Lowlands bans DJ because of WTC video

American producer/DJ Chris Korda has been removed from the Lowlands festival programme because of his video I like to watch....

From our reporter July 20, 2002, 00:00

Distasteful and not suitable for the festival, was the opinion of Mojo, the organizer of Lowlands, after the Dagblad van het Noorden had written about Korda's ideas. Korda states on his website that he is denouncing disaster tourism with his video. In the text itself, the controversial DJ from Boston candidly reports on his sexual arousal while watching the burning towers, accompanied by images of the burning Twin Towers and masses of orgasms. 'There are limits', says programmer Eric van Eerdenburg, who thinks that Korda goes too far with his lustful experience of the suffering of others. 'Even if in this case it is not so much a matter of pubescent kicking where it hurts, but of using a controversy to convey a message, I still don't want this.' According to Eerdenburg, Korda is also not artistically interesting enough that cancellation would mean a bloodletting for Lowlands. Korda is a 'reverend' of the Church of Euthanasia, a cult-like artistic group that tries to restore the 'natural balance' on earth with the slogan Save the planet, Kill yourself as its charter. After hearing of the cancellation last Thursday, Korda responded on the website as follows: 'As long as antisocial ideas are nothing more than fashionable poses marketed as youth culture, there is no threat to the sponsors. But when fake rebellion is replaced by extreme art with a serious message, the industry rushes to protect itself. 'According to Korda, I like to watch is a personal study in corruption and decadence. 'It shows the extent to which I have been perverted by the ingrained voyeurism of the mass media.' Van Eerdenburg is not impressed. 'That man is not coming to my festival.'

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