»Community, Identity, Stability«—This motto running through Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World (written in 1931) is experiencing a widespread return in the rise of National Populism—whether in Europe, Turkey, the USA or China. What is most interesting in this, is the element of seduction, which induces a majority in the real world to voluntarily elect an autocratic leader, or even to concede to a corporation by submitting personal data into a machine. Already for Huxley, it was about »liking what you’ve got to do«, as in liking the destiny embryonic conditioning had predetermined. Is our current, individualistic ›self-optimization‹ (beginning with our own children; soon not only those embryos carrying flaws will be culled) not already a kind of voluntary self-conditioning that strives towards an advertising-driven, perfectionist ideal?

The bright fog serves as a metaphor for utopian perfection, whose totality turns into its dystopian opposite: everything is bright, but we can no longer see. Only by hearing can we orientate ourselves. The gravity and darkness of the reservoir is completely reversed in the light contourlessness of the fog we lose ourselves in. As we would lose ourselves in a perfect world because in the other, of non-conformity, that which is possible has disappeared.

 

Georg Klein is a sound artist. With his site-specific installations he challenges the perception of his audience in an irritating way—and always with a political bent. www.georgklein.de