ECONOMY OF FEAR
“Security has developed into a life style”
(Richard Astron, National Residential Properties, USA)
The ideal of a new society of control which due to modern information technologies experiences less and less boundaries, seems to ely on the traditional pattern of protecting the established social order against destabilisation and alien influences. The program examines the political usage of people’s sense of constant threat, the commercialisation of the surveillance and detention sector, and sneaks into the hyperreality of shopping malls and gated communities.
SCANNEX MAN
John Watt
VIDEO / 00:06:00 / UNITED STATES / 1981
The video is part of John Watt’s Industrial Track series designed around existing electronically controlled surveillance systems and their controllers. In Scannex MAN Gorden Wahn, a representative of Scannex Industries, is an expert in the marketing of security systems. He describes the various applications of surveillance technology.
UNTITLED (FRIEDRICH PASSAGE)
Tobias Bernstrup
VIDEO / 00:06:30 / SWEDEN / 2001
The camera moves slowly through a desolated shopping center interior inspired by the textures of the Friedrichstadt Passage in former East Berlin. The computer animation, originally conceived as a video loop, was made by importing photos, rebuilding the architecture in a computer game engine.
LIMES: bio-Border/Park/Spektakel
VIDEO / 00:23:00 / AUSTRIA / 2001
A video essay about Austria’s heavily controlled Eastern border in the Seewinkel area. While reflecting on biological segregation, local history and global empires, Limes: bio-Border/Park/Spektakel discusses the mechanisms of exclusion in an increasingly fortified Europe.
LOCKDOWNS UP
Ashley Hunt
VIDEO / 00:09:00 / UNITED STATES / 2001
Utilising a complex collage of archival footage, graphics and media icons, Lockdowns up is a frightening look at the potentials that privatised prisons in the United States see for their industry following policy shifts after September 11th, 2001.
ARCHITECTURE OF REASSURANCE
Mike Mills
VIDEO / 00:24:00 / UNITED STATES / 1999
A teenager girl strolls through the sterile world of Southern Californian gated community. During a number of failed encounters and the spontaneous friendship to another girl, who leads a secluded life together with her favourite pop music, the suburban surrounding turns into a hyperreal image of unbearable perfection.
From the archive of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.