Black Memory (A spectrum is ha unting Europe)

86 newspapers smoked with ocote

Installation view at the 5th Moscow Biennale

2013

 

Black Memory consists of a selection of European newspapers from the last 20 years that traces a kind of genealogy of the actual crisis in the social, financial and political fields. Who builds the collective memory and what strategies are used in media to control that memory?

 

The expression smoke screen is a strategy used by governments when putting certain (and most part of the times spectacular) news on the front page in order to distract popular attention from the real problems and to keep control on information. This strategy of false politics is not only used by various regimes around the world but also widely developed in new media.

 

Taking up this notion of “smoke screen” the artist cancelled the front pages of the newspapers by using black smoke. Some words though remain readable and open up a wide field references that escape mechanisms of control.