Europa Endlos, the video installation created by Derzu Campos specifically for this exhibition, explores the idea of earthquakes as a cycle of collapse and re-construction. During the first half of the video, images of the destruction that followed the Second World War in Europe appear combined with images of ruins all around the world. Following a “turning point” represented by an artificial flower that grows an architectonical structure, the video goes on to show both modernist, brutalist buildings merging with postmodernist skyscrapers, representative of our neoliberal era, in order to highlight how the idealist notion of progress that impulsed the reconstruction of post-war Europe has evolved in a speed race towards growth. Near the end of the video, images of refugee camps and natural disasters caused by global warming close and at the same time re-open the cycle of destruction, questioning human agency on the effects of natural disasters and the success of the modernist project. The title of the video “Europa Endlos”, is an appropriation of a song by Kraftwerk, a German band pioneer of electronic music, which Derzu modified, slowing it down 10 times its normal pace.
-Written by Adriana Domínguez and Elena Rosauro
Published on https://www.lacapsula-zh.com/terremoto
An earthquake to shake the foundations of civilisation. Earthquake as event, as rhythm, as revolution, change, rupture, collapse and reconstruction. The rebirth of utopia through architecture; the promise of modernity and social emancipation, neoliberal fantasies that begin to collapse under their own weight. Endless Europe: a never-ending cycle of destruction and construction of an ideal: the ideal of progress, always at the verge of collapse.