Cultures from outerspace to cyberspace. (When words don't fail).

As the cold war gave way to the Gulf War and the New World Order, America found itself refashioning its imaginary other. A growing fear of the political unknown yielded aliens and infowar. Once we were "skyjacked" in planes; now we are spacenapped in UFOs or cyberjacked on the Net. Comet Hale-Bopp beams thirty-nine members of San Diego's technosect over the stars. All wore Nike shoes saying: Just Do It! Larry King Live goes live with alien abductees invading the American bedroom. In Aliens in America: Conspiracy Cultures from Outerspace to Cyberspace, Jodi Dean cites a poll stating that UFO believers in the US outnumber the voters who put Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton in office. If anything, on that fateful morning of September 11, America's political unconscious came haunting back through Hollywood's imagination, and symptom (flying saucers beaming out of nowhere to demolish the trade towers) met reality (the dark underside of repressed world politics struck back at the first world). But in independence Day Real-Time, there's no happy ending.

Johan Grimonprez is an artist based in Ghent, Belgium. His most recent New York exhibition, "INFLIGHT From Skyjacked to Spacenapped: Words to Read in the Sky," appeared last fall at Deitch Projects.