GERMANY IS NOT DEVIDED, GERMANY FEELS DEVIDED.
w/Myra Cronauer
Diploma at Faculty of Design, h_da -
University of Applied Sciences, Darmstadt.
supervised by @frank_philippin (@fbg_students_with)
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Exhibition
Design
»Germany is not divided, Germany feels divided.« is a multimedia Project inspired by the perception of an increasingly polarised society. Our project explores this dynamic and asks: How can polarization become productive?
Our society appears increasingly split into two opposing camps.
However, these two poles cannot be empirically represented. They arise from a narrative. Debates are often symbolically charged and incorporated into this narrative. Those who win these debates stand on the far right and are thus able to expand their power ever further.
Through our work, we aim to highlight the absurdity of this situation and shift the focus by making use of the mechanism itself. In societies with unequal living conditions and financial resources, polarisation can have a productive function. It makes inequality negotiable by reducing complexity and organising communication. We need to discuss living conditions rather than symbols and identity. This is because inequality is politically shaped and therefore changeable.
Large numbers are abstract and hard to grasp. The level of wealth inequality in Germany is so extreme, it’s beyond imagination. This very large poster translates abstract data into visible proportions.
While exploring differences, we found that many of the things that currently polarise us are, in reality, socially constructed distinctions. These symbolise unproductive polarisation that defines our present. The GIF displays these image pairs sequentially, inviting reflection rather than immediate comprehension.
Billionsweeper is an interactive game based on Minesweeper that makes astronomical sums of money tangible. Players navigate a grid-based world, discovering facts about wealth with every click. The revealed fields correspond directly to the monetary amounts presented, and a projected overview provides the necessary perspective to grasp the true scale of these sums.
Distinguishing people based on their clothing, or figuratively speaking, their identity, and dividing them into two groups serves no purpose. The only purpose it serves is to create division. This systemic dysfunction has become a hallmark of our time, in which polarisation is not just a by-product, but the goal, fuelled by artificial distinctions.
Narratives often shape society more powerfully than facts. Economic narratives, for example, exist to legitimize the system and maintain existing hierarchies. The work investigates how these narratives are internalized and whose interests they serve.