think it was done sensitively.

So Bush is a public figure and that’s what makes this movie fair comment?
Yeah.

Well what about his friends and family? Is it fair to them?
Well it’s obviously going to be a sensitive subject for the Bush family. I appreciate that. I again, would not want to cause any offence or distress for the Bush family with this film. But he’s a public figure and the film is not a personal attack on him. I think it’s justified.

Do you think that because Bush being assassinated is easily imaginable is the reason why this movie has gotten under people’s skin so much? Say 9/11 never happened, Iraq never happened, Bush has a 60 percent approval rating and you make this movie. It probably wouldn’t be as offensive.
I personally do not think that it’s likely that there would be an attempt on President Bush’s life. I would think the Secret Service would concur in saying that it’s extremely unlikely that anyone would be successful in such an attempt. Were the President to have a 60 percent approval rating and were to have been no 9/11… actually not even that. Were the administration’s responses not to have invaded Iraq or try to connect 9/11 to Iraq, I wouldn’t have made this film and President Bush’s approval rating wouldn’t be where it is.

You seem like a pretty mild-mannered guy who isn’t all “Rah Rah Rah, I hate America and George Bush so …”
On the contrary

So you do hate America and George Bush?
No, no, no. I love America. I’m pretty passionate about America. There’s been a suggestion that it’s anti-American and unpatriotic to make this film. Obviously, patriotism doesn’t really apply because I’m not an American citizen. But I mean, the defining characteristic of America is that it is a democracy. Isn’t one of the most important facets of a democracy is that you should be able to criticize your elected leaders?

Well if it’s not America bashing, what is your intent behind the film?
I’ve been really alarmed by the way in which the war on terror has been prosecuted. The attempt to link 9/11 with Saddam Hussein and to use that as the initial pretext for the invasion of Iraq followed by the notion that Saddam Hussein was somehow posing a direct threat to America; those falsehoods have caused an extraordinary amount of pain and grief and loss of life. This provides an oblique take on that. Those are really serious issues. One of the extraordinary things is, even after that suggestion had been out there in the public arena, President Bush was re-elected in 2004.

Another term I’ve seen thrown around to describe this film Euro-arrogance. So you’re from the UK, is it your place to make this film? And is that another reason why people are angry about this film?
I think it probably is. First of all, the film is in no way didactic. It’s not preaching, I hope. It’s not some sort of rant. President Bush and Tony Blair are very keen to take every opportunity to remind us that we’re in this war on terror together. So, although 9/11 was an attack on American soil and the architects of the war on terror were very much American, the consequences of that have been absolutely global. There are British troops in the Middle East and there are Canadian troops in Afghanistan. The war on terror genuinely affects us all. So I think it’s entirely legitimate for me as a Brit to make this film as it would be a Canadian or an American. The practical reality is, when you look at the reaction the film in the news it makes it very clear that from a corporate political view, it’d be impossible for an American company to make this film. I’m sure there are plenty of American filmmakers who might have thought about making this film, but I don’t think they’d have had the opportunity to make it in America.

So I have a few quotes I dug up and I want you to comment on them. First one, “If this movie ever shows in the USA, only LIBERALS will attend. They’ll CHEER and give a STANDING OVATION when Bush gets whacked. Bank on it. It’ll have Chomsky-a-likes Pee-Wee Hermaning in theaters across the land.”
First of all, I would say that critics who have seen the film say they find the assassination very moving. Actually, one of the things that surprised people is the degree at which George Bush is presented as a human being who’s doing a difficult job. Anyone who is going into the movie expecting to cheer at that moment has a shot coming. The assassination is portrayed as a horrific event with dire consequences.

“This guy committed a felony with this video.”
Well, that’s absolutely not the case. The film does not incite anyone to commit this act and I haven’t broken any laws.

“I’d probably want to beat the crap out of the filmmaker for the insult, shut his free speech pie hole.”
Yeah, there’s been quite a bit of that. Rush Limbaugh, actually; no I take that back, somebody said that I was a sick limey faggot for making this film. I have no idea how making a film about the assassination of President Bush is a comment on your own sexuality.

“Ronald Reagan, shot at in 1981 in a homage to Jodie Foster’s performance in the movie Taxi Driver. John Hinckley tried to kill our President. Proof that movies can influence violence.
It is proof that movies can influence violence. The person who wrote that should be directing their ire at The Sentinel, which opened with the footage of the Reagan assassination attempt. There are countless films out there right now that do far more to glamourize violence. The assassination is portrayed as a horrific event with terrible, terrible consequences. I genuinely believe that no one could see this film and be inspired to kill the president.

Finally, has the attention that this film has brought you allowed you to sleep with anyone famous yet?
No, absolutely not. Sorry. I regret to inform you that it hasn’t.

So I guess Hillary Clinton won’t be calling you any time soon?
I’m sure we’ll have a hot date soon.