DOOM

Cold, glaring light, framed by grey steel. The logo of a fair shines like a long-faded memory of better times. Its shape is a reference to Hamburg’s DOM, a fair held several times a year in the city centre. In contrast to its prototype, which towers above the heads of the visitors, this sculpture stands on the ground. White sandbags weigh down the metal letters, which seem to build up like a barrier in front of the viewers. Despite the cold light of the LED lamps, the sculpture still reflects traces of the colourful promise that praises the fair as a place of consumerism and distraction. A pun, however, changes the meaning: where there was once an announcement of anticipation, there is now unease. Merlin Reichart’s sculpture “DOOM” lies in the room like a threatening promise.

The word “doom” has appeared as a term in youth and pop culture since the early 1990s. While since 1993 it has been associated primarily with the computer game of the same name, nowadays, it has found its way into meme culture and, with “doomscrolling”, has become a self enforcing prophecy.
Unlike the post-war generation, which grew up with the euphoria of the upswing narrative, today’s youth struggles to be optimistic about the future. Climate catastrophe, social injustice, a shift to the right in politics and the outbreak of a new war in Europe increasingly dominate the media landscape.
Excessive consumption of these unfiltered messages has been shown to cause strong feelings of anxiety, paralysis and overwhelm. This constant, primarily digital confrontation with impending doom becomes a coping mechanism, a state of mind, a lifestyle, which the sculpture seems to capture in its reduced boldness.

As an imitation of a gateway, it also functions as a threshold between two places. On the one side, the fair as an escapist refuge — on the other, public space as the ominous future. Lingering within this liminal space underlines all the more the feeling of dissociation and rampant nihilism.
At the same time, however, this space also serves as a meeting point for youth culture, which is gravitating towards such places. These gatherings allow for moments of solidarity and mutual empowerment, where the courage and activist potential unfolds to resist dystopian visions and claim the future.

“DOOM” addresses the letting go of diversion and projection, confrontationally opposing the normalisation of the status quo. Through a process of overcoming despair, it embodies an attitude from which confidence can grow, far from ideologies or pledges of salvation through ever new technologies. Between bygone promises of prosperity and seemingly hopeless reality, the sculpture offers a new approach to facing the present.

Katrin Krumm
2023