OUTRAGE FATIGUE ONE-SHOT

“Outrage fatigue” refers to the feeling of powerlessness that overwhelms those who gaze too closely at the world’s misfortunes. In this age of instant information and ubiquitous images, the global market of indignation is freely accessible, and anyone can draw from it as many catastrophes, injustices, tortures, and exploitations as they need to fuel their revolt; but eventually, this revolt becomes dulled, and anger often turns to apathy.

Ivan Brun’s book doesn’t offer a cure for this modern malaise. On the contrary, these 32 illustrations, created with pen or scratchboard from news images gleaned from the web and then colored in duotone, only add to the problem. Like a kind of visual inventory of the world's horrors, they reveal the full spectrum of oppression, violence, and often cruelty—physical, moral, or symbolic—of which humankind is capable.

Abused bodies, butchered animals, exploited workers, heavily armed soldiers, politicians on the campaign trail, and hyperactive starlets: the images in Outrage Fatigue seem at first glance to have little in common, like pieces of an impossible puzzle. But through their juxtaposition, Ivan Brun ultimately reveals the omnipresence of power dynamics: men over sex workers, humans over animals, traffickers or soldiers over civilians, the rich over the poor, and so on. He seems to offer a unifying interpretation that, like a step back, finally allows us to see how the different pieces of the puzzle fit together. To overcome the outrageous fatigue caused by the overabundance and explosion of indignation, Ivan Brun seems to be proposing a way forward: "Rebels of all causes, unite!"