In a recent article writer Paula Wall explains, "In May 2004, Buffalo artist and university professor Steve Kurtz woke up to find that his wife, Hope, had stopped breathing. He called 911 and was subsequently plunged into a nightmare that is still going on. Kurtz and his wife were founding members of the Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), which mounts exhibits sometimes critical of public health and military programs. In his home studio were biological materials for an upcoming exhibit about genetically modified agriculture at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA)."

What happened next is the subject of a new documentary film by Lynn Hershman Leeson entitled "Strange Culture." The official site says," Within hours the artist was detained as a suspected "bioterrorist" as dozens of federal agents in Hazmat suits sifted through his work and impounded his computers, manuscripts, books, his cat, and even his wife’s body. Today Kurtz and his long-time collaborator Dr. Robert Ferrell, Professor of Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, await a trial date."