Artists: Lucy Beech, Will Benedict, Cao Fei, Chen Chieh-jen, Douwe Dijkstra, DIS, Simon Dybbroe Møller, Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani, Melanie Gilligan, Simon Gush, Lauren Huret, Sven Johne, Kaya & Blank, Ali Kazma, Dominique Koch, Gabriela Löffel, Ariane Loze, Eva & Franco Mattes, Richard Mosse, Paulien Oltheten, Stefan Panhans & Andrea Winkler, Julika Rudelius, Pilvi Takala, Wang Bing, Anna Witt.
In the editorial of Neue Zürcher Zeit am Sonntag (November 12, 2023[1] ), the editor-in-chief states: "The vision of the global village has failed. People need to reduce complexity because they cannot process the bombardment of news from all channels. They need to focus and select in order to manage their attention efficiently and escape burnout. So far, so normal. But the total denial that is spreading has a toxic effect. A lack of curiosity and ignorance correlate strongly with abstinence from voting and dropping out of civilized discourse. They promote conspiracy theories and leave the field to radicals of all stripes. They allow the foundations of a democracy that guarantees freedom to quietly crumble." In Switzerland, figures show that over 40% of the population is on the way to total media abstinence, including one of the seven federal ministers who preside over Swiss politics. It is probably no different in the countries of the EU, the guardians of democracy worldwide. This is accompanied by a growing acceptance of autocratic forms of government.
In the same newspaper there is also this note: "Greenland is losing its ice shelf faster. The ice shelves in the north of Greenland have lost more than 30 percent of their total volume since 1978. (...) For a long time, the glaciers in the north of Greenland were considered stable. In the meantime, however, three of the eight ice shelves supporting these glaciers have collapsed. The retreat of the remaining ice shelves is destabilizing the nearby glaciers, which could have serious consequences for sea level rise. (...)." [2]
The issue that concerns us here - and humanity as a whole - is a dangerous confusion of speed and quantity - a collision with a precarious acceleration and overwhelming factor. Since industrialization, since modernity, i.e. since the last 250-300 years, we have been living in a permanent revolution. Mechanization and electrification have together revolutionized not only production and distribution, transport, but also the forms and structures of work, and thus also our ways of life. On January 14, 1914, Henry Ford introduces the assembly line. He was not the first, but together with his colleague Charles E. Sorensen, Henry Ford transferred the idea of powered conveyor belts from the slaughterhouses, the so-called "disassembly lines", to the car factory. Disassembly lines" became "assembly lines". [3] This gradually, and then ever more quickly and powerfully, paved the way for the automation of work and production processes.
For 40 to 50 years, we have launched the turbo, the overdrive, the fast track to high technology, to digitalization. And at the moment we are sitting in a rocket that will soon be launched. The final destination is unknown. In 7 to 10 years, the globe will be surrounded by 30,000 satellites. The universe is a completely lawless space. This will allow Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and others to dramatically change our night sky and our communication. In the same time frame, AI and Tiktok will replace the training of our brains, perhaps melting our brains and the way we work. We will leave writing and arithmetic to the machines. Written communication will become obsolete, or at least shrink to 10 to 20 lines. Consumption will continue to increase, a radicalized consumption, and so will the consumers. Citizens, on the other hand, will shrink, especially the mindful ones. The environment, nature will and must continue to defend itself, but in vain, as it currently looks, migration will become ever stronger until it is completely uncontrollable. Even in the metaverse, their bodies and their needs will not disappear. Unless the desired final flight to Mars becomes a reality.
Movements and developments usually start slowly. Initially they are rare, then more frequent and faster, and finally they multiply, multiply, overlap. The result is usually a jumble, a scramble. Individual movements merge into streams, becoming traffic, bumper-to-bumper traffic, traffic of people, freight, plants, animals, airplanes and data. What was once locally anchored, rooted, shifts, is carried away, exported, migrates consciously or unconsciously, spreads elsewhere or is itself overrun, overgrown. "Global trading, global traffic means the networking and spanning of the earth's crust with a dense network of movements and actions, analog and digital transports, so intense until the earth's crust shakes, until the air shimmers and the birds can no longer find their direction, the fish can no longer find their way home, until migration, the transport of goods, people and plants becomes the norm. An explosive mixture in its final state, a late capitalist implosion."[4]
As long as these processes of development and dissemination take place slowly, everything and everyone can come to terms, reorganize and develop together. Excessive speed and quantity, on the other hand, challenge and ultimately overwhelm all systems. During this period, we encounter changes in many parameters, changes that are so enormous in size, speed and quality that we can no longer understand them or react to them. As a result, we usually feel dizzy, insecure and lost: vertigo becomes a normal condition. As we have read above, many of us react with radical withdrawal, combined with a narrowing, a blurring of our field of vision.
One of many good references on these topics is the book "A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet" by Raj Patel (economist) and Jason W. Moore (historian). The book is called "Entwertung" in German, which is even clearer. In seven chapters, each is dedicated to one aspect of this devaluation of the world: nature is being devalued just as much as money, work, care, food, energy and life. With the sole aim of maximizing the profits of the few. The authors describe as impressively and comprehensively that the crises of our time are in reality a single major crisis and that this has a long history. "Today, when cheap labor processes cheap chlorinated chicken into cheap chicken wings, it is, as they exemplify, a destructive economic principle that has evolved over centuries." Patel and Moore make us painfully aware that it is time to break through this development and to think differently about our economic and social system if we want to understand and thus preserve our world - and also save ourselves, the young and old, those born later. Taking responsibility is certainly a major issue.
The exhibition "Vertigo - Visual Stories & Studies of Rapid Changes" brings together 30 video artists and video works that deal with these changes in a variety of ways. With the rapid change in forms of work, behavior, communication, consumption, in dealing with nature and with our social systems. Visualize, thematize, confront, discuss, over and over again: that is the inherent suggestion, a possible recommendation. Keep it in front of our eyes until we are able to react and act.
Curator: Urs Stahel
[1] Beat Balzli, Editor-in-Chief, Editorial, NZZ am Sonntag, November 12, 2023
[2] Greenland is losing its ice shelf faster (hir.), NZZ am Sonntag, November 12, 2023, page 57
[3] January 14, 1914 - Henry Ford introduces the assembly line " AutoNatives.com (November 12, 2023)
[4] Urs Stahel: Power and Pain, in Yann Mingard, Indociles, GwynZegal 2023