Artists
at the beginning of the 20th century sought to
work
in hybrid forms, as a socially-oriented movement, an
utopian
vision which embodied the idealism of a new
order,
believing itself capable of changing, reforming,
reordering--totally
changing all aspects of human life.
They
embraced the notion of the all-encompassing role of
art:
the profound belief in the ability of art to effect
change.
Almost
one hundred years later, into the new millenium,
we
have seen the effects of this utopian vision: the
failure
of modernism and its various permutations on a
global
basis.
At
the dawn of the new millenium, what are the new
paradigms
for living in this Age of Global
Communications?
We see that in the work of Betty
Beaumont,
for instance, in her "Ocean Landmark Project"
(1978-1980),
located 40 miles beyond New York Harbor,
that
here is a prototype for sustainable living. It is itself,
both
an underwater sculpture on a massive scale: 500
tons
of an industrial waste product made of processed
coal-waste,
a potential pollutant that has undergone a
planned
transformation into a flourishing ecosystem: a
poetic
vision 70 feet below the surface, on the floor of
the
Atlantic Continental Shelf.
Contrasting
with this positive paradigm for inhabitation
or
regeneration in the world's oceans, Christoph Draeger
offers
us his catastrophic vision in his video "Oil" (1998).
Utilising
found footage of the world's oil spill disasters,
he
comments upon the way in which we easily forget the
question
of technological failure, deconstructing our
concept
of reality as mediated by the news media,
hollywood,
and other sources of stimuli in the global
media-saturated
village.
"At
the end of the 20th century, catastrophe has not
become
a paradigm of world experience, but rather,
because
of its ubiquity in the media, the definitive image
of
"accelerating standstill" (--Paul Virilio). The magnitude
of
a catastrophe is no longer measured by the number of
its
victims, but rather by its medial valuation and
resulting
telepresence--whose impressive images present
us
with horror as an aesthetic experience."
[Dirk Blubaum, The Security of Risk]