”Those who challenge the capitalist order tend to be publicly labelled as criminals generally falling into the terrorist category.” Steve Kurtz (World-InfoCon Brussels (2000): An Annotated Report)
In memory of Steve Kurtz [1958-2025]
Steve Kurtz was an American artist, professor and co-founder of the pioneering art collective Critical Art Ensemble (CAE). Formed in 1987, CAE is a collective of tactical media practitioners of various specializations including computer graphics and web design, film/video, photography, text art, book art, and performance.
Kurtz was caught in the post-9/11 gears. He fell into the crack between security and paranoia — a crack that widened after planes hit the Twin Towers.
In the fall of 2018 I contacted Steve Kurtz, founding member of Critical Art Ensemble, to ask him for permission to translate The Promissory Rhetoric of Biotechnology in the Public Sphere, a chapter taken from Molecular Invasion published in 2002, a transgressive book that developed biotechnology as a contestational tool for the expansion of Flesh Machine Control; after all the kind guidance and approval, I mentioned that the book is a key anchor to track the hell Steve had to go through from 2004 to 2008. Years later the answer Kurtz unravelled about CAE being targeted by the FBI didn’t disappoint.
Every time I revisit Critical Art Ensemble’s work, I immediately remember the footage that circulated in news outlets in 2004 of the FBI, specifically the Joint Task Force on Terrorism wearing hazmat suits, making effective a search warrant, purposefully turned into a media spectacle of fear.
The Kafkaesque nightmare as described by Kevin Jon Heller, started in May 11th 2004, when Steve called 911 to report the sudden death of his wife, Hope Kurtz, editor, writer, and member of CAE. As The Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office clearly stated, Hope died of natural causes, heart failure at the age of 45. As soon as the paramedics arrived and found petri dishes, lab equipment and bacteria samples for an upcoming exhibition, not convinced with Kurtz’ explanation, they decided to contact the Buffalo Police Department to investigate further, which led them to call the FBI. What followed cemented the real intentions of the FBI to justify a baseless prosecution: illegal detentions, dubious allegations and a search warrant.
With the seal search warrant approved, the FBI had full access Steve’s personal belongings, computers, lab equipment, documents, passports, books, networks, notes and CAE’s archives, enough material to elaborate a profile that fulfilled the Department of Justice’s agenda. The case had international media exposure, with some media outlets eating federal agents suspicion of Kurtz and Dr. Bob Ferrell as a potential bioterrorists.
Even though the charges evolved into mail and wire fraud under the PATRIOT Act, these early accusations targeting Kurtz worked perfectly for the launch of a post 9/11 era of surveillance and punishment, his case was unprecedented and weaponized as a public effort to intimidate and criminalize Critical Art Ensemble’s practice and the communities attached to it. The message was clear and loud, anybody who holds “anti-American sentiments” and everything that doesn’t fit into the white cube gallery model, will become the primer example of the what to NOT to do, of what NOT to say, the enemy. As Steve shared in a phone call in May of this year talking about the subject: “They can bring ridiculous charges and still make your life miserable, even if at the end the charges are dismissed.”
This case also showed how communities can overcome control and authoritarian  amage, CAE Defence Fund emerged as a definitive collective force that allowed Kurtz to get financial, legal support and proper media exposure, Strange Culture (2008), the documentary directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson helped to defy the narrative the FBI tried to impose in the press, audiences understood the obscene amounts of tax money wasted to prosecute Kurtz and Ferrell, and most importantly, this created a chain effect regarding the alarming threats towards freedom of expression in cultural, scientific and academic institutions in the USA under the Bush Administration.
Yes, Steve was cleared of all charges by the DoJ in 2008, finally vindicated, but the four years taken from his life never returned, the press release was painful to digest:
“I don’t have a statement, but I do have questions. As an innocent man, where do I go to get back the four years the Department of Justice stole from me? As a taxpayer, where do I go to get back the millions of dollars the FBI and Justice Department wasted persecuting me? And as a citizen, what must I do to have a Justice Department free of partisan corruption so profound it has turned on those it is sworn to protect?”
Not allowing Steve Kurtz to mourn Hope Kurtz as any of us  eserve, all the stress, the abuses, the pressure, the public scrutiny, his private life, health and anonymity compromised…
Twenty years later after, I often wonder:Who got more resources?
Who got handsomely rewarded?
Who got promoted?
THE FBI OWES STEVE KURTZ AN APOLOGY
José López / H C-(M)
Sources:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080914150359/http://caedefensefund.org/releases/cleared_6_11_08.html
http://critical-art.net/defense/press/BuffNews_BigBrother.pdf
http://critical-art.net/defense/press/BuffNews_Dabkowski.pdf
http://critical-art.net/defense/press.html
https://opiniojuris.org/2008/05/25/the-collapse-of-the-bioterror-case-against-dr-steven-kurtz/
https://www.lightresearch.net/interviews/kurtz/kurtz.pdf
https://www.wired.com/2004/06/twisted-tale-of-art-death-dna/
https://fnewsmagazine.com/2004/09/steve-kurtz-artist-patriotfelon-2/