MURDER AS ART?

Sueng Hui Cho's massive and horrifying slaughter of 32 Virginia Tech
students and faculty has spawned incalculable numbers of articles,
television news shows, and Internet postings, many of them offering
"reasons" for Cho's actions and the meanings of such expressions of
violence.

But perhaps overlooked amidst this vast sea of inquiry is the stark,
ineffable artistic images that his crimes have permanently etched into
our cultural landscape. Crime as art? Murder as performance?

Recall that immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks a number of
"artists" proclaimed that the twin towers demolitions were -
considerations of criminality aside -- PURE ART. The finished
"product" was pronounced "perfection," from a purely artistic
standpoint. Excluding its emotional implications, it was
compositionally pleasing, with naturally complementary points of
reference, lines, color, texture, mass, and space. With Cho's
heinousity, we probably are seeing the rise of death art - the use of
murder and suicide to plant unforgettable, eternal, images of crimes
into the psyches of the world's media users. Parting last shots from
deranged killers.

Cho probably knew, or believed, his future held little of the promise
of those of his classmates, as posthumously described by his victim's
survivors. But having somewhat of an artistic bent (an English
major, he wrote plays and poetry), his bitterly warped mind led him to
conceive and create a piece of graphic and performance art that he
reckoned, correctly, would live far beyond his soon-to-end little
life. Thus, to his mind, he would become more famous than any member
of the Virginia Tech Class of 2007, of 2008, or 2009!

To say that Cho's planned video and still self-portraits, framed by
shootings of the innocent, will far outlive those of any contemporary
graphic artist, is gross understatement. While Cho's mixed media
"presentation" will never hang in the Louvre, his fearsome, hate-
filled images will be eternally accessible to millions of people who
have little or no interest in DaVinci.

We've seen for years now the glorification and excitement generated by
highly creative video games and movies. Cho might well have been
imitating these types of art when he took those all those lives. But
who can say that his acts -- his life and death -- will not spawn
art?

Given the far-reaching global distribution of digital images linked to
the Cho murders, one can foresee not just copycat reproductions of HIS
rampage, but also larger, more calculated productions of this type.
One can almost picture semi-creative types, like Cho, with suicidal
leanings, plotting their paths to immortality via murders, followed by
their suicides - self-inflicted, or by law enforcers. The Columbine
high school killers, whom Cho is reported to have studied, vented
their murderous plans and wishes online prior to committing their mass-
murder. They, like Cho, live forever in cyber space.

It is difficult to ignore the ultimate goals - the visions, if you
will, of such people: Immortality through crime and death. But like
it or not, long after "regular" human beings are dead and forgotten,
even within their own families, the Chos of the world will live
forever - which, in their heart-of-hearts, is everyone's goal.

So, is a new art movement afoot? Will the next Cho produce an even
more artful piece? Sadly, at the least, he has opened the door to a
potentially sorrowful, but enticing, end for many a sick, delusional,
and suicidal social outcast.

We can only watch, wait, and wonder.

Following is another take on the Cho story ...

----------------------
The 'amok' phenomenon

"Cho's Case Similar to Other Mass Killings by Loners"

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 22, 2007; A13

For more than two centuries, explorers, travelers and researchers have
tracked the disturbing phenomenon of individuals who act out their
rage against the world in an abrupt burst of homicide against total
strangers. Invariably, the violence ends with the person getting
killed or taking his own life.

The rare and little understood phenomenon has been called amok or
running amok, a phrase derived from the Malay word mengamok, which
means "to do furious battle." This week, several experts said Sueng
Hui Cho's shooting rampage at Virginia Tech reminded them of a long
list of other amok cases.

Thinking of Cho's behavior in the context of amok is one of many ways
mental health experts have been struggling to make sense of the
Virginia Tech tragedy. More conventional explanations have suggested
he may have been suffering from a psychotic disorder or personality
problems -- one practitioner's diagnosis in 2005 suggested Cho was
depressed.

Experts who consider the Cho case an example of amok are not
suggesting it is a competing diagnosis as much as a way to describe a
pattern of behavior. For the better part of two centuries, Western
observers thought the phenomenon was limited to "primitive" cultures
in Asia, the Caribbean and native America, but this notion has been
demolished in recent years.

Those who study amok say it now occurs mainly in Western countries.

"The truth of the matter is this occurs in every culture," said Los
Angeles forensic psychiatrist Manuel L. Saint Martin, who said he has
tracked about 50 cases. "It seems to be occurring more commonly now in
Western, industrialized cultures rather than in the Southeast Asian
islands where it was first noticed."

Cho's rampage had the classic signs, said Saint Martin: "It is very
likely this was a case of amok. Amok is the end product of mental
disorder where you get homicidal-suicidal behavior."
Other examples include a massacre at a Luby's cafeteria in Killeen,
Tex., in 1991 and the so-called McDonald's Massacre in San Diego in
1984 -- in both cases, a lone gunman violently vented his grievances
by killing strangers before killing himself or being killed.

Julio Arboleda-Flórez, head of the psychiatry department at Queens
University in Canada, said the Virginia Tech case was just like others
he has studied in North America, including that of the University of
Texas student who climbed a tower on the Austin campus in 1966 and
opened fire on passersby, killing 13 before he was himself gunned
down.

"The pattern starts with a period of brooding, distress,
preoccupations and depression," said Arboleda-Flórez. "After a period,
the guy grabs a weapon and starts a non-provoked outburst of attacks."
He "just attacks and kills and maims and then commits suicide."

Many psychiatric experts were cautious about linking Cho's rampage to
amok because it is described in the current American Psychiatric
Association manual of mental disorders as a "culture-bound syndrome."
Besides the problem of stereotyping that that raises, they argued that
using the construct might suggest Cho was not suffering from a mental
illness, when in fact he seemed deeply disturbed.

Francis G. Lu, a psychiatrist at San Francisco General Hospital, said
the classification of amok needs to be reconsidered in the psychiatry
manual, which is now being revised.

Lu, Saint Martin and Arboleda-Flórez also emphasized that Cho's Korean
ethnicity was a red herring in this context. The fact that experts
once believed amok was limited to Asian cultures said more about the
biases of those observers than the cultures they purportedly studied,
Arboleda-Flórez said.

While it is difficult to diagnose Cho after the fact, there were
several signs he suffered from serious mental illness, Lu said, adding
that the videos Cho made suggest "he was grossly delusional with
paranoia and psychotic."

While cautious about the stereotyping implications, Lu said amok could
describe a pattern of behavior among people who suffer from a range of
underlying disorders.

Gerald P. Koocher, a former president of the American Psychological
Association, said Cho may have been suffering from a personality
disorder that has some similarities to schizophrenia. Cho's
reclusiveness and extreme tendency to blame others for his problems
suggest elements of delusional thinking, Koocher said.

Harvard psychiatrist Richard Mollica said the tragedy underscored the
extent to which depression in America goes untreated.

In late 2005, Cho received a mental health exam that suggested he was
emotionally flat and depressed. He denied being suicidal.

Laurence J. Kirmayer, a psychiatrist at McGill University in Montreal,
said Cho, like countless other young people, had likely constantly
gotten the message that the loner who acts out violence on the world
through martial arts or gunplay is a hero. Kirmayer pointed to James
Bond movies such as the recent remake of "Casino Royale," in which "a
vicious sociopath is okay because he is working for British
intelligence."

Saint Martin said his study of amok cases in Southern California
showed that many who exhibit the behavior follow the same pattern as
Cho -- even if they cause much less carnage. Saint Martin offered a
number of examples involving whites, Latinos and African Americans.
"Most of these individuals become suicidal . . . but for different
reasons, homicidal thoughts get involved," he said. "They are
suicidal, but they also have a lot of anger that has to be directed at
someone or some group that they perceive as persecuting them."

Amok cases seem to follow a fairly fixed pattern, said Saint Martin
and Arboleda-Flórez. The first ingredient is susceptibility to
depression or other serious mental illness. After brooding over
suicidal and homicidal thoughts for months or even years, the person
starts to put together a plan.

"It may just be taking a knife and stabbing people, and it may be
firearms," said Saint Martin. "It may be an elaborate thing as this
person did at Virginia Tech. By the time they put the plan into
action, it is impossible for anyone but law enforcement to intervene.
There is no way to intervene psychiatrically."

Unlike the behavior of serial killers, amok involves a desire by the
perpetrator to die. Unlike suicide bombers, who also kill others while
killing themselves, amok is about the grievances of a solitary
individual, experts said. The fact that most amok cases end with the
person killing himself or getting killed is one reason researchers do
not understand the phenomenon very well, said Arboleda-Flórez.

Joseph Westermeyer, a University of Minnesota researcher who did some
of the early work showing that cases of amok were not limited to any
particular culture, said, "The amok concept may have relevance for
this case, although it's more a descriptive concept or 'syndrome'
rather than a concrete entity."

Part of the reluctance to associate Cho's rampage with amok stems from
the term's historical baggage, said Byron J. Good, a Harvard
anthropologist who has studied the behavior.
Colonialists sometimes misused the term to describe violent acts of
resistance among Malays -- which is why it is now a loaded term, Good
said in an e-mail from Indonesia, where he is doing research. Experts
have also used the term in different ways