Residual risk

2009

Residual risk

Fire extinguishers (Gloria brand) transformed into archaeological marine discoveries
2009

Residual risk

2009

Residual risk

Fire extinguishers (Gloria brand) transformed into archaeological marine discoveries, plaster tile with seaweed imprints on a pedestal, Size 38 × 38 × 75 cm, Edition: 6 + 1
2011

Archives

Ready-to-use fire extinguishers (Gloria brand) were transformed into archaeological marine discoveries. Their museum-like presentation conjures up the impression of a civilisation vanished long ago.

Following the massive destruction and countless victims caused by the great tsunami of 26 December 2004, media coverage mainly focused its attention on tourist destinations. As spontaneous second thoughts on the event, photos of obsolete fire extinguishing appliances in the hotels and resorts also appeared.

Background

I
Flame detectors, fire extinguishers and the like are all signs of comforting safety standards that are imported together with tourists. Even the fat of fear should tan in peace.
Installing a fire extinguisher – so seldom used – is largely a magical act which serves the purpose of extinguishing the thought of other catastrophes. Fire is the jack of all dangers. Its presence is ambivalent: its danger is immediately apparent yet it gives the impression that it can be controlled by providing both comfort and warmth and also because we use it to prepare our food. Every burning pyrosphere fires up the belief in controllability.
Fire extinguishers are the souvenirs of danger. The appliance visualises the memory to be consolidated on a symbolic scale. The small flames depicted resemble flames in a fireplace more than a house on fire. They are seen as images of danger when rescue is already within easy reach.

II
The paradise of beach life transformed into a massive crisis area all around the Indian Ocean. Well protected, one was ultimately vulnerable. Danger arose unsuspected from the adverse element of the sea: through the sudden release of a tectonic plate near Sumatra, a severe and unforeseen jolt was sent through the heaving ocean, creating an immense wave which towered up near the mainland and broke as high as a house onto the shore at breakneck speed and with a resounding crash. On the greater geological time scale, the former peace and quiet was a mere interval between two catastrophes.
Safety can release its residual risk at any time as a result of small turbulences. Every isolated case looks at its theory with astonishment – and every theory with horror at the isolated case.

III
Poseidon, chief god of Atlantis, made the descendants of his son Atlas sink into the sea together with their island within a mere 24 hours. Plato’s model for the sinking of Atlantis was most likely the ancient Greek city of Helike in 373 BC where Poseidon was also worshipped. The precautionary worship of a divine power did not ultimately ensure safety.

When in 1755, the great earthquake of Lisbon, followed by an immense tsunami, burnt the All-Saints Royal Hospital down while the city’s red-light district was spared, a wave of lamentation and mockery spread across the whole of Europe directed at a supposedly benevolent and almighty Christian god. As a result, seismological research and the development of modern risk awareness set in, in order to find liberation from the yoke of a higher entity.

Today, safety precautions are again in the hands of higher authorities. By delegating control to third parties (TÜV, GOD, the ministry), complete security is once again expected. The idleness of thoughts: when the Norwegian city of Ålesund burnt down in 1904, only one person died – an old lady who lived directly next to the fire station and felt safe there.

Complete security can be seen as the neurotypical goal to endorse satisfaction and fulfilment, thus meaning that a sense of insecurity becomes increasingly more difficult to bear.
The countless safety precautions that exist today are not the expression of real danger but of a latent sense of threat and uncertainty. Imagining potential danger is just as excessive as the need for security.
Whoever saves themselves dies differently.
Only autonomous protection makes residual risk both recognisable and moderate. Accepting residual risk is an important first step in the process of overcoming a fundamental lack of protection. This is why in the Kalkar verdict of 8 August 1978, for example, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that a ‘residual risk’ inherent in the use of nuclear energy is a socially acceptable burden that the general public must tolerate.

The supreme expectation of safety hinders our perception of flaws and vulnerabilities. The model of the Earth, for example, is ideal as a prototype. In its static best form of the sphere, the globe is within reach. Yet, in reality, the planet is distorted, in agitation, scorching hot and thin-skinned – the Earth’s crust is approximately 10 to 70 kilometres thick, from ocean to continent respectively. There is a 62% chance that a quake measuring 6.7 or more on the Richter scale will hit the San Francisco Bay area sometime before 2032 (source: Spiegel 1/2005).

World fire

2012

Pyroshaman

2012

Our Atlantis is safe!

2012

Residual risk

Residual risk

Residual risk

Residual risk

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World fire

Pyroshaman

Our Atlantis is safe!

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