QuiltMap of insurgent network in Khost region 2010

QuiltMap of insurgent network in Khost region 2010

Human Terrain and Relational Infiltration Teams (HuTRITs) use social craft techniques to infiltrate, classify and trace local loyalties and tribe constellations which are otherwise hard for military commanders to decipher. HuTRITs use local craft techniques to reach deeper into the social fabric of the afghan tribes, often trying to reach working women to help out mapping out local insurgent influence stratagems.

With the help of an established coded quilt system, maps of clan networks and links to insurgents are smuggled out to the NATO forces hidden in the layout of Afghan quilts. With US artisans trained in community quilt-making, a popular aesthetic amongst artists working with “social practice”, the HuTRITs teach women the codes and the secret quilts help unveil the enemy constellations for more surgical strikes and liquidations of adversaries by SEAL teams.

Leaked quilt code manual: 5MQ-2013×2

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Improvized crochet battledress for Airborne Rangers

Improvized crochet battledress for Airborne Rangers

CARPAleaks has long heard rumours about the use of different specialized craft techniques in sniper training. Along with yoga, meditation, mindfulness and target acquisition, snipers use textile craft to calm their nerves behind enemy lines and improve their concealment.

Since the second world war sniper training has involved not only sharp-shooting of the highest level, but also advanced infiltration, target acquisition and not least concealment and environmental studies. The chameleon-like sniper wears camouflage that conceal it from observation (crypsis) and/or to make it appear as something else (mimicry). As sniper teams operate independently, with little combat asset support from their parent units, they have to be largely autonomous and thus need to repair and reproduce their camouflage as their mission evolves. In environments with large variation and color settings, this adds not only cumbersome equipment, but also psychological stress to the team.

In such missions sniper teams need to produce their own camouflage and update their battledress. This is done through advanced skills in textile and fibre arts, not least crochet and natural dyeing. Studies have also shown engagement in crafts releases stress and makes for better markmanship, higher kill ratio, and the more successful fulfilment of missions. It is thus of no surprise that the most advanced textile schools in the country supports our snipers with training and skill development.

The manual attached shows leaked crochet patterns for battledress and fiber techniques for sniper ghillie suits. Crochet Manual 3-GC2013b

36,000+ hours of secret video tape has been anonymously revealed to ESCAIPA*. ESCAIPA (España Crafte Avanzado Investigación Proyectos Agencia) has allied with CARPAleaks  to publish the documents. The footage, along with cables mostly between top-level officials at the Hague and various embassies in Madrid, point to the existence of a long running program to monitor the psycho-emotional state of international leaders. Video cameras concealed in the Sabatini building of the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid were positioned to capture viewer response to artwork. The two cameras were both located in room 206.6, which houses the Pablo Picasso masterpiece Guernica.

Cameras hidden in the wall from which Guernica  hangs capture facial expressions of viewers as they stand in front of the massive war-themed painting. A still-shot from a clip documenting US Republican congressman John Boehner’s visit (left). PM Angela Merkel frowns and shifts her eyes away from the scene, apparently uncomfortable in another scene (right). Both were classified as showing an “acceptable” emotional response to the image.

Cameras hidden in the wall from which Guernica hangs capture facial expressions of viewers as they stand in front of the massive war-themed painting. A still-shot from a clip documenting US Republican congressman John Boehner’s visit (left). PM Angela Merkel frowns and shifts her eyes away from the scene, apparently uncomfortable in another scene (right). Both were classified as showing an “acceptable” emotional response to the image.

The secret tapes document thousands of visits to Guernica by leading international political figures, including multiple heads-of-state. CARPA’s preliminary review of the accompanying files suggest that an elite team of local psychoanalysts were enlisted to evaluate the mental state of the politicians. The classification was based on display of emotion. Assessments such as aggressive narcissistic, mild sympathetic, histrionic personality, emotionally distant, and antisocial were apparently delivered by wire to an elite leadership at the International Justice Institute (IJI) at the Hague. The files confirm widely held suspicions that IJI holds connections to a covert intelligence organization in Eastern and Southern Europe.

Through these videos, analysts were able to monitor the emotional range of world leaders. Guernica’s depiction of domestic life ripped apart by a bomb blast is a powerful image. The immersive scale of the canvas, as well as the lack of color, contribute to the disorienting effect of the painting. Viewers experience a heightened state of sadness and mourning. A 1981 study on the emotional impact of Guernica reported a strong correlation between display of sadness (measured by slumping posture, head shaking, and / or tears) and overall capacity for feeling. This study was the basis of the clandestine monitoring program.

The program’s purpose, described in a cable between the Dutch Embassy and Geneva, was to diagnose “potential dictatorial developments, and other borderline personality disorders such as excessive narcissism which could lead, ultimately, to acts of war and aggression against humanity.” Implicit in these communications is the belief that a mentally balanced individual cannot stand in front of Guernica without experiencing an overwhelming cascade of human emotions. Some display of sensitivity in front of the “universally moving” image, however slight, is indicative of a healthy psyche. If analysts are unable to identify and sign of discomfort in the viewer, they consider the viewer to be dangerously detached from human suffering and highly likely to inflict tragedy on others. If that viewer happens to be a world leader, their actions have the power to hurt many.

 

The Museo Nacional Centro del Arte Reina Sofìa houses the Picasso painting. The painting is a designated national treasure of Spain and is a major stop on the standard tour offered to visiting international political figures.

The Museo Nacional Centro del Arte Reina Sofìa houses the Picasso painting. The painting is a designated national treasure of Spain and is a major stop on the standard tour offered to visiting international political figures.

A secondary hidden video camera installed in the wall opposite the painting was used to detect the body posture and position of targeted viewers.

A secondary hidden video camera installed in the wall opposite the painting was used to detect the body posture and position of targeted viewers.

It is unclear at this time whether the Spanish government cooperated in the program by facilitating the visits or not. The powerful painting is a major attraction in Madrid, and private tours for visiting heads-of-state are routine.

 

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Artisans working on the A12 at Area51

Artisans working on the Streamline Moderne form of the A12 at Area51

In August the CIA officially acknowledged that Area 51 in Nevada does exist, and the agency came clean about their “weather balloon” and “foam party” cover stories. Area 51, located 83 miles (133 km) northwest of Las Vegas, has for over 50 years been a place of mystery. As highlighted by several media outlets, the official CIA document covers how Area 51 acted as test facility for Project Aquatone, the top secret development of the Lockheed U-2 strategic reconnaissance aircraft. It was also base for Project OXCART, the aerial reconnaissance programs, from 1954 to 1974, intended to create the successor for the U-2 spy plane, the Archangel 12 (A-12). There are still unconfirmed suspicion that the Atomic Energy Commission carried out secret projects at the site.

YF12 / A12 Prototype at Area51. Please observe the tool desks and adjustable craft benches in the foreground.

YF12 / A12 Prototype at Area51. Please observe the tool desks and adjustable craft benches in the foreground.

The documents were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by  the National Security Archives, in 2005. The archives submitted the request as part of a continuing study of artisans within the aerial surveillance programs and according to the CNN they were not given any explanation of why the new documents were less redacted than previous versions declassified by the agency.

As revealed in the CIA documents, the special teams developing and constructing the prototypes at Area 51 were top graduates from schools such as RISD, CCAC and Parsons, as well as experienced aviation engineers from top institutions across the US. But perhaps unexpected to some, the teams also included several artisans from fine craft studios. Not least the development of the titanium body for the Mach 3 A-12 required expertise in detailed corpus jewellery craft and fine joining and welding. They came to represent the total overlap between the “streamline moderne” designs of design and craft, high modernism, and the military applications of design and craft into Cold War armed politics.

The CIA report also reveals the A-12 related Aquiline project, a six-foot remote controlled drone designed to look like an eagle or buzzard in flight. As part of its development, the CIA had secretly set up a crack-team of ornithologists, taxidermists and wild-life artisans. The drone was according to the documents powered by a chainsaw engine, first donated by one of the artisans at site who had come up with the idea when crafting a rough decoy wood replica of the A-12 in fresh greenwood. Interestingly enough, only traces of the artisan involvement in the story is left in the CIA document (page 339-340), as much is erased by censors.

Aquiline history from CIA document (page 340)

Aquiline history from CIA document (page 340)

The Aquiline drone, developed in the 1960s, carried a television camera in the nose, as well as sensors and electronic surveillance equipment. It also made bird-like sounds as a mode of secret communication with ground operators. According to some sources the project was hibernated in the 1980s, but it would later become the famed high-tech Predator-drone. However, the project still seems ongoing, as the Pakistan government claim they grounded a bird-like drone over Chaman, near the Afghani border, in 2011. According to released photos this drone looks very similar to the original models of the Aquiline, even if the wood work (probably in Balsa, Ochroma Pyramidale) seems very rough and not as refined as in the earlier models.

A Pakistani Army Artisan Officer examines the taxidermic techniques of the crashed Aquiline drone in Chaman 2012

A Pakistani Army Artisan Officer examines the taxidermic techniques of the crashed Aquiline drone grounded in Chaman 2011

The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance document

CARPA-siteX2The current administration, usually very concerned about leaks by reporters, has leaked another secret on Monday – the location of a top-secret craft base named Shangri la, a state-of-the-art installation which is being retrofitted for an encampment by the US.

According to Col. Wesley Miller, the Defense Department has posted detailed specifications on all projects for CARPA’s Shangri La site, a strategic craft research installation, so that contractors can submit bids. The specs for Shangri La include more than 1,000 pages of details on the facility including location, ownership, and construction dates.

1030 Shangri La Lane Joshua Tree, CA 92252 I-10 to state route 62 (to high desert cities, near palm springs exits and the windmills.  You will go through Morongo Valley and Yucca Valley before Joshua Tree.)At the 3rd light in the town of Joshua Tree take a left on SUNBURST. Before Sunburst turns to dirt, make a right on GOLDEN. Go 1 block and turn left on BORDER. Take Border north for quite awhile. (Major intersections you’ll pass are Aberdeen and Moonlight Mesa Road…keep going.)  At WINTERS, take a left…it is dirt. Make a left on the second road on your left SHANGRI LA.  Your vacation destination is the second place on your right. There is a # road sign and corrugated metal fencing.

 The domicile owned and operated by Drew Dunlap is one of the remaining cabins from the 1938 Baby Homestead Act, which allowed 5-acre, non-agricultural, homesteads in order to encourage settlement in the harsh desert climate.  Shangri la is surrounded on 3 sides by hundreds of acres of undeveloped, government-protected land and (when aided by binoculars) offers a view of a military-constructed Iraqi village used by the local 29 Palms Marine base for occasional bomb testing.   Shangri la continues to rewrite the myth of the desert, by supporting artist who crate works in response to this elusive utopia.

Why would our defense department not keep information like this top-secret, giving clearance only to verified bidders? This is transparency no one needs.

Needless to say, craft activists around the world are shocked. The release of the plans gives the enemy an “easy how-to-guide” for an attack.

Loot Identification Playing Cards (LIPC) 2007

Loot Identification Playing Cards (LIPC) 2007

In spring 2002, CARPA and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles developed a set of playing cards to help troops in Afghanistan identify the most-wanted carpets for the Getty collections, mostly antique and specific styles of patterns that have been sought after by collectors over the last decades. The cards, officially called the Loot Identification Playing Cards (LIPC), nicknamed “the swag deck,” has apparently been printed in several updated editions since then and distributed amongst personnel in the forward-operating teams.

Several times over the last decades, the J. Paul Getty Museum has been in looting scandals, including the 1640 Pieter Molijn painting “Landscape With Cottage and Figures” the Getty says it bought in good faith at a 1972 auction. In 1999 the Getty Museum handed back to Greece a red-figure kylix from the 5th-century BC, signed by the painter Onesimos and the potter Euphronios, that had been looted from the Etruscan site of Cerveteri. In 2010 they were revealed to have acquired fresco paintings from Pompeii through clandestine channels. The former curator at the Getty, Dr. Marion True, is on trial in Italy on conspiracy charges for the looting. The full extent of the CARPA-Getty collaboration is only now starting to appear.

According to UNESCO, almost no antiques remain in Afghanistan today.

Adraskan Afghan rug, Sabzwar, Western Afghanistan. Disappeared  from Herat Museum of Folk Art in 2009, probably now at Getty.

Adraskan Afghan rug, Sabzwar, Western Afghanistan. Disappeared from Herat Museum of Folk Art in 2009, probably now at Getty.

Leatherneck

With the e-flux-powered network “Do It,” the neo-liberal infiltration of fluxes art finally meets the frontiers of rural Afghan communities.

Socially engaged practices have been part of the US counterinsurgency strategy for nearly a decade, but after years of struggle this initiative, developed between the Pentagon and Eric Brost, a former collaborator of Hans-Ulrich Obrist, have finally reached the Afghan mountains. The über-curator Hans-Ulrich started the Do It collaborations in 1993. Over the past 20 years, exhibitions and events on the classic Fluxus theme of “Do It”, or various modes of Do-It-Yourself Art, have been staged across various biennials and internationally renowned galleries. Engaging famed artists from Damien Hirst and Yoko Ono to David Lynch and Ólafur Elíasson, as contributors, the exhibition has reached deep into the social body of western capitalism and its “alternative” art scenes. With its matter-of-fact, step-by-step socially engaging recipes, it has been a sweeping success within the global art world, from the Chelsea galleries to the emerging street scenes. Now its latest incarnation has finally reached its height, infiltrating Taliban resistance in the rural Helmand province in Afghanistan with social aesthetics. Finally, Do It: The Compendium (2013) has reached the forward-operating Socially Engaged Art (SEA) teams in the villages.

These teams operate in close collaboration with the ethnographers and sociologists from the Human Terrain Systems (HTS) which have used similar “technologies of the self” since 2007, when HTS became a permanent US Army program. The integration of artists and artisans within the armed forces has caused several controversies over the years, not least after the 2011 CIA-CARPA-sponsored show “Crafting the Social” at Kunstwerke in Berlin, where art magazines such as Frieze and Texte Zur Kunst raised concerns. However, this has not limited the growth of the initiative nor its attractiveness amongst artists. According to BAE Systems, one of the contractors for this US strategy, the CARPA-run part of the program has grown from five deployed teams and a $20 million two-year budget in 2011, to one with 31 deployed teams and a $150 million annual budget in 2013. Questions remain however, how much good relational aesthetics will do to the civil population of the Helmand province.

With a brand new auxiliary-artist-in-residence program in Helmand, led from Camp Bastion, the main British military base in Afghanistan, the artists-in-residence can now reach deeper into the social fabric of both villages and insurgent communities. Camp Bastion, accommodating 28,000 people and two artist-run galleries, is situated northwest of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province, and is also the site for the upcoming biennale of 2014. Since its founding in 2003, the base exists to be the logistics hub for ISAF operations in Helmand, as well as base for the British YBA’s self-organizing art-maker-space, called Camp Deleuze (or D-Camp). Headed by CARPA-trained artist Grant Prosper, former assistant of Tracey Emin, Camp Deleuze also houses the regional US IASTAR units (Intelligence, Art, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, and Reconnaissance).

According to the leak, the “Do It” manuals of Rirkrit Tiravanja (“Untiltled” 1994), John Balderssari (“How to Kill A Bug” 1996) and Liam Gillick (“Stay At Home And Think About How To Change Things” 1995) have been epecially powerful in the social art projects arranged for the Afghan locals in the mountain villages. However, as a critic from Frieze magazine have noticed, the Tiravanja piece has been used by the US-trained Human Terrain Teams (HTTs) around the Helmand province since early 2007 but neither improved the cuisine nor the discursive impact of Derrida amongst the locals.

The latest leak exposed to US media concerned a dispute around some of the Do It projects, when some of the artists’ payment was made in Eagle Cash (or EZpay), the cash management applications for “closed-loop” operating environments of the US Armed Forces. The artists, usually paid in US Dollars as other mercenaries, were upset that this move limited their right to leave the social conflict zone, and its Rancierian “Dissensus,” after looting both local trust as well as US tax money. While some artists suddenly saw themselves as serfs to the US state strategies, some Marxist artists, following the ideas of Herbert Marcuse, recognised that all DIY-based art was already infiltrated by capitalist hegemony.

However, during this summer, a new art incident reached the public news under the scandal concerning the establishment of “Fort Leatherneck” (Marine Expeditionary Brigade Task Force Leatherneck). Leatherneck has, since 2009, been the possible future base camp for SEA operations, as well as the site for the future Guggenheim Helmand. The scandal may risk the future development of many CARPA-sponsored Armed-Conflict-Art-Projects (ACAP) between curator general Supko and Brost, as these has been commanded directly under Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. See Fox News & Washington Post for more information about the $34 million USD Leatherneck Headquarters dispute (including two artist-run galleries and prospecting for the new Guggenheim Helmand).

FM5-426-Carpentry

CARPA has lived a quiet life in the shadow of its bigger and more famous sibling, DARPA, so it is time for us to reveal some of the background on how CARPA has become such an important player in the last years and influential in the latest development of military tactics and warcraft in the US army and its NATO allies.

Sun Tzu’s classical book The Art of War is required reading for all officer cadets around the world. Sun Tzu’s lesser known book The Craft of War has long gone unnoticed, but is today in the bookshelf of every commanding officer. The book inspired not only Machiavelli but also Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz and his eminent work Vom Kriege (On War). Clausewitz’s especially famous metaphor “fog of war” comes originally from The Craft of War, and is actually is a mistranslation. In the original Chinese, the phrase refers to fumes from the kiln, masking the process wherein the characteristics of toughness, strength, and translucence of porcelain crystallize through kaolinite mineral mullite within the fired body of the clay. Clausewitz’s metaphor, however, came to represent the friction of warfare, both in action and organisation, and thus, in a way, still resembles the porcelain process as a warcraft. Today, there are porcelain-making courses for superior officers at the US Army Combined Arms Center in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, because the army has yet to improve upon the material’s high resistance to chemical attack and thermal shock. Porcelain also embodies the praised characteristics of the US Leader Development and Education (CAC-LD&E).

The connection between craft and military training may seem like a coincidence, but the United Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) at Fort Leavenworth was run by General David Patraeus between 2005-2007, and many officers under Patraeus also happened to cultivate great craftsmanship of North British-styled woodcarving as well as a great interest in design. Patraeus’s crew shares this interest with the classes of Brigadier General (Ret.) Shimon Naveh, the founder and former head of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) Operational Theory Research Institute (OTRI), who was invited to be part-time consultant and Artisan In Residency at the US Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies in 2007. To Naveh, the “operational art” of war can prevent forces from becoming harmfully “addicted to the present fight” (not unlike the studio crafts’ killing-loop) to instead apply new forms of war-craft, answering to the challenges of the contextual materialism at hand. Naveh and Patraeus also shared an interest in the military implementation of design and craft thinking in operational architecture, using references of famous design theorists such as Buchanan, Krippendorff, Margolin and Thackara, and (not the least) Deleuze and Guattari.

It also seems as if Patraeus promoted David Pye’s book “The Nature and Art of Workmanship” (1968) as required reading for all superior commanding officers in Iraq. Pye was an internationally recognised craftsman and professor of Furniture Design at The Royal College of Art in London 1964–1974 as well as an early proponent of the craft-led thinking which today has transformed a lot of military training into Pye and IDEO-inspired “Design Thinking”, especially since the launch of the US Army Field Manual 5-0 on The Operations Process released in March 2010, following FM 3-24 on Counterinsurgency, released in December 2006, the latter coauthored by Patraeus. The success of these two field manuals, developed in close collaboration with CARPA, builds on the earlier foundation of the field manual FM 5-426 on Carpentry, a publication from 1995 deeply inspired by the thinking of Pye and a guiding example for Patraeus and his followers who developed the successful strategies for the counter insurgency “surge” in Iraq.

All these manuals are available for download at the TRADOC-manual archive.

CARPAleaks intends to expose the deep connections between contemporary craft and US armed conflict. CARPAleaks takes as its mission not only to defend the independence of the free crafts against the Craft-Military-Industrial-Complex and the development of aggressive and craft-based “soft-power” as a force of US military domination. We must also defend the crafts from becoming a cultural weapon, like the fine arts, their “artist-run-initiatives,” and their neo-liberal aggression of “social engagement”.

Defend freedom, defend the independent crafts!

 

 

Last year, the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), the well-known lobbying front for big agribusiness-related industries that works against climate change legislation, was revealed to be green-washing art projects concerning arty issues such as “urban farming”, “guerrilla gardening” and “urban beekeeping.” The leaks that exposed some of contributions to the US pavilion of the Venice Biennale as AFBF-works raised some concerns as to the “spontaneous” nature of urban art interventions. The public is also concerned about what kind of “common good” (that is, “US-soft power”) these works are supposed to benefit.

This is nothing new. In 1947, the State Department organized and paid for a touring international exhibition entitled “Advancing American Crafts.” The CIA office of International Organizations Division (IOD), under Tom Broden, has also sponsored several projects. These have included an animated version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm (in the 1950s) as well as the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s extensive international touring program. These initiatives served as part of the propaganda war with the Soviet Union and promoted the free cultural power of the US.

The CIA-CARPA collaboration, revealed through correspondence with the IOD and AFBF, stretches back to 1958 and the touring exhibition “The New American Painting.” Including prominent abstract expressionists such as Pollock, de Kooning, and Motherwell, the exhibition showed in Paris and later at the Tate Gallery in London. At the time, the well-known American millionaire and art lover, Justin Fleischmann, acted as figurehead for the operation.

Later, in 1961, the “New Studio-Craft” exhibit at Victoria and Albert Museum in London was also sponsored by Fleischmann’s CIA cover, the Farfield Foundation. Using his position at the board of the International Program of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, he had already pushed for several craft exhibits at the MoMA since the mid 1950s.

The debate concerning the alliance between the Maker Faire and DARPA was raised again last year when people questioned the role the military plays in public education, but with some historical overview it is clear that both DARPA and CARPA have played key roles in sponsoring not only engineering research but also craft schools, conferences, exhibits. Lately, their reach has extended to hacker and maker spaces, also overseas. “One of the biggest challenges we face as a nation is the decline in our ability to make things,” said Dr. Regina Dugan, then Director of DARPA in an interview in 2011, giving witness to her strategic thinking, well in resonance with the  research at CARPA.

This government strategy has been well integrated in the United States Army Recruiter Handbook (USAREC Manual No. 3-01) for several decades, yet the magnitude of the government-sponsored programs was surprising to many crafters. Not only direct CARPA-operations, such as the Etsy satellite in Berlin, but also the CARPA infiltration of “anarchist-run” hacker space, such as Hantverkslabbet (Swedish for “The Craft Lab”) in Malmo, Sweden, aim to tap into intel on both traditional south Swedish whittling techniques and Iranian expat art-movies. According to the documents, this infiltration also reached several “independent artist-run gallery spaces” in France and Greece.

The last leaks concern craft projects on “social practice,” mainly stemming from the heavily CARPA-infiltrated California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco and its MA program aimed at strengthening US soft power in the social arts. New York schools, as well, such as Parsons the New School for Design and the Cooper Union are revealed to have covered up government-sponsored crafts and recruitment programs under the cover of “public engagement,” “social crafts,” and “art media.”

Members of CARPAleaks are currently filtering a huge leak from CARPA engagements in Portland, Berlin, and Kabul. Stay tuned.

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