AA. VV., REAL REVIEW 9 – END TIMES, 2020

New omens appear on a daily basis: uncontrollable fires and floods, melting ice, rising seas, mass extinction, incurable pandemics, and escalating violence of thought and deed. How can Real Review add something positive to this context, at the very climax of our global anxiety? Time destroys all worlds, and good riddance! The past is a foreign country, its horrors and delights recast by the temperaments of our present day.

End Times is about a different relationship with the future, as truly beyond our prediction or conception. It concerns inaction, a new type of passivity and patience, a heightened sense of our own being in the world, our collective humanity, and the value of non-human life.

Aren’t these strange times? We interview RYUICHI SAKAMOTO on the meaning of good timing. OLAFUR ELIASSON presents a special artwork to help us feel more together, while WILL SELF reviews deep adaptation and the ellipsis. Curator SARAH MCCRORY reviews the work of feminist artist ALEXIS HUNTER, who in turn reviews why the wives of Marxists still do the housework. EXTINCTION REBELLION publish a manifesto and call to arms, while CRESSIDA BROTHERSTONE and HARLEY WEIR review art therapy and neurodiversity. HITO STEYERL reviews the algorithms designed to distinguish faces from butts. GIORGIO AGAMBEN reviews the contemporary.

Also in the issue: AMY ROMER reviews modern-day slavery, while JACK SELF reviews the invention of the Japanese housewife and how edging reframes being. ELISABETH KENDALL reviews Jihadi poetry, TAMAR SHAFRIR reviews Vitruvius, RAVEN SMITH reviews the endless cycle of fashion and ZOË RITTS reviews the pop-up.