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A Visionary Tale
Introduction
Last and Universal: the Semantics of Judgment
Thought Through Images
Seduced by Freedom of Thought
Art in the Age of Short-Term Memory
A Call to Artists and Audience
Seventeen Modern Tales
A Call to Artists and Audience
The Last Judgment Project
addresses three ideas with a common etymological root: justice, judgment and
prejudice. It examines the reverberations among these three terms. Furthermore,
it interrogates freedom not only as an abstract philosophical notion but within
the real fabric of contemporary life where the choices made by a single subject
have to conform to or reject the values adopted by the many.
In the traditional iconography of Last Judgments, the figure of God or creator
is positioned above man, the creature. God is figured as the judge of humankind’s
destiny.
Ours is a liminal time: the idea that it is possible to create, breed, modify,
and destroy life, either in a virtual environment such as the Gamecube or
on a real planetary scale, belongs uniquely on our cultural horizon. These
possibilities already blur the lines between creature and creator, between
man and the judge of men’s destiny who is in a position to dispense
plenty of salvation or despair. Now, for the first time in history, the myth
of the Last Judgment actually finds a parallel in globalized culture, which
is also about universality and universalism. For the first time, man is now
in the position to be the universal judge of his own destiny.
I am interested in focusing discussion on the idea of the law in its broadest
sense, and on the demands and consequences of justice. A judge in fact is
not only someone who decides another’s destiny. A judge acts as a repository
of the law. Can a judge be wrong? Not if his/her decision complies with the
law. Can laws be wrong? Not if they comply with the ethical values that inspired
them. Can such values be wrong? Can a question like this be posed within contemporary
postmodern culture, at a moment when business is becoming the most important
currency in building social and political structures, crossing the boundaries
of territorial identity, when economic groups can decide to wage war on a
global scale and then carefully market the event, when business, in its impulse
to be universal, defines what is ethical for all?
