Phaso
Sarah Mock
In a distant future after the Anthropocene – humanity has been extinct for centuries – the fictional Post-Human Archaeological Studies Organization (PHASO) presents its findings to a post-human world population. In a collage comprised of numerous video works, we learn bit by bit of PHASO’s discovery that an intelligent form of life must have once existed on the planet. The central exhibit on display among other “archaeological finds” is a Golden Record, created by the last human being. It contains video impressions from earth by which to remember humankind after its extinction, much like the Voyager Golden Record that was shot into space in 1977. Subjective-surrealistic and philosophical thoughts about the end of human beings are combined with visual impressions of the megalopolis Seoul as the ultimate expression of the Anthropocene, as well as pictures of abandoned places representing the post-human era.
The exhibit, the video, and the associated homepage, as well as fictional post-human archaeological finds, will present audiences not only with the Anthropocene’s beauty, but also with its lust for destruction. The exhibition will be mounted as a transmedial artistic work on the Anthropocene at the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz in late-2015 with scientific support from archaeologists and the director of the museum, Prof. Dr. Falko Daim.
Sarah Mock completed a Meisterschüler program at the Berlin University of the Arts after first studying at the Kunsthochschule Kassel and Kunsthochschule Mainz. She has been awarded numerous art prizes, most recently the Kunstverein Ludwighafen’s Emy Röder Prize in 2014.