Affiliation:
1. Department Fine Arts, Zurich University of the Arts, 8005 Zurich, Switzerland
Abstract
This paper examines the heavy metal genre as a popular form of apocalypticism, i.e., as a warning reminder or “premediation” of potentially (large-scale) lethal crises. By confronting the audience with disturbing, seemingly exaggerated scenarios of disease, chaos, war, and horror, heavy metal builds barriers in popular culture against what philosopher Günther Anders has called “apocalyptic blindness.” The genre, then, offers a kind of “aesthetic resilience training” particularly in relatively stable and peaceful times, when large-scale crises seem unlikely or, in the case of global nuclear war, exceed in their sheer dimension the human imagination. What connects traditional religious apocalyptic artifacts such as the Book of Revelation with heavy metal is a specific appeal to the popular. Apocalyptic artifacts and their contemporary secular heirs lend themselves well to popularization because of their strong affective and aesthetic sides, as the Revelation and its many ramifications in popular culture, not least in heavy metal, demonstrate.
Subject
General Materials Science
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