THE FITTEST SURVIVE
A video by Oliver Ressler
23 min., 2006
Factors like “danger”, “risk” and “wilderness” are no longer considered
only in the dark, suppressed underside of the globalisation dream. These
possibly deterring factors have become a resistance to be overcome by,
apparently, only the best and the strongest. Thus, to a certain extent,
mastering these daunting elements have become standards for achievement
in the economic discipline. The crisis regions’ growth markets make
particularly clear that the law of market economics requires hardness
and ruthlessness. This warlike character of market economics transforms
life into a fight in which specific individuals face ever-higher demands
for better performance.
In order to prepare for this competitive, social Darwinist, pecking
order of global capitalism, privately-owned, security enterprises offer
their self-developed, civilian training programs that simulate
conflict-situations – in varying complexities up to war scenarios. One
of these enterprises, the British AKE Group, promises, according to
their web page, to provide “...clients the competitive advantage of
engaging safely in areas that might otherwise have been closed to
opportunity.”
The video “The Fittest Survive” is based on filming the five-day course
“Surviving Hostile Regions” done in January 2006 in Wales, Great Britain
by the AKE Group. The course instructors are British ex-special force
soldiers. The participants are businessmen who are preparing for
business in Iraq and other dangerous regions, government officials and
mainstream journalists who, with their dishonest discourse of democracy
and human rights, help to legitimise and secure the ideology of
market-economics expansion.
The video, primarily filmed by hand camera, follows the survival-course
participants as they experience the staged reality of live shell
bombardments, an assault by armed guerrillas, the rescue of accident
victims, and moving through mine fields. Above this training camp in
Wales, low-flying British fighter planes hold manoeuvres and foreshadow
the real war theatres in which the class participants will soon be.
The video “The Fittest Survive” is available in English and German
versions. Starting June 6, 2006, the video will be shown regularly in
the permanent exhibition “working_world.net” in the Museum Arbeitswelt
in Steyr, Austria, and is part of the exhibition of the Steirischer
Herbst “Traurig sicher, im Training” in the Grazer Kunstverein (21.09. -
31.10.2006).
Concept, Film Editing, Production: Oliver Ressler
Camera: Volkmar Geiblinger
Image Editing: Markus Koessl
Sound Editing: Rudi Gottsberger
Further information:
http://www.ressler.at
http://www.museum-steyr.at
http://www.grazerkunstverein.org
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