Natasha O’Hear, “Visualising the Biblical Vision”, CenSAMM conference, Apocalypse in Art: The Creative Unveiling (published 10 July 2018)
“Inspired by the purported visions of the Panacea Society’s Mabel Barltrop (of which there are, as far as I know, no images), in which she received her daily ‘scripts’, this paper will explore the different ways in which biblical visions have been conceptualised and visualised by a range of artists from the medieval to the modern era. Taking John’s visions in Revelation as a starting point, we will trace the artistic conception of the vision as something experienced physically to something that is altogether more internal and personal. Hans Memling’s image of John on Patmos (The Apocalypse Panel) will be presented as a turning point, the moment at which we are presented with the content of the visionary’s mind rather than viewing him physically interacting with and encountering his visions. This will be augmented by images of other biblical visionaries such as Daniel and Ezekiel and their visionary experiences. These images are both an important part of the visual reception of apocalyptic texts, as well as an important key to understanding the phenomenology of the biblical vision. I will argue that images, by virtue of their synchronic format, afford us an insight into visionary ‘unveiling’ in a way that textual discussion and analysis alone cannot.”
Eleanor Heartney, “Revelation as Inspiration: The American Apocalypse”, CenSAMM conference, Apocalypse in Art: The Creative Unveiling (published 10 July 2018)
“The Book of Revelation has a special hold on the American eschatological imagination. Revelation’s enthralling hallucinogenic imagery and compelling narrative reinforce the sectarian, exceptionalist and often Manichean beliefs that are shared by America’s myriad religious sects, many of which contributed to Donald Trump’s victory. This talk will focus on contemporary American artists who have directly borrowed imagery and motifs from this apocalyptic text. They include both outsider artists like Howard Finster and William Thomas Thompson for whom the Book of Revelation is fact, and mainstream artists who have mined the text for metaphors for contemporary dilemmas. Among these are figures like Roger Brown and Keith Haring, both from evangelical backgrounds, and both deeply influenced by outsider art, who employed motifs from Revelation to express the conflicts between their childhood faith and their gay identity. Raymond Pettibon, raised as a Christian scientist, has explored the connections between the Book of Revelation and various American pathologies, ranging from serial killer Charles Manson to the Iraq War’s Shock and Awe. Jim Shaw, as one part of a multi-faceted career, has studied and reinvented the ephemeral products of America’s esoteric mythologies and beliefs. Paul Pfieffer, child of Methodist missionaries, and lapsed Catholic Ed Ruscha present fusions of popular culture and eschatological theology in which Apocalypse appears, not as a fiery denouement, but as a radical void. All these artists provide a distinctly American spin on the Apocalypse. Their work presents a mix of hope and despair in which echoes of the founders’ utopian conviction that America would be Revelation’s ‘New Jerusalem’ mingle with a history of brutal conflicts cast by their protagonists as salvos in Revelation’s final battle of Good and Evil.”
Rebekah Dyer, “Reserved for Fire: Creative fire performances at David Best’s Temple and Up-Helly-Aa festival”, CenSAMM conference, Apocalypse in Art: The Creative Unveiling (published 10 July 2018)
“In the New Testament passage of 2 Peter 3, fire unveils a new cosmic order. The writer announces that the heavens, the earth, and all the elements will be burned up to reveal a new creation. Everything we know, says the writer, is ‘reserved for fire.’ Translators and interpreters of this passage have debated whether this cosmic fire brings annihilation, purification, or a measure of both. Is this apocalyptic vision a prophecy of total destruction, or something more? Artistic engagement with the creative capacity of fire can provide nuanced perspectives on this otherwise unsettling imagery. In this presentation, I will share insights gleaned from two recent fire-based performances: the art installation and ceremonial burning of Temple by David Best (Derry/Londonderry, 2015) and Up-Helly-Aa, Shetland’s annual fire festival. In both Temple and Up-Helly-Aa, local people come together to build — and then burn — a communal work of art. They do not burn these structures to dispose of them, but as an act of solidarity and renewal. Our journey through these fire-based performances will unveil the imaginative potential of apocalyptic fire imagery in sources such as 2 Peter 3. I argue that fire may be more than an agent of destruction which merely paves the way for a subsequent act of creation. Instead, fire can form part of the creative act itself. Fire may become both catalyst and facilitator for transformation, renewal, and (re)creation of ourselves, our communities, and the cosmos.”
Lila Moore, “Technoetic Aesthetics of Revelation and Transcendence—The Horse in the Mind”, CenSAMM conference, Apocalypse in Art: The Creative Unveiling (published 10 July 2018)
“The presentation utilizes the sensibility of technoetic aesthetics in order to demonstrate an interpretive study of imagery issuing from contemporary cultural and technological innovative products and events, such as Blade Runner 2049 and SpaceX Starman, the Tesla Roadster launch. It refers in particular to the theme of horse, horseman, and rider depicted explicitly or implied through aesthetic metaphors. These images seem to conjure current apocalyptic and revelatory meanings as well as amplify a sense of collective longings for transcendence. Firstly, the term 'technoetic' was coined by the British artist and theorist Roy Ascott, and pertains to combinations of tech and nous, technology and mind. In principle, technoetic aesthetics bypasses the surface image of the world and allows an interpretive creative process that considers the interrelations of technology and mind and their various religious contexts. Hence, it may be relevant to imply that in the mystical traditions of Kabbalah, e.g., Abraham Abulafia and Tikunei haZohar, the horse and the rider are both associated with the mind, the capacity of thought, and the Divine Intellect. In a technoetic framework, both the horse and the rider could metaphorically represent the powers of technology and mind, and the new interrelations of artificial, human and divine intelligence. Secondly, on this technoetic premise, the analysis unfolds the revelatory function of the horse in the mind of K, the protagonist of the post-apocalyptic film Blade Runner 2049, and its aesthetics of transcendence as a product of mind technology. It is followed by a creative reflection on the broadcast of SpaceX Starman and the colour scheme of the 'transcendent rider' in relation to the colours of the four horses in a Judeo-Christian context. Overall, the aesthetics that associate the horse with technology and mind reframe, and may further evolve, the religious imagination and art of revelation and transcendence.”
Michael Svoboda, "Cine-atheisia: Hollywood's Godless Climaticlysms", CenSAMM conference on Climate and Apocalypse (published 29 June 2017)
“When Al Gore talks about the roots of his environmental activism, he often recounts the story of his son’s near-fatal accident. In Earth in the Balance and in the book version of An Inconvenient Truth (AIT), this story includes prominent professions of faith: Al and Tipper fervently prayed that their son would recover. But in the film version of AIT, prayer is never mentioned; it is Gore’s connection with nature that grounds his being not his faith or family. The film’s director, Davis Guggenheim, excised religion from Gore’s activism. In a similar but much more widely viewed way, this paper will argue, directors of fiction films have artificially removed religion from the climate-changed futures they envision. Working with a set of sixteen apocalyptic and dystopic films identified in a comprehensive overview of cli-fi films he published last January, the author will show that religion rarely plays a role in these screen worlds, and when it does, religion is as likely to be a sign of madness or menace as a source of solace. Nevertheless, religious themes—redemption and forgiveness, hard-heartedness and damnation—are played out on the human plane, as some characters reconnect with each other and find the strength to carry on, while others, selfishly seeking their own security, cut themselves off from aid and support. After reviewing the most frequent variations on these themes, the paper will then discuss possible explanations for these observed results. Has religion been excluded as part of a deliberate marketing strategy? Or are these new end-of-the-world films simply constrained by the genres they imitate: action, adventure, disaster? (But then why was religion removed from these genres?) The paper will conclude by offering a preliminary answer to a hypothetical question: How might the incorporation of religion change these films?"
Matthew Askey, “The Cross and the Zombie Apocalypse: Two Images for our Time”, CenSAMM conference, Apocalypse in Art: The Creative Unveiling (published 10 July 2018)
“In this paper I will examine recent artworks by four British-based contemporary artists (Richard Meghan, Nahem Shoa, Siku, Matthew Askey) which help us to explore our current cultural understandings of the apocalyptic. Each of these artists have in common their act of drawing upon the meeting of two contrasting and seemingly contradictory sources, images and ideas – that of the theology of the Christian Cross and the phenomenon of the Zombie Apocalypse – and linking them together. Taking as a starting point Christian Mediaeval Doom paintings I will show how this imagery has remained embedded in today’s cultural consciousness, becoming intermixed with more recent image/ideas, drawing upon the humorous and the absurd in the making of apocalypse imagery which is both global in scope and post-nuclear in flavour. I shall explore connections between these two contrasting strands of embedded cultural meaning which find common ground in the visual, through the willingness of both in embracing contemporary cultural imagery, and ask the question what this meeting of contrasts might reveal to us of our sense of apocalypse in today’s world.”
Ann Kempster, “The sub-genres of post-apocalyptic science fiction”, 300 Seconds, Guardian (published 15 Oct. 2013)
Katharina Gerstenberger, “Anxiety in the Anthropocene: Climate Change in Literary Fiction”, CenSAMM conference on Climate and Apocalypse (published 6 July 2017)
“Climate change is a ‘wicked problem’ in more than one way: there is, of course, the science, but there are also the politics that influence the science, the communication about the challenges we face, and the psychology. In 2008, the American Psychological Association (APA) set up a task force to conduct research on climate anxiety. The results suggest that a growing number of people suffer from fears about our changing climate, leading to depression and even suicide. Wide-spread worry about large scale threats to the environment is not new. A comparable phenomenon is the anxiety about nuclear war in the post-war period. Also similar is the discourse about dying forests in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, which, ironically has now become a favorite example for those trying to refute concern over environmental degradation as hysteria. My presentation focuses on the representation of climate change and anxiety in works of literature. Fiction is uniquely equipped to explore human distress. I will draw on Indian writer and essayist Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016), a work in which Ghosh reflects on the ability of fiction, in particular the novel, to put into words the threat of a warming globe and the anxieties it induces. The sacred, Ghosh suggests, and the ways in which it allows us to imagine the relationship between the human and the nonhuman, can play an important role in the efforts to curb climate change as well as for the renewal of literature. I will also draw on Bulgarian-German writer Ilija Trojanow’s The Lamentations of Zeno (2011), his novel about a glaciologist driven to suicide in response to ice melt. The challenge that must be addressed is to understand climate anxieties in ways that are constructive for the individual and the planet.”
Ryan Bird, “Sonic Attunement as a Remedy to Apocalyptic Climate Change Exhaustion”, CenSAMM conference on Climate and Apocalypse (published 6 July 2017)
“Conventional approaches to addressing anthropogenic climate change underutilize insights from the humanities and creative arts, yielding a discourse insufficient for the seriousness of this global issue. In particular, the scale of climate change is hard for most people to perceive relative to the disruptive potential it has upon our world. Framing climate change as an apocalypse has proven capable of raising awareness of climate change as an issue, but fails in effecting change when the apocalypse never seems to materialize. Etymologically related but critically distanced from the Kantian and Romantic notions of Stimmung, attunement enables orientation towards tension and dissonance. In this sense, one attunes to phenomena which are strange, uncertain, or otherwise incapable of direct relation to humans—an encounter with something outside normal human perception, such as climate change. Sound is a medium through which such attunement can occur, making it an agent toward effective change. The politics accompanying sound create a fertile if transitory landscape for attunement, yet its dependence upon performance and distribution to reach audiences creates problems as a medium for communicating about issues such as climate change. Its benefits have not been properly applied despite its potential. In my paper, I examine several contemporary songs concerning climate change by the music artists Radiohead and ANOHNI. In examining their thematic content through discourse analysis and other performance-based aspects about the songs, I hope to better understand the relationship between climate change and apocalypse as embodied through music. Furthermore, I examine how this relationship might be altered to enhance attunement and message dissemination, which consequently affects change through this process.”
Alison McQueen, “Hans Morgenthau and the Cold War Apocalyptic Imaginary”, SUN Public Lecture Series, Central European University (published 17 Oct. 2013)
James Crossley, “Martyrdom, the Apocalyptic Bible, and Bob Crow in Rojava”, lecture at the University of Chester (published 2017), available here
Slavoj Žižek, “Apocalpytic Times” (published 22 Feb. 2013), available here
David Robertson, “Pizzagate and the Luciferian Agenda", CenSAMM conference, Violence and Millenarian Movements (published 27 April 2017)
“In November and December 2016, online accusations of a paedophile ring operating out of a Washington pizza restaurant led to the arrest of Edgar Welch (28) after threatening staff and firing several shots in an apparent attempt to liberate “child sex slaves”. This panic, known as pizzagate, began when leaked emails from Hillary Clinton’s aide, Mike Podesta, were suggested to contain coded language by a number of users on web forums, who began to elaborate upon the narrative until it was widely taken as evidence of a nationwide satanic paedophile ring involving numerous politicians and other power brokers. It is rare is for a conspiracy theory such as this to escalate into violence so quickly, but two things are of particular interest here. First, this ties into the satanic ritual abuse scare of the early 1990s - a phenomenon intimately tied to a Manichaean understanding of the world promoted by certain evangelical millennarian Christians. These ideas have been nurtured and promoted by high profile independent broadcasters such as Alex Jones, for whom they are part of a sweeping millennial narrative in which a global (and sometimes cosmic) cabal of Luciferians seek to decimate the world’s population and enslave the remains.”
Andrew Fergus Wilson, “#whitegenocide and the Neo-Fascist Millennium: Understanding white supremacism as an apocalyptic movement”, CenSAMM conference, Violence and Millenarian Movements (published 27 April 2017)
“There is a well-established literature that identifies and outlines the important role that religious and spiritual beliefs play in the formation and maintenance of recent and current neo-fascist identities. A great deal of existing research details the use of conspiracy theory in white nationalist discourse (Barkun 1996, 2013; Gardell 2003; Dobratz & Shanks-Meile 2000; Goodrick-Clarke 2003; Lamy 1996) this paper will draw attention to the importance of recognising how this use of conspiracy theory is commingled with other forms of belief identified by Colin Campbell as contributing to ‘the cultic milieu’ (Campbell 1972) and Barkun described as ‘stigmatized knowledge’. Much recent white nationalism has been composed from the range of stigmatized knowledge Barkun describes as typifying ‘improvisational millennialism’ (Barkun 2013). The hollow Earth, extra-terrestrial spiritual dimension escape route employed by Hitler coupled with yoga cosmic conflict and conspiracy theory that is described in the Nazi millennialism of Miguel Serrano (Goodrick-Clarke 2003, Gardell 2003) coincides with many of the touchstones mentioned by Barkun. Similarly, the blending of strands of white nationalism with new religions, especially neo-paganisms (Goodrick-Clarke 2003; Gardell 2003; Shekhovtsov 2009; Wilson 2012) compound this tendency. This paper will argue that the emergence of white nationalist social media strategies such as ‘#whitegenocide’ signify a discourse that is more indebted to millennialism and violent apocalyptic traditions than straightforwardly political roots. In framing neo-fascist white nationalism in this way fresh ways of understanding and responding to it become available.”
