The Question Is: Who Cares?

Whether you help someone across the street or across the border, the question “who cares?” applies to everyday as well as significant events. With his linguistic installations in public space, Hans-Jürgen Poëtz invites to question one’s own boundaries.

++ The question is: who cares? ++ Vprašanje je: Koga briga? ++ ... Like breaking news, the questions move from right to left across the bottom of a black screen in more than thirty languages. With his easily accessible language installations in public space, media artist Hans-Jürgen Poëtz ironically aims at the heart of society: Who takes responsibility? Who cares about what happens? A society only works, if not everything is completely ‘lost’. But who cares?

Glued onto glass facades as a mirror foil, lying on lawns as a wood construction, projected onto facades as a video, spread on social media – the question ‘Who cares?’ invites to turn one’s pace down a notch, to practise a bit of soul searching, to allow oneself to be vexed, to trace one’s own limits... Am I carefree? What do I care about? And who cares about me? “The most important thing is to engage in thought experiments and sharpen one’s perception, to develop new antennas for our environment – this is the first step to change,” says Poëtz. Or, to put it in the words of John Cage, “We already have so many answers. The key is to ask the right questions.”

Production: WIENWOCHE

Photo credits key visual: (C) Hans-Jürgen Poëtz