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Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset |
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CONSTRUCTED
CATASTROPHES, FIG.2
December 22, 2003 – February 6, 2004 |
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CCA
Project Gallery presented a new installation by Elmgreen & Dragset.
Elmgreen & Dragset’s new installation at CCA Project Gallery,
entitled Constructed Catastrophes, Fig. 2 showed a collapsed bridge,
which is crossing the gallery room and dividing the space into two
parts. However, this accident is a planned one - it is a constructed
(programmed) catastrophe - a piece of engineering that has been designed
to fail. With its uncanny aesthetics the work seduces the viewer
into an ambiguous position between visual attraction and evoking
the consciousness of the endless stream of horrors that the media
presents to us. On a daily basis we are confronted with news of either
natural, ecological or war related disasters, which set us off an
entire range of emotional reactions. This overwhelming attack of
visual information makes us react with either fear, concern, anger,
apathy or even with a certain perverted fascination of the visual
cruelties. Such a fascination could possibly be explained by the
desperate, unconscious longing for radical change, which is triggered
by any dissatisfied life situation - a change which nevertheless
seems out of reach for most people. And the sudden accident as it
is presented in the media becomes, in spite of its cruelty, a sort
of a displaced symbol of potential change.
Constructed Catastrophes, Fig. 2 highlights the fragility of our
modern urban infrastructure and communication systems, but it also
comforts the spectator by the fact that this scenario is just a staged
one - a homage to our individual powerlessness and at the same time
a warning about turning this powerlessness into a collective paranoia.
Media analysts have throughout decades proven in what ways all major
broadcasting companies manipulate and even stage their reports from
various catastrophes. The accident, which Elmgreen & Dragset
presented to us in the gallery space, is underlining its own designed
and fictional character.
Elmgreen & Dragset stayed as professors of the Research Program
at CCA Kitakyushu from November 25th to December 23rd, 2003.
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