Where is steve kurtz now

Kurtz is one of several artists experimenting with bacteria and DNA outside traditional laboratory settings. The Critical Art Ensemble, or CAE, and other artists who have contributed to a traveling exhibit called Gene sis had to comply with stringent biosafety requirements at the University of Washington in Seattle when the show first opened in , said Henderson, the SUNY art professor. The CAE's work includes a website and CD-ROM promoting the fictitious biotech firm GenTerra and a performance-art piece aimed at deconstructing and disrupting the growth of genetically modified foods produced by companies like Monsanto.

The CAE presents its performance-art pieces as satire. But the group's electronic books, with introductions featuring quotes from the likes of Malcolm X "By any means necessary," is one of the quotes , may have the federal government suspecting that artists connected to the ensemble harbor sinister motives. One of the ensemble's e-books advocates releasing mutant organisms into the environment to disrupt the work of biotech firms.

Another proposes secretly releasing mutated flies into restaurants. The CAE says this tactic, which it calls "fuzzy biological sabotage," would encourage "those who never would join a movement to become unknowing cohorts or willing allies" in the struggle against the biotech industry.

The FBI has contacted an artist who has collaborated with the CAE, as well as the director of a gallery that has shown the group's work. The agents asked the gallery director whether she believed Steven Kurtz holds anti-American sentiments, according to an e-mail from the gallery director received by da Costa.

For their work in the CAE, the Kurtzes operated a home biotech lab with several strains of bacteria, chemicals and enzymes, a centrifuge and a PCR machine, the device scientists use to amplify genetic markers for visualization. Scientists in biotech labs operate centrifuges and PCR machines every day in their attempts to create new genetically modified and transgenic organisms for the global food supply, and genetic therapies for treating devastating diseases.

Through a series of casual interviews, Kurtz reveals an admirable calmness, spirited humor and a strong will to continue his role as a cultural producer after months of close surveillance, black vans, and continued government scrutiny; all notably taking place in addition to the mourning of his close partner.

This title is only available on Charged in the Name of Terror. Stay up to date 0 items. You must have JavaScript enabled to use this form. Log in. FBI agents raid Steve Kurtz's home. Paramedics summoned to his Buffalo home noticed laboratory equipment and petri dishes containing bacterial cultures, which Kurtz used in his art work. His wife died and the paramedics immediately notified the police. Agents in bio-hazard suits - from the FBI, the Department of Defense and Homeland Security, among others - sealed off the street and seized equipment that Kurtz had already told them was harmless indeed, much if it had already been exhibited in public and carried off books, papers, computers and his cat.