"Katastrophe" Limited edition series -Lino cut, 2010

"The argument that modern life consists of a diet of horrors by which we are corrupted and to which we gradually become callous is a founding idea of the critique of modernity - the critique being almost as old as modernity itself."
-Susan Sontag 2003

Due to globalised delivery of instant news we now live in a world saturated by all types of imagery: horror, terror, natural and man-made disasters. There are very few good news stories - they are relegated to the last story on the TV news: the feel good factor story. Images linked to disaster linger in our minds longer, than say "nice" images. We may have empathy with the victims, but perhaps should ask ourselves if we are capable of perpetrating the horror and terror that accompany "bad" news events, could we stand by and let it happen? Sadly the answer has to be "yes", because historical precedent says so.
Disasters are always happening and they seem to be linked to (and prove?) global warming theories. Perhaps we believe there are more disasters because they are reported in full detail today in a way they never were before. Whether it is the earthquake and subsequent breakdown in social order in Haiti - a story in the news everyday and then dropped - or the on-going man-made social disaster in Afghanistan, these "events" are headlines today and gone tomorrow- as the old Fleet Street adage states: today's news is tomorrows fish and chip paper