Narratives of catastrophe

Abstract

‘Standardized Versions’ is a collaborative project between artist Craig Fisher and artist/architect Helen Stratford that takes as its starting point the idea that representations of scenes of disaster are based on standard types. There are always repeated elements: shards of timber, an upturned car, papers, barricades and piles of rubble. What if these elements were all deliberately and carefully placed to give the appearance that they had been assembled in an apparently random manner? Perhaps selected from a ‘Catalogue of Catastrophe’® with accompanying instructions and specification on their construction and placement? Fisher and Stratford are engaged in examining how representations of disaster and destruction are mediated for our consumption. Fisher and Stratford’s ‘Standardised Versions (Rubble)’ presents Standardised Rubble through a typology of paper objects, 3D drawings and a plan, with means of assembly, associated specification and the technical equipment necessary, the very precise measuring stick (VPM®). Employing humour, the drawings/objects play with and subvert the language of architectural conventions, typologies, plans and written specifications, to provide a set of instructions to reconstruct (through live performances) that, which has the appearance of having been deconstructed. Fisher and Stratford have been commissioned by Bloc Projects, Sheffield (2016) to present Standardized Versions (Rubble) within the public realm as a billboard. This enables Fisher and Stratford to consider further how representations of ‘ disaster, aftermath and wreckage’ become flattened and consumed through its mediation in the media.