Michael Danner
‘Critical Mass/Kritische Masse (Nuclear Power in Germany)
Part of the group show ‘LA ZONA’ at NGBK - Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Berlin
28.4.2012 - 3.6.2012
To this day, the use of nuclear energy has been met with high hopes and profound skepticism. In Germany, both these stances have been, and still are, under intense discussion. By now, a medium-term nuclear power phase-out seems a done deal. However, the problem of the terminal storage of nuclear waste continues to be unsolved. Completed over the past four years, my photography project Critical Mass/Kritische Masse shows and documents all 17 German nuclear power plants as well as the Asse II terminal repository, and the exploration mine at Gorleben. Rather than taking a neutral position, I consider my work a contribution to the debates on our future energy options.
The images and books from Critical Mass/Kritische Masse presented in La Zona are intended to invite observers to ask questions – questions regarding our notions of security and risk. Where are the limitations of technical control systems? What are the consequences of the energy transition? Or are we facing new chances for products and alternative lifestyles?
La Zona
The exhibition La Zona identifies different categories of “zone”. The main reference is the zone in Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker - a territory that is at once enclosed and abandoned, deadly and healing, unpredictable, and always changing. Filmed seven years before the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Stalker is in retrospect considered as an anticipation of this catastrophe and its consequences. La Zona constructs a science fiction narrative out of the polymorphic reality of the “zone” as well as the fractured idea of progress and enlightenment.
Participants
Büro für Konstruktivismus, Michael Danner, Katja Davar, Amin Farzanefar, Kim Feser, Ulrike Feser, Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani, Ralf Homann, Ins A Kromminga, Tara Mahapatra, Steven Matheson, Chris McGrane, Esther Neumann, Lina Selander, Dylan Spaysky, Charles Stankievech, Ashok Sukumaran, Florian Wüst, Daniel Young & Christian Giroux.
© Michael Danner