Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Ils Huygens (curator) Jan Boelen (artistic director Z33)
Good morning Ils,
It's just two days until the opening of Architecture of Fear,
an exhibition project of Z33 of which you are the curator.
What exactly does it entail?
Well, the exhibition revolves around fear, fear in society.
So it’s not as much about personal fears or phobias,
but rather about the fears which we are confronted with in news papers and on television news on an everyday basis.
Our starting point was the idea of living in practically apocalyptic times
in which one threat follows another.
One day it's terrorist threats,
the other it's global warming.
One moment we're dealing with the Mexican flu,
the other with Bird Flu.
So there are constantly new issues....
A society of Fear.
Yes.
But why, then, the title 'Architecture of Fear'?
The title might be a little deceptive at first sight.
It certainly is not an architectural exhibition,
but the element of architecture in the title refers to the idea of an infrastructure behind the society of fear.
An infrastructure which in part translates into architecture itself.
In that case we're talking about 'gated communities'
or fences around theme parks, camera monitoring in the city or public spheres.
The surveillance equipment which is becoming increasingly sophisticated and omnipresent in everyday life.
Then, on a second level,
the element of architecture refers to the infrastructure residing on a level other than the physical.
For example, the economic or political interests which lie beneath the discourse of fear.