When I studied in the nineties for my PhD, my dissertation concerned the experience of the end of the world. I did not approach the apocalypse from an historical or theoretical perspective, or scientific, but from an experiential one, i.e. what is an actual, human experience of the end of the world ? And I meant the world.
Since what we commonly understand as the world today is still standing, we would have to conclude that I was speculating, writing a failed prediction, or describing a spiritual emergency in which the world was my private psychological world. But no, crazily perhaps, I insisted…
At the time, the word apocalypse was a relatively rare appearance in the public domain. Now, we can hardly avoid expressions such as “catastrophic”, “apocalyptic”, “extinction”, “global crisis” or “end of the world”. The end of the world is being predicted in so many ways today, from within so many disciplines, and is being thought in increasingly literal terms, as we witness, for example, the empirical disappearance of species or resources, the starvation of millions, destruction of our eco-systems, wars, economic collapse, or genocides, etc. These horrible events are all taking place within this current world we all inhabit. Yet it is rare for commentators to take up the question of what is exactly meant by “world”.
In this essay I do take up this question via a contemporary art form—a TV series called simply, DARK.
DARK, the TV Series: Glimpses of the Apocalypse
