Fear Factory

FEAR FACTORY was a two-part collaboration between Charles Street Video and the Images Festival in which artists are asked to consider what makes us afraid and in turn, what fear makes of us.

The first component in the collaboration was a curated program of tapes that investigated several facets of fear. The second component was a program of commissioned videos produced through a Charles Street Video residency. They will receive their premiere screening at the 2004 Images Festival.

From the inadequacy of one’s anti-perspirant to the hysteria of SARS, the faint shame of an unfashionable skirt length to the numbing fright induced by terrorism, fear is one of our principle products. Its price however, is incalculable.

Fear and its offspring, xenophobia, anxiety, jealousy, et al., are mobilized as agents of control at scales ranging from the intimate to the global.

While the search for the phantom of security spawns new niche
markets, the simple fear of being unattractive or uncool propels the fashion, hygiene, fitness and entertainment industries. Fear of the Other predictably incites suspicions and
anxieties that, at worst, become the justification for social division and even war.

The monsters and murderers that inhabit our horror movies and video games may provide cathartic release, but they’re hardly sufficient to dispel the dread engendered by predictions from politicians, scientists and activists. We live with recurring, threatening pronouncements, both vague and specific, perhaps designed to produce a mixture of timidity and panic in the service of commerce and power.

 2003