What happens when everyday events take even the prophets of doom by surprise? Hard times indeed! Even in Albrecht Dürer’s time the impetus to modernise, to leave the Middle Ages behind and enter the Renaissance, had a disturbing feeling about it. And today? Our perception is moulded by the flood of media images that stir up a deep-seated fear of change in our traditional lifestyle. But recent events have wrought dramatic changes in the way we feel angst. Digitalised angst assails us at ever increasing speed. Fuelled by the media, fears of recession, mad cow disease and the events of 11 September follow each other, inextricably linked on the projection screen of our collective unconsciousness. But how is the social construction between individual and collective action? An example is the consolation of religion respectively its substitutes as a sign of proper incapacity of action.

Curated by Heike Munder