Flare (2007)
Text: Lars Bang Larsen
Standing on a bridge, a group of people burn flares of the type made for emergencies at sea, and which have also become popular among football supporters to show their colours at games. Flare documents the organization and execution of an event whose purpose remains undefined: is it for protest? A celebration? An announcement of something about to happen? In this way Flare investigates the means and strategies of activism and event-making, and the way individuals, communities and public space are organised around events. We may think of how the militant hippie Abbie Hoffman defined the successful media happening: to him, it consists in equal measures of risk, drama and bullshit.