image: © M HKA, Courtesy Alexander Lee
A second alternative future is ‘Collapse’ from one cause or another (or their combination) and either to extinction or to a ‘lower’ stage of ‘development’ than currently. […] It should be emphasised that the ‘Collapse’ future is not and should not be portrayed as a ‘worst case scenario’. Many people welcome the end of the ‘economic rat-race’ and yearn for a simpler lifestyle. Moreover, in every ‘disaster’ there are ‘winners’ as well as ‘losers’. (Jim Dator, Alternative Futures at the Manoa School , 2009.)
The second of the ‘four futures’ could be the most titillating. Who doesn’t secretly like to witness disaster and collapse – at a safe distance, in an art museum? But rather than offering graphic representations of doomsday scenarios, this segment of the exhibition looks at the ‘before and after’ of collapse, with under-the-skin glimpses of the American psyche that seem to prefigure both 9/11 and Trumpism (Michel Auder), the calm spectacle of nature reclaiming a failed real estate investment in the tropics (Simryn Gill) or a reality where all that was ‘normal’ has evaporated (Center for Postnormal Policy & Futures Studies).
>Michel Auder, It's Hard To Be Down When You're Up, 1976-2007.Video, b/w video, sd, sound, 00:20:36.
>Michel Auder, Voyage To The Center Of The Phone Lines, 1993.Video, hi8 video and mini dv to digital video sd, colour, sound, 00:52:46.
>Simryn Gill, My Own Private Angkor, 2007-2009.Print, 90 silver gelatin prints, 90 x (39.37 x 37.46 cm).
>Simryn Gill, Let Them Eat Potatoes, 2015.Print, luis vuitton writing ink on hahnemuhle paper, 205 x (60.96 x 43.18 cm).
>Michel Auder, 1967, 2015.Video, 16mm film transferred to digital video, silent, 00:21:28.
>CENTRE FOR POSTNORMAL POLICY & FUTURES STUDIES , Polylogue, 2017.Installation, interactive board game, product design by effusion, london.
>CENTRE FOR POSTNORMAL POLICY & FUTURES STUDIES , Postnormal Times, 2017.Installation, installation with text, banners, objects and moving image - exhibition design by aine cassidy and her colleagues at effusion, london.
>Simryn Gill, Windows, 2017.Photography, 17 c type photographs.