Katastrophen Alarm (2008)
NGBK
Katastrophen Alarm
One dramatic weather event follows on from the next: floods, droughts and storms are reported from throughout the world, further heating up the debate of environmental risks and crises. Media arguments that catastrophic climate changes are impending make for a constant state of public alarm so as to create an atmosphere of fear and strengthen established positions of power. A threat is repeated, presented as being real – the result is a state of emergency. If things go no further than the forecast, however, a post-catastrophic consciousness arises wherein political action appears to be hopeless. Who is behind the current 'red alert' and who is it that benefits from it?
"Katastrophenalarm" examines media fabrications of this kind and the appropriation of environmental disasters by politics. Artists were invited to analyse the mechanisms used to convey a sense of danger and the visual presentation of catastrophes. Some chose to take actual images or situations from the media as their starting point – for instance, the reporting of Hurricane Katrina or the environmental situation around California's salt-contaminated Salton Lake; others adopt a theory of culture approach to discuss the meaning of catastrophe as a concept, the effect it has on society or to go in search of the new vocabulary produced by the specific rhetoric of disasters. Many businesses make use of this language too and claim in their advertisements to have a 'green awareness'.
"Katastrophenalarm" examines media fabrications of this kind and the appropriation of environmental disasters by politics. Artists were invited to analyse the mechanisms used to convey a sense of danger and the visual presentation of catastrophes. Some chose to take actual images or situations from the media as their starting point – for instance, the reporting of Hurricane Katrina or the environmental situation around California's salt-contaminated Salton Lake; others adopt a theory of culture approach to discuss the meaning of catastrophe as a concept, the effect it has on society or to go in search of the new vocabulary produced by the specific rhetoric of disasters. Many businesses make use of this language too and claim in their advertisements to have a 'green awareness'.
Artists: Dave Hullfish Bailey, Margit Czenki / Christoph Schäfer, Marjolijn Dijkman, Christoph Draeger, Azin Feizabadi / Kianoosh Vahabi, Cornelia Hesse-Honegger, René Lück, Eva Meyer Keller, Claudia Mucha, Lisi Raskin, Lise Skou / Nis Rømer, spector cut+paste (Markus Dreßen / Anne König / Jan Wenzel), Andrei Ujica, Ingo Vetter
Authors: Alexandra Alexeijewitsch / Paul Virilio, NGBK Projectgroup “Katastrophenalarm” (Sophie Goltz / Christine Heidermann / Anne Kersten / Vera Tollmann / Ingo Vetter)
german/english 2008
ISBN 978-3-938515-17-4
Price: 14.- €
Price: 14.- €
- Online publications
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Publications
- Cartographies of Time (2010)
- Portscapes (2010)
- Difference on Display (2009)
- SUM Magazine *05 (2009)
- Club Donny #4 (2009)
- Younger than Jesus (2009)
- Architecture of Consequence (2009)
- Decollecting (2008)
- Katastrophen Alarm (2008)
- Adaptation, Redesigning the everyday (2007)
- HTV No. 68, VOC (2007)
- Looking, Encountering, Staging (2005)
- Territorial Invasions of the Public and Private (2003)
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