4B — Thursday, March 9, 2017
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

 
 
Who is this narrator? What is the accent? I’m so scared. The way he said 

“firing squad” just made me want to cry. Eerie. The death penalty beds. I’m going to cry. This 
man, Hank, has been on death row for 17 years and he’s still cracking jokes. I’m just going to 
leave this here: So many things that the police does are illegal. Hank looks so tired. His arms 
are chubby 
but his cheeks are hollow. Still terrified of this narrator’s tone; 

it is CHILLING. Here’s Hank’s story: This man was 

accused of triple homicide of his girlfriend and her 

two children. Though he denies the crime to this 

day, he was sentenced to death row. With 20 

minutes of his execution, in the “death house,” 

Hank said his last goodbyes, and then he was 

saved. “The only thing was that they didn’t 
kill me.” He was pardoned by the Supreme 
Court just moments before his schedule 
execution. Now, Hank is back on death 
row. His holding cell is five steps away 
from the gurney. Nothing about this is 
right. They feed these inmates around 
the clock. “Time really has no meaning 
in here.” Nobody washes the prison 
windows; inmates can’t receive a clear 
view of the outside world, neither literally 
nor figuratively. I cannot go into detail here 

without breaking down, and I have no relation 

to the issue of death row aside from watching 

this show right now. I feel sick. Outsiders are 

not allowed to view the inner areas of death row 

housing. Hank describes them as a house of “human 

bondage and human suffering. A bad place.” Interesting 

take: 
A chef at death row commissioned to cook people’s last-ever meals. 

Can you imagine? Cooking meals for criminals awaiting a planned execution. How anyone 
eats just minutes before their certain death is beyond my comprehension. Hank is smart. I feel 
nauseous and I haven’t seen any blood.

— TESS GARCIA

Werner Herzog’s 
‘On Death Row’

in this series, three daily arts 

writers in varying states of mind 

do the same activity and write 

about it.

Oh my god, why is my spell check correcting into French. Moving on. For posterity: I feel 

very strange. Sort of tingly, really. Ah, it is begining now. Dramatic string music and a 

pan shot of a prison table with Bibles. This surely portents much. Werner Hertz-

og is talking now, and I have to listen. He has such a grave, dramatic voice 

— I am bound to heed to it. The death-row inmate seems like such a 

congenial fellow, until he starts talking about, like, the fact that 

he was convicted of tripple homicide. “How familiar are 

you with the details of the execution?” Herzog to 

DRI — jesus christ Werner, you don’t go gently 

do you? “Could that be more Ameri-

can?” asked Tess about the last meal 

of a hamburger and fries, “much like 

the death penalty” thought I. (To be read 

with thick Bavarian accent): “God, this is really 

depressing. Why does this exist (re: the death pen-

alty)?” (Also, see “Get it Right: Privatize Executions” by 

Michigan’s own Arthur Miller.) “His cheeks are really hollow” 

says the Style editor. “No shit,” says someone in the back of my 

cerebrum. It is interesting that the inmate’s most vivid descriptions are 

about food. Why is someone vacuming right now? “Yeah I see your point” 

The concept of being led to death on a timeline is excruciating to me. To see the 

specter of death land on your bedside, to measure each second until that great abyss 

of unknowability is perhaps the most terrifiying thing after the abyss in the first place 

“This guy is still on death row” says buzzed. “This show was five years ago” “Is his name 

Frank?” says Tess “Hank says” buzzed. “What is going on with this family” Herzog after learn-
ing the man’s son is charged with kidnapping. (update, he was later aquitted) Tbh I should stop 
just quoting things I hear. A journalist is now describing the staggering wounded walk of a 
murder victim. This really is a downer. There was just a minute of silence on the episode. very 
effecrive use of abscene “I don’t have a problem with the death penalty” says TV journalist. 
“fuck journalists” says a not-TV journalist This inmate just made a reference to medieval his-
tory. Templars “Skinner tends to get lost in obscure historical tales” Herzog This is probably 
too long now. I’ll stop. He has a very distictive nervous laugh

— Daily Arts Writer

so like i’m shitfaced rn and i came into this apartment 
expecting a dandy ol good time (:^]) but the second we 
popped this on, shit got reeaaaaaaal — i went into this 

situation thinking it’ll be some regular BBB but, and 

perhaps it’s because i am (again) fairly shitfaced, i feel like 

a level and candor is appropriate for what the fuck we’re 
watching rn. wenrer herzog’s thick and distinct german 

accent has been haunting most of my night as he pries into 

the nitty gritty details of the squalor death row inmates 

face. this man, hank, just ruminated over how he went 

through a last meal and his last rites and prepared for his 
eventual death until a judge issued him a stay on his case 

20 minutes before his execution ?? wtf ?? this was a terrible 

idea wow

“are you high?” “i think so”

 

“are you drunk” “yeah but i don’t wanna be”

 

“this shit got me fucked up guys”

 

we binged episodes of chef’s table to feel better oops :^)

— Daily Arts Writer

local 
leadership 
to 

empower communities in a 
sustainable way. She works 
with Youth Development 
in the Community Arts 
Department 
where 
she 

coordinates 
photography 

programming for 5th to 
8th 
grade 
students 
in 

Detroit where they take 
field trips and learn to use 
DSLR cameras, hoping to 
cultivate passion and skills 
that 
may 
help 
students 

find 
educational 
and 

employment opportunities 
as 
they 
mature. 
Her 

outreach 
also 
involves 

starting art clubs at schools 
where funding or access to 
the arts may be limited.

“I’ve gotten what I’ve 

learned 
through 
college 

and through art school and 
now I’m giving it back to 
the community,” Borromeo 
said. 

From Borromeo’s studio 

in 
Ypsilanti 
she 
works 

on 
other 
independent 

and 
collaborative 
art 

projects. She was recently 
featured in the “Vagina 
Show” 
in 
Detroit, 
an 

exhibition 
centered 

around 
intersectionality, 

or the way social identities 
interact and open up space 
for 
multidimensional 

dialogue 
about 
various 

systems of oppression and 
discrimination. 
Borromeo 

is also involved in the 
curating of an anti-Trump 
show in Detroit.

Additionally, 
she 

collaborates 
with 

community activists groups 
in 
Detroit, 
like 
Detroit 

Independent 
Freedom 

Schools, a movement that 
offers 
supplementary 

weekend 
education 
by 

volunteer 
teachers 
to 

aid those Detroit Public 
Schools 
students 
who 

struggle. She is also a 
member of the Detroiters’ 
Resistance to Trump and 

DMJ studio, a group of 
women artists who use art 
to tell stories of those who 
live in Detroit and bring art 
to non-traditional spaces 
and neighborhoods.

However, 
the 
project 

that seems to be most 
reflective 
of 
Borromeo’s 

artistic 
journey 
is 
one 

which seeks to provide a 
cultural exchange between 
Houston and Detroit. She 
co-founded 
a 
show 
in 

Houston last year called 
“Art to Art” that showcased 
the fashion, hip-hop and 
art of local artists, and she 
hopes to foster a cultural 
exchange between the two 

cities, ideally having people 
from Detroit visit Houston 
and vice versa.

Borromeo 
highlights 

interdisciplinary 
and 

intersectionality 
at 
the 

heart of her work. Such a 
multidimensional approach 
is clear in the work of 
the artists and activists 
she admires. She spoke 
of Antonio Cosme, who 
weaves 
his 
public 
and 

street art with community 
organizing, and of Adrian 
Piper, who Borromeo said 
was, “basically everything 
I 
want 
to 
be 
ever,” 

expressing 
admiration 

for Piper’s strength as an 
artist, philosopher and her 
exploration and expression 
of what it means to be a 
light-skinned black woman.

Borromeo views art as a 

way of educating, informing 
and inspiring those who 
may not otherwise have the 
access to such knowledge, 
touching on the universal 
quality of what she does. 
She suggested that art was 
maybe more “digestible” 
to some than say, reading a 
newspaper.

“It’s 
a 
very 
special 

situation to be an artist, 
especially during this time 
because not everyone has 
the capacity to read the 
newspaper, 
maybe 
not 

everyone knows how to read. 
But art — but everyone kind 
of 
understands 
imagery 

— 
understands 
what 
a 

sound 
is, 
understands 

what movement is and so 
it can strike people in an 
emotional way that’s very 
different than just cut-and-
dry stuff. I think artists 
just have a very strong role 
to play, especially in just 
empowering other people.”

ARTIST
From Page 3B

had 
both 
enjoyed 
and 

learned from it — though 
I 
had 
been 
expecting 

this, as it isn’t the first 
time I have encountered 
Vanmechelen’s work, and 
have a CCP poster to prove 
it.

Most of the remaining 

speakers capably presented 
their ideas, though at a 
month’s remove I would 
have difficulty telling you 
what they all spoke on 
without my notes. I won’t 
touch on everyone here 
(and soon enough you’ll 
be able to watch the talks 
yourself online), but I will 
mention a few moments 
which I feel are pertinent 
to my point. The artist 
Sophia Brueckner, now an 
Art and Design assistant 
professor, 
perhaps 

indirectly 
addressed 

the principal concern at 
the heart of this piece: 
The place of optimism. 
“Critical optimism” was 
the 
way 
she 
described 

her approach (in her case, 
to the potential impact 
of new technologies), a 
midway 
between 
“pure 

optimism” and “everything 
is terrible.” And perhaps 
that is the most healthy 
way to view things. But for 
myself, I fear that far too 
often optimism takes the 
place of action, that our 
dissatisfaction 
with 
the 

world can be sated through 
a simple, cheery belief that 
things will all work out — 
the problem lies in that, 
like trying to sate a physical 
hunger with pure glucose, 
this 
solution 
essentially 

has no substance.

One 
of 
my 
principal 

issues with TED, I suppose, 
is that it gives a smattering 
of anodyne verbal offerings 
while 
rarely 
translating 

words 
into 
tangible 

gains. Its audiences are 
full of essentially well-

meaning people who more 
than likely will never do 
anything about the very real 
problems discussed (and I 
do not exclude myself from 
this group; and of course 
there are obviously others 
in any given TED audience 
who I would exclude, but 
here I speak generally). 

The 
conference’s 
theme 

was 
“Dreamer’s 
and 

Disrupters,” 
and 
my 

concern is that the former 
perhaps overbore the latter 
to an unhealthy degree. 
While a TED conference 
indulges in the dopamine 
rush of what seems to me 
an extreme, often irrational 
optimism, 
I’m 
unable 

to overcome the feeling 
that the whole of our 
civilization is careening 
towards some grisly wreck. 
The 
tragedy 
is 
greater 

because I feel that this 
wreck is probably avertable 
if we simple managed to 
rouse ourselves to action. 
But maybe it’s not, and 
maybe all that will be left 
one day of this pleasant 
little jaunt around the park 
of liberal democracy are the 
steel skeletons that were 
once our cities, skyscraper 
tombstones 
whistling 

in the wind. Oh well. Of 
course, this is probably a 
hyperbolic thing to wonder 
— I do that sometimes. But 
I’m not the first to think it, 
and I won’t be the last, and 
someday one of us is bound 
to be right.

The 
inadequacy 
of 

mere talk turned out to be 
perhaps my biggest take-
away from the conference, 
but this isn’t to say that the 
feeling is merited equally 
by all the presenters. Many 
of the speakers do engage in 
exactly the sort of concrete, 
tangible altering of the 
world that I’m advocating. 
Scott Matzka has become 
an ALS advocate. Erika 
Newman is trying to cure 
cancer. Abdul El-Sayed is 
the Health Commissioner 
for the city of Detroit — a 
few days after the talk the 
32-year-old announced his 
candidacy 
for 
governor. 

All of these people do 
real 
work 
to 
improve 

the world. But one of the 
things they all have in 
common is they strive to 
use 
science 
to 
address 

material issues. For the 
artists of the conference, 
the impact they can have 
was far less obvious, and 
far more abstract — all 
of which raises the much 
larger question of art’s role 
in changing the world. In 
what ways, in the light of 
all the wrong that exists, 
can what we do as artists 
be ultimately meaningful? 
I don’t have the answer. But 
what I do know is this: We 
have to believe art means 
something. The alternative 
is negation and despair.

TEDX
From Page 3B

From 

Borromeo’s 

studio in 

Ypsilanti she 
works on other 
independent and 
collaborative art 

projects

Most of the 
remaining 
speakers 
capably 

presented their 
ideas, though 
at a month’s 

remove I would 
have difficulty 
telling you what 
they all spoke 
on without my 

notes

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