“World Watchers”

“World Watchers”—named after Mae Brussell’s “alternate news” radio show of the ’70s and ’80s—digs into society’s hidden networks, examining artistic strategies that correlate conspiracy theory and individual practice. Öyvind Fahlström’s World Map, 1972, colorfully illustrates US imperialist politics and cash flow in crammed comic-strip scenarios that have lost none of their relevance. More abstract but no less frightening, Mark Lombardi’s “narrative structures” similarly visualize global capitalism’s dubious transaction streams. At first sight seductively beautiful, resembling cobwebs or astrological charts, these complex, filigree diagrams are in fact the result of painstaking research—exceeding by far the impact of any theory. A more utopian view of causality is offered by David Hullfish Bailey, who associatively combines geographical, sociological, and historical data about LA in his abstract “architectural” model Schindler Shelter, 2001, a multilayered spatial simulation of cause and effect based on Viennese architect Rudolf Schindler’s theories. And Julie Becker’s video installation Suburban Legend, 1999, represents the conspiratorial impulse at leisure: Synchronizing The Wizard of Oz with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon in imitation of the popular teen pastime, it demonstrates that one can find “odd coincidences” everywhere if stoned enough.