Concept
Precipitating Dread [PPT-Dread]

With the Project 'Precipitating Dread' I aim to alter the aggregate state of atmospheric dread that dissipated through the twitter feed of former President Donald Trump and crystallize it into a visually intriguing and possibly psychoactive substance.


Atmospheric Dread

While it is possible to both dread and/or fear something specific in a visceral way, the concept of 'dread', becomes uniquely useful when applied to unchangeable situations with an uncertain outcome and unclear cause. For this project, the intersection between dread and diffuse fear is of particular interest. Diffuse fear is understood as fear without an object, and dread can be described as the fearful anticipation of an unknown outcome. Both tend to be endured passively, dread, because it is anticipatory, and diffuse fear, because it has no discernible cause.

Because these two sensations share characteristics, I argue that there is such a thing as diffuse dread, a sensation that is caused by highly complex and abstract threats that the individual themselves cannot alter, remediate or fully understand. This diffuse form of dread that can, for instance, stem from large scale threats such as a distant war, climate change, social inequality, or a pandemic, is a collective phenomenon. It is not acute or visceral but rather passive and cognitive. In the course of this project, I describe this form of dread as atmospheric dread, and characterize it as a highly aestheticized, narrative driven, cultural phenomenon.

This atmospheric dread, as I describe it, has become more prevalent recently through the widespread use of electronic information networks. It is essential to observe its artificial and a(n)esthetic quality. Since atmospheric dread is usually not experienced as a consequence of direct exposure, but rather through narrative media and hearsay, it is constituted by a mixture of aestheticized meta sensations and obtuse feelings of personal endangerment. This mixture of feelings is often endured without articulation, or even conscious reflection. Insidiously, atmospheric dread can thus become a hidden but powerful undertow of apperception.


Information and Acuity

While atmospheres of dread may have existed as long as storytelling has been part of human culture, the way that information is shared and transmitted has changed. Atmospheric dread most likely had a very different quality and effect in the past. Imagine, for example, how individuals such as Fredrich Schiller or Georg Buechner [18/19th century German authors I like] would have behaved and how their writing would have differed, if they had been able to access live newsfeeds during the bloody events of their days. Today we are no longer insulated by time, global events are documented and processed almost as fast as they occur. We are now immersed in a network that enables us to spread our acuity of the present moment across the entire globe.


A(n)esthetics

The slow and intimate present which was temporally insulated in the past has become an immediate, global and highly aestheticized now. The networks of information that feed into our perception have created a secondary world, that intrudes upon us incessantly. This ubiquity of images and content has gradually inoculated us, giving rise to what Wolfgang Welsch calls the anaesthetic, which, in contrast to the aesthetic, is observed but no longer truly understood or empathized with. 

As an example, Welsch saw the architecture and decor of contemporary mall spaces and shopping centres in the 80s as a prime example for anaesthetic structures that are intentionally conducive to thoughtless consumption. Interestingly, these settings have recently become re-aestheticized through the vaporwave genre and art movement that appreciates the liminal strangeness of mall escalators and hallways. These clumsily anaesthetic spaces of the past have become part of a new aesthetic in the present.


Super Hyperbolic Symbolism

I find it very compelling to think that atmospheric dread and the effect which Welsch describes are correlated. It is plausible to assume that the prevalence of anaesthetics is related to, if not in part responsible for, our passive acquiescence to the intrusive digital world that we have created. Our capacity for fear is so overwhelmed and has become eroded to such a degree, that events and images that would previously have caused a visceral reaction, are now registered with nothing but opaque sensations that unconsciously feed into the unresolvable atmosphere of dread that permeates our lives.

Considering this general baseline of anaesthetized acquiescence, art and media in general must exert great effort to overcome the inertia that retains the viewer's inoculated mind. While art and literature have the advantage of dealing with an audience that is inclined to empathise, mainstream cinema and media that wish to create an emotional response in their audience often use what I would like to call super hyperbolic symbolism to breach their audience in such a way, that they have no choice but to respond emotionally. Scenes that shock with gore or the destruction and/or juxtaposition of treasured and/or hated symbols, as well as incredibly oversaturated and suspenseful storytelling, create pleasurable, shocking and exhilarating viewing experiences that illicit emotional engagement and captivate the viewers' attention. 


Atmospheric Dread and President Trumps Twitter Feed

Within this environment of anesthetizing media, oversaturated super hyperbolic symbolism and extreme informational acuity, certainty and simplicity (most easily achievable through wilful ignorance) become incredibly desirable and attractive. This vulnerability is exploited excessively. We are not only prey to our media that anesthetizes us and makes us desire the phantasmagorical commodities which capitalist society requires us to consume, we are also manipulated by our leaders and politics. It has long been a strategy of the far right to abuse cognitive dissonance, through what they call 'red pilling' in reference to a scene from The Matrix, by creating the false impression that unconscious bias is justified, and that situations which seem complex and difficult to comprehend are, in fact, a menace that can be broken down into a simple binary dialectic, of us against them, othering and hate. This dangerous simplification of the overwhelmingly complex state that is the present moment reached its most absurd and potent manifestation in President Donald Trump's twitter feed. Trump's impulsive and highly divisive tweets were some of the most immediate and direct sources of information to ever enter into our collective consciousness. Endowed by the almost arcane power of his office, his utterances held enormous sway on how markets moved and how people felt and behaved, perturbing and clouding the atmospheric conditions of our time. 


Precipitation, or How to Make Iridescent Dread Crystals

This emanation, the atmospheric dread that dissipated through President Trumps twitter feed, is the source from which a crystalized concrete form can be precipitated. By applying tools used in language analysis to President Trump's tweets, they can be reverted into a state that is no longer certain and simple, uncovering the meaning and abstract menace that is hidden in their subtext. The extracted values gained through this process are then in turn used to manipulate and alter the substance and appearance of matching scenes from the world of cinema that embody my idea of super hyperbolic symbolism, albeit the suspenseful moments before or after the climax has occurred, laden with precursory tension that has not yet erupted, or tension that is being reinvoked with new flavor and meaning. 

The ensuing crystallization makes use of a novel image generation process that I have developed specifically for this project. I call it the linear gradient lattice. It is formed by a tapestry of interwoven linear gradients, the pattern and distribution of which coalesces around an octagonal shape that is derived from the values extracted during the analysis process. The resulting image output together with a visualization of the analysis process is displayed as a comprehensive archive that spans the entirety of President Trump's tenure. 
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