James T. Hong, “The New Nomos of the Earth: Two Works on the State in Time”

“Somewhere there are still peoples and herds, but not with us, my brothers: here there are states.”
Also Sprach Zarathustra

“The passage of time does not heal all wounds; it cannot settle all accounts or resolve all disputes. But the identities of the perceived perpetrators can change, and a national apology’s task is to document and record a symbolic act as a prelude to possible reconciliation and forgiveness. To achieve these ends, one’s sincerity is paramount, especially when reading from a script.”
Synopsis of Apologies

Please join us at e-flux on Wednesday February 15, at 7pm for a screening and discussion with James T. Hong.

At the intertwining of the real and imaginary lies ideology, a will motivated by belief mapped onto the coordinates of time as nostalgia or hope. If, as Carl Schmitt notes, nationalism driven by imagination is the most effective method of politicization, are we now in an ultranationalist time? What will we make from this overabundance of will and the “excesses of democracy”?

James T. Hong has considered these questions in his writing (e-flux journal #56) and in his films. For this evening at e-flux introduced by Brian Kuan Wood, Hong will screen The Turner Film Diaries (26 minutes, 2012), his adaptation of William Luther Pierce’s racist novel The Turner Diaries (1978), as well as a compilation of public regrets by heads and representatives of state, entitled Apologies (80 minutes, updated for 2016). Hong will share his thoughts for discussion on nationalism in the current moment as seen from his East Asian perspective. 

This program is organized in e-flux’s capacity as Consulate of the NSK State in Time, in collaboration with the exhibition NSK State Art: New York, The Impossible Return, on view at James Gallery from February 8 to March 25, 2017.

James T. Hong is a filmmaker and artist based in Taiwan. He has produced works about Heidegger, Spinoza, Japanese biological warfare, the Opium Wars, and racism and most recently completed a documentary about nationalism and disputed territory in the East China Sea. He is currently researching the concept of morality in East Asia and recently presented a new experimental work about Nietzsche and metempsychosis, Nietzsche Reincarnated as a Chinese Woman, at the 2016 Taipei Biennial. In New York, his Terra Nullius or: How to Be a Nationalist (2015) screens at UnionDocs on February 16 at 7:30 pm and at the Guggenheim Museum (News Corporation New Media Theater, Sackler Center for Arts Education) on February 17 and 18 at 1pm as part of its Tales of Our Time exhibition.