Kathrin Röggla

It is not the catastrophes themselves or our suffering them which is the topic of worst case. It is rather the processing of these scenarios through the media and politics. The way possible catastrophes are omnipresent in news and talk shows, the invocation of the worst case instead of having to wait for its arrival. The invocations of such scenarios are further enhanced by the practically endless flood of movies about catastrophes, which enliven our vision of the end of times with graphic images. The filmic cliché of catastrophe is the basis of our Culture of Fear. Out of these movies Kathrin Röggla has condensed something resembling a grammar of the catastrophic.

The four scenes of worst case all take place after a catastrophe. But already the question of whether and how the witnesses actually experienced the catastrophe leads to great disconcertment. Their thinking and speaking about it has a strangely indirect connection to it. They don’t only speak in the subjunctive mode, their whole existence seems to have become subjunctive.