THE
ACTIONS OF FRED FOREST
68
INSTALLATION + WEBSITE
THE SENTINEL AT WORLD'S END
1ST BIENNIAL OF THE END OF THE END OF THE WORLD
USHAÏA, PATAGONIA
Warning message for all humanity from the Land of Fire
This year like every other, Fred Forest made sure to mark the occasion
of the Fête de l'Internet, an event to which he was one of
the initial contributors. And now, in the wake of interventions
in Brazil and the USA, the multimedia artist has been called on
to represent France during this the International Polar Year at
the first Biennale of the End of the World in Ushuaia, Patagonia,
at the heart of the Land of Fire. Known for his critical approach
and his mindful independence from the official contemporary art
market, he represents an emerging category of artists refusing compromise
with the dominant artistic system. Fred Forest's ambition is to
have artists be exemplary new actors in direct contact with social,
economic and political realities whose purpose is to "pacify"
the world thus giving it back its meaning. Dubbed "The Sentinel
at World's End," a lighthouse equipped with varied communications
equipment will stand at the brink of the sea in Ushuaia, turned
towards Ushuaia, and emitting distress signals. The primary objective
of these signals is to warn the world of the peril that mankind's
blind madness places it in. Mass extinctions, the pillaging of natural
resources, pollution, human violence of all breeds, fanaticisms,
fundamentalisms, terrorism, economic disparities, ever-encroaching
world mafias, gangrenous democracies, political and ethical obsolescence.
"The Sentinel at World's End," propped between earth and
sky, between pack-ice and the luminescence of The Land of Fire,
will incessantly transmit this warning message along with other
wavelengths. The beneficent fluctuations of these wavelengths will
envelop the world in a light shawl, a shawl which would embody the
precursory signs of a new consciousness. This emerging consciousness,
wisdom, and intelligence will allow humanity to finally move towards
a next level of individual and collective evolution at this time
of crisis at the beginning of the third millennium
For Fred Forest, changing the world begins in your own front garden.
Without an ecology of the mind, ecology its in classical sense is
an empty promise, instrumentalized by politics, scientists, industry,
and soon, no doubt, big business.
http://www.fredforest.com/ushuaia
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