Global Anxiety Monitor in Architecture of Fear

Since October 2011 Google changed the way image search can be accessed. Because of this the Global Anxiety Monitor does not function anymore. The presentation at Z33 is adjusted.

More information:

http://www.geuzen.org/anxiety/installation/monitor.php?first=en

http://code.google.com/apis/imagesearch/terms.html

The installation Global Anxiety Monitor by De Geuzen from the NIMk collection, will be part of the exhibition Architecture of Fear, to be presented at Z33 in Hasselt, Belgium from October 1st till December 31st, 2011.

Architecture of Fear

Architecture of Fear explores how feelings of fear pervade daily life in the contemporary media society. The cause of fear seems interchangeable and constantly fluctuating. Shifting from one thing to the next, often relating to invisible or indirect phenomena’s (terrorism, viral diseases, pollution, financial crisis), anything has the ability to become a potential threat. Rather than an immediate emotional strategy for survival fear is becoming a constant low level feeling in the background that gives rise to a new global infrastructure based on security, prevention and risk-management.

Architecture of Fear brings together a selection of international artists and designers that reflect in different ways on the society of fear, ranging from registration and critical research, to exploring its emotional, social and spatial mechanisms.

Shortlist artists: Bureau D'Etudes, De Geuzen, Floris Douma, Laurent Grasso, Ilkka Halso, Susanna Hertrich, Charlotte Lybeer, Jill Magid, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Tracey Moffatt, Trevor Paglen, Marie Sester, Kin Wah Tsang and Els Vanden Meersch.

Global Anxiety Monitor

Anxiety strongly influences people’s attitudes towards life and defines their short- and long-term behavior and views. It is traditionally used as a guiding principle in political discourse. This has especially been the case since September 11, 2001, when various risk-inducing global themes and phenomena, from terrorism to transmittable diseases, increasingly began to influence the attitudes and policies of Western governments in many areas, from immigration to relations with the Middle East.

The Global Anxiety Monitor by De Geuzen is a project that offers an artistic perspective upon, and analysis of, anxiety in an international context, through the analysis of images. In many of their works, artist collective De Geuzen explore mediatized images, especially in the ecology of the world wide web, where images appear in an ever-changing and dynamic context and where it is possible to research and visualize the way their influence and meaning fluctuate.

Presented as a multi-screen installation, the Global Anxiety Monitor simultaneously presents various live Google image searches in different languages, including Arabic, Dutch, English, French, Hebrew, Simplified and Traditional Chinese. Querying anxiety buzzwords such as terrorism, conflict, financial crisis and climate change, each language delivers its own unique set of results. The various screens of the installation show a continuous pulse of visuals and metadata: perspectives from different languages sometimes converge and occasionally conflict. By continually performing timed searches, it becomes evident that query is driven by cultural biases and fed by local concerns. The Global Anxiety Monitor does not archive or document these processes, but rather it is a means of exposing the various Google worlds we may occupy at any given moment.

Biography

De Geuzen is a foundation for multi-visual research and the collective identity of Riek Sijbring, Femke Snelting and Renée Turner. They work together since 1996, developing and employing a variety of tactics to explore female identity, narratives of the archive and media image ecologies. Their work has been featured worldwide in a variety of events, spaces and publications. The group investigates and tests ideas collectively with different publics in the context and framework of exhibitions, workshops and online projects. Their research is open-ended, values processes of exchange and promotes critical interrogation. Some of their projects are commissioned, many are self-initiated.
De Geuzen live and work in the Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the Netherlands and Brussels, Belgium.
http://www.geuzen.org