July 15, 2002, 8:51 PM

Chris Korda would rather see people dead

Henk Willem Smits

Groningen/Delft - In addition to being a house musician and suicide consultant, American Chris Korda is also a pastor of the Church of Euthanasia, a 'religious' group in Boston that prefers to see people dead. Korda's latest video clip, which includes images of the WTC disaster and hard porn, has already caused quite a stir. Korda wants to show the clip during his performance at the Lowlands festival on August 25.

Whether it will come to that is the question. Booking agency Mojo reacts very surprised to Korda's ideas. "We were offered him in combination with a few other artists from the label International Deejay Gigolo in Munich", says head programmer Erik van Eerenburg of Lowlands.

"The programmer in charge of dance listened to some of Korda's music and said: 'just add it', without delving any further into the man. I just looked at Korda's website. If this is meant seriously, we should consider cancelling Korda's performance. I am not in favour of giving these kinds of ideas a platform at Lowlands."

Korda's Church of Euthanasia claims to have around three hundred members and several thousand sympathizers. The society has one commandment: Thou shalt not reproduce, and it promotes euthanasia. The church's website includes a link to a page with suicide tips. "The balance between the number of humans and other species has been lost for a long time," says Korda.

Korda's euthanasia rests on four pillars: suicide, abortion, sodomy and cannibalism. "All pillars are optional," Korda puts it into perspective. No one should commit suicide, including Korda himself. "Although I think about it every day, I still have important things to do," he says. But anyone who wants to commit suicide should definitely do so, Korda believes. "There are simply far too many people."

In his last composition as a house musician, Korda sings about getting sexually aroused by the WTC disaster. In the accompanying video clip, which can be seen on his website, images of the attacks are mixed with hard pornographic images and short flashes of sporting events. Just like sports recordings and pornographic films, Korda considers the repeated news footage of the September 11 attacks 'mass entertainment'.

"The endless loops of planes penetrating the towers were unmistakably pornographic, complete with the flames and debris coming out in slow motion. The video is mostly about the sexual attraction that the images of the attack had for me. The aspect of the political justice of the attack, that for once Americans were dying, was just an afterthought. As was the voyeurism inherent in mass society."

Korda is currently touring Germany, where he is also showing his video clip. "In Hamburg, all hell broke loose during the screening," Korda says the day after the performance. "A hysterical woman climbed on stage and begged the technician to turn off the film. Some time later, someone threw a drink in my eyes. But apart from that incident, the reaction to the film in Europe has been very positive." In addition to Hamburg, the clip was shown in Paris in recent months and three times in Berlin, where a riot also broke out.

The preceding is a translation. The original language is here.