黑料不打烊

Apocalyptic sentiments go hand in hand with any crisis, war, or epidemic. New media have elevated the visibility of such events and enabled large swathes of the audience to follow the developments closely. A recent coinage from the 2020 pandemic year, 鈥榙oomscrolling鈥� describes the widespread phenomenon of obsessive reading of negative news online. The introduction of a new term highlights the impact on people that comes from broadcasting of catastrophes and disasters. For a person caught in the middle of events or constantly monitoring them, there is no distinction between the present and the dark past, and there is no way to plan for the future, which can only be imagined. In the early 21st century, the sense of the end of history and 鈥渟talling鈥� in that moment found expression in the hauntological dreams about the foregone potential futures.

The apocalypse now is an intricately staged media show with special effects. Through frequent use, the word is often abbreviated to 鈥榓poc鈥�. Which sounds not unlike a dull thud, or like a 鈥渃lap鈥� 鈥� the word that is, for various reasons, used instead of 鈥渆xplosion鈥� nowadays. In the age of euphemisms, apoc is a routinization of apocalypse. Will this situation bestow upon us any new revelations? Other modes of existence to help overcome the hopelessness, the desperation, and the apparent impermanence? Can we expect a rise of neo-Millenarianism? Will we see a new heaven and earth?

Fears, omens, persistence of threat and inevitability, transformation of our relations to time and space 鈥攁rtists have long been attentive to such triggers of apocalyptic thinking. In 2002, Triumph Gallery presented State of Emergency, a large-scale project reflecting on that particular moment and the post-pandemic world. The new exhibition, Apoc, continues the contemplations on the future and brings together numerous authors who document disasters, formulate various end-of-the-world scenarios, and share their premonitions and revelations.