Joe
Pettet
Smith

I was in the kitchen when I heard the news. It was the morning of January 26th 2017, the usual white noise of early morning radio programming was interrupted by a news segment about the Doomsday Clock. I turned up the radio, pausing my routine. The Clock is a warning mechanism, a risk assessment on a global scale, a metaphor for how close we are to catastrophe. Since 1947, the scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons have released an annual report assessing the threats to the planet. That morning, the radio presenter informed the nation that it is now 2 and a half minutes to midnight. Midnight is used as the apocalyptic zero point, the minute hand represents our distance from it. The only time the Clock has been closer was when Cold War tensions led to the creation of the hydrogen bomb. The nuclear armament of unstable nations, rising global political tensions and threats from global warming were all noted as causes for urgent concern. 

In 2018 the Doomsday Clock moved closer; it is now 2 minutes to midnight.

Alongside these real world threats to civilisation there are the fictional worlds created for entertainment purposes that allow us to explore what it might be like to find ourselves after such an event. These narratives have crept in to many aspects of popular culture from literature to cinema, video games to theatre, live action experiences and beyond. To seek these experiences could be considered as a form of voluntary pre-conditioning, psychological training or more generally as a form of escapism. The borders between reality and fiction, that is, real world anxieties and entertainment are collapsed and intertwined. Narratives of civilisational collapse are as old as civilisation itself, but its mainstream popularity is ever increasing. At the time of its release Mad Max (1979) was the most profitable film of all time, Fallout 4 (2015) was one of the highest grossing video games when it came out and The Walking Dead (2010) has the highest total viewership of any series in cable television history. Preparations for the Worst Case Scenario is an attempt to understand post-apocalyptic fantasies as a form of entertainment.

This project is still in development.