Chapter 2 | Lockdown
Photography series :Les Yeux des Tours by Laurent Kronental
Soundtrack recorded by Lupus (The Judgement Hall Records)
A quarter of the world's population is now living under lockdown, with many borders closed and travel suspended, amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 is a new disease and there is limited information regarding risk factors for severe disease. Based on currently available information and clinical expertise, older adults and people of any age who have serious underlying medical conditions might be at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19.
Based upon available information to date, those at high-risk for severe illness from COVID-19 include:
People aged 65 years and older
People who live in a nursing home or long-term care facility
People with chronic lung disease or moderate to severe asthma
People who have serious heart conditions
People who are immunocompromised including cancer treatment
People of any age with severe obesity (body mass index [BMI] >40) .
Those at risk of mental breakdown during extended periods of self-isolation:Everyone
Black Monday
12/03/2020
08:29
Global Stock Market crashes.
A World Less Open, Prosperous, and Free
The pandemic will strengthen the state and reinforce nationalism. Governments of all types will adopt emergency measures to manage the crisis, and many will be loath to relinquish these new powers when the crisis is over.
The End of Globalization as We Know It
The coronavirus pandemic could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back of economic globalisation.
A More China-Centric Globalization
The COVID-19 pandemic will not fundamentally alter global economic directions. It will only accelerate a change that had already begun: a move away from U.S.-centric globalisation to a more China-centric globalisation.
Democracies Will Come out of Their Shell
In the short term, the crisis will give fuel to all the various camps in the Western grand strategy debate. The nationalists and anti-globalists, the China hawks, and even the liberal internationalists will all see new evidence for the urgency of their views.
American Power Will Need a New Strategy
In 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a new national security strategy that focuses on great-power competition. COVID-19 shows this strategy to be inadequate.
The History of COVID-19 Will Be Written by the Victors
by John Allen
As it has always been, history will be written by the “victors” of the COVID-19 crisis.
A Dramatic New Stage in Global Capitalism
The fundamental shock to the world’s financial and economic system is the recognition that global supply chains and distribution networks are deeply vulnerable to disruption.
We were Not Prepared
LES YEUX DE TOUR (2015-2017)
Laurent Kronental invites us to gaze at the world through the portholes of the Tours Aillaud in his project entitled Les Yeuz des Tours that took him two years to complete.
Located in the Pablo Picasso district of Nanterre, these eighteen towers were erected by architect Emile Aillaud between 1973 and 1981. They number more than 1600 apartments. Ever since their construction, they have been a focal point for the artist and have stood as many question marks. Why such shapes? What can be seen up there? How do dwellers live in there? To seek answers to these riddles, one has to get inside and track the human element in the heart of the Grand Ensemble. Starting from the very privacy of the household to develop an awareness of the environment.
Laurent Kronental is fascinated by the architectural venture as much by its underlying utopian paradigm. He ushers us in, crossing thresholds and peering through windows that open onto vertiginous heights, sprawling horizons and vastness skies. The eye indulges in the sensuous breeze. Yet, the breathtaking sight is a mere afterthought for the people who live there and fill their days with cooking, sleeping, hosting, entertaining themselves. Satellite dishes, facades, clusters of trees, lights and roads share the stage with refrigerators, beds, TV sets and miscellaneous decorative artefacts.
Inside and outside worlds resonate together and interact into a variety of nuances. They play in harmony when the shapes and colours of the homes match the city lights. They play with the timeline when the furniture and interior decoration conjure up some forgotten memory. They strike a jarring note when the outer landscape creeps in through the porthole in total contrast with the homely setting. The photographer will not allow the onlooker to wander complacently the endless scene outside. he will guide him back to the human sides : a limit, a frame or rather a framework, as many symbols of a persistent steadiness and a resilience to modernity.
The promise of a better future is still standing but it has become tainted with melancholy. This series serves as a reminder that perspective is nothing without an angle and that the scene is but a reflection or a shadow in the eye of the beholder. The futuristic dream of the architect has been put to the test of time, life and human presence. It’s ultimate illusion would be to unite past, present and future.
Text taken from https://www.laurentkronental.com/Les-Yeux-des-Tours/1