ed.by John Gill, Jens Hoffmann and Gilane Tawadros ; texts by Claire Fitzsimmons, David Alan Mellor ...[et al.]
- Author(s)
- Claire Fitzsimmons, David Alan Mellor, ...[et al.]
- Editor(s)
- John Gill, Jens Hoffmann, Gilane Tawadros
- Publication
- London ; Ostfildern : inIVA, ICA ; Hatje Cantz, 2006
- Scope
- 120 Pages, illustrated, 27 cm.
- ISBN
- 9781899846474
The scale of current global insecurity and fear may feel unprecedented, but ‘Alien Nation’ is a timely reminder that today’s anxieties are in fact a frighteningly recurrent theme. In the Cold War narratives of the 1950s and ’60s that were played out in science fiction films, fears surrounding a communist invasion and atomic catastrophe were displaced onto an alien, often racialised ‘other’. In recent years artists from around the world have again taken up elements of science fiction and the figure of the alien to explore the fear of difference and the perceived threat of the outsider. Featuring the work of twelve contemporary artists alongside original film posters, film stills and archival photographs from the Cold War era, this book offers another chapter in this all too real fiction. It includes interviews with the artists, an in-depth exploration of the connections between science fiction, political and media narratives and contemporary art, as well as a major essay on the BBC television series ‘Quatermass’.
- Person as subject
- Laylah Ali, Hamad Butt, Edgar Cleijne, Ellen Gallagher, David Huffman, Hew Locke, Marepe, Henna Nadeem, Kori Newkirk, Yinka Shonibare, Eric Wesley, Mario Ybarra Jr.
- Keywords
- surveillance , fear , visual culture
- Location
- Cabinet 11 - 4: Surveillance ; Veiligheid ; Angst
- Remarks
- Incl. notes, glosary of extra-terrestrial beings
based on keyword
