The World May Not Be Deep But It Is Definitely Shallow And Wide
Dorit Margreiter
The World May Not Be Deep But It Is Definitely Shallow And Wide, 2004
Video, color, sound, 13 min 16 sec Photography, editing: Dorit Margreiter Text: Norman M. Klein Voice-over: Joan Ferrier Sound: Martin Siewert Edition 1/3
GF0030817.00.0-2007
Artwork text
“We imagine what might be said in documentaries about our cities a hundred years from now: Over the course of the twenty-first century, a genteel suburbanizing of parts of the so-called inner city took place. It was as if what remained of urban centers were retreating back to walled city states, dropping back into the sixteenth century. Walled and enclaved villages were installed directly in heavy population centers, particularly in the United States—and most obviously in the so-called southern rim, from Florida to California. Perhaps they were a response to the great hollowing out of the United States. Throughout much of the twenty-first century, Americans were colonized by their own economy, much the way Spain in the seventeenth century hollowed out; or England during the Edwardian era. These walled towns were monuments to the Entertainment Economy that replaced the public sector; and to the paranoia that this inspired. They were a circling of the wagons as the middle class declined. ” […] (excerpt from voice-over)