Lightning and low grey clouds. Brave
riders. With courage. What a romantic
and hopeful picture in the 70s.
The viewer's view of this apocalyptic
scene was a view from the outside, from
far away, or at least far enough away.
How the view on the future has changed.
Today we are no longer watching the
storm - we are riding it - we are the
storm - we cause the storm.
That is why this scene of apocaplypsis was to be captured with a dashcam today. In the past, yes, the storm was caused by the others. Today, we can no longer deny the connection between crisis and our own behaviour.
Many have recognised this and have
already changed their behaviour or
attitude. Just as many ignore
everything, hope that the cup will pass
them by, bury their heads in the sand.
A few turn on full throttle. Extra.
Because there is only one life. Theirs.
And then there are a few who turn every
crisis into a success.
This is
post-modernity. It is determined by
plurality.
They say, our Western plurality
refers to the multiplicity of life
realities or better: to the right of
different life designs as a basic
constitution of society.
Plurality allows for different forms of
knowledge and patterns of action. This
is quite contrary to the great
meta-narratives of modernity, which
aimed at a unity of knowledge and a
uniform truth. But is that still true
today? Can these different life plans be
realised at all? Doesn't it just remain
a promise?
Is there really diversity of
opinion and a culture of debate today?
Riding the Storm means being alert.
But it also means necessarily
disobedience, breaking the rules,
refusal and this means resistance.
So
our view of the future has changed -
shaped by our concerns about an all in
all incomprehensible world. Yet we lack
a shared assessment of the situation.
For the more unjust and chaotic the
world becomes, the clearer it becomes
how polarised we are. For the struggle
for resources and power is rooted in our
own individual greed. A trap we have set
for ourselves.
Every current situation triggers new consequences. Unpredictable and uncontrollable. That is the only victory of globalisation.
People still think that they are helpless on their own and therefore without power. And this hiding behind one's own actions is the real tragedy. Because the small, daily, individual decisions and actions are an untapped potential.
Because
the struggle for resources and power in
the big world has its roots in our own
individual greed. The cause of our storm
is this unquenchable notion that man,
with his intelligence and creativity,
can always get a grip on his own
discontent.
The storm is thus also a symbol of the question and definition of happiness and contentment. The more unjust and chaotic the world becomes, the clearer it becomes how polarised we are. We lack a common assessment of the situation.
This work, entitled RIDING THE
STORM, is presented here as a fictional,
fake yet fact-based accumulation of
information that moves between the
romantic image of the apocalypse from
the 1970s and the flood of data on
current situations. The following videos
and images generated by algorithms
illustrate the complex absurdity of our
global situation.
This work also
describes the small decisions and
actions of individuals that feed the
storm we are in - but also how it is
possible to resist...
See the next pages:
- The World (introduction 2)
- The Comfort Zone (introduction3)
- The Fetish
- The Information pathology - term and application
- The Connection of image and truth
- The Individual
- The Community
- I have to change my life