We will be changed
SARS-CoV-2-2020
2 channel video sound installation
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Since the middle of March, I have received only a few photos and videos, then several times a day, which deal with Corona in a joking way. At the same time, I was on the phone with friends from different countries who are directly affected.
The news showed images of chaos in clinics, at national borders, and mass graves being bulldozed.
As of May 1, 2020, there are 233,416 deaths worldwide with Covid-19. I will never forget the pictures from Italy and Spain, New York, Equador, India and China.
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“The poorer the states and populations, the more severe the effects of the crisis. Exactly at the moment when the global south needs help from the rich states, the opposite happens ... More than 100 billion dollars have been withdrawn by investors from the troubled south since the beginning of the year ... It is obvious that western societies are currently staring at themselves. But there is something narrow and heartless about this look. Internal solidarity works. What happens beyond the well-established borders disappears more than usual from the perception radar. "(Stefan Reinecke, With us, lockdown is luxury, taz 6.4.2020)
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The bizarre videos I have collected show consuming societies dousing themselves with disinfectants, hoarding toilet paper, dancing, eating and drinking. Societies that at the same time become crazy about themselves in social distancing.
"With its defense against the possibility of suffering, humor takes a place in the large number of methods that the human soul has developed in order to evade the compulsion of suffering." (Siegmund Freud, Der Humor, Vienna, 1927)
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In Germany, the pandemic is comparatively mild. There are 6,518 deaths. 90 people died in Cologne. Nevertheless, my everyday life was completely turned off its hinges.
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We will be changed. Which direction we go depends on the choices we make now.
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