Art in the age of siege

Abstract

In this article, the author discusses how artists have responded to the globalization of fear. The metaphor of flight has dominated our landscape in the age of globalization. Even those who have never left home are affected by the movements of others and by the arrival of new messages. Between the fall of the Berlin wall and prior to September 11, visions of the immediate future were dominated by images of free movement. Neo-liberal economists celebrated the innovations of ‘just-in-time’ delivery systems, calculated the benefits of out-sourcing and urged companies to develop new collaborative practices. The global hype of ‘no frontiers’ pumped oxygen in the old dreams of free trade as economic paradise. Container ships, sailing under flags of convenience, and overnight air cargo dispatches, became the twin icons of global traffic. Commodities could arrive with minimum cost and maximum speed. However, this fantasy of uninhibited mobility hides the violence of penetrating boundaries, and projects an image of the world as a flat grid system. All distances and objects, it presumes, can be calibrated according to a single value system.