Strahlen der Apokalypse (Beaming Apocalypse)

<p><em>Bilingual in English and German</em></p> <p>The beam as agency or object? Beaming with apocalypse just as beaming with joy, just as a beam of apocalypse carrying a building, or been built upon, or even beaming the apocalypse up to Scotty, or is that where it all came from? This could be the question posed by this Focus <em>Strahlen der Apokalypse (Beaming Apocalypse)</em>; posed to you, the readers, and to us, the curators and authors of the contributions. It is a question that strikes at the turbulent heart of the apocalypse: while its weighty, primarily religiously defined historicity today appears mainly objectified in artefacts and discourses, its current topicality is based, above all, on its continuing agency. Apocalypse is first and foremost a vision for the future. Accordingly, the beam we are talking about here is a vector, a movement in the various meanings of the word: physical and spiritual, social and political movement. The pieces contributed to this Focus are therefore fundamentally prismatic. We view them as a preliminary review of <em>Die Stral</em>, our publication, exhibition and event project on the subject of the apocalypse one year ago at the University of Zürich in cooperation with the ZH Reformation anniversary festival. The pieces assembled in this Focus reflect a large part of those debates, as we combine lecture manuscripts revised especially for this purpose with additional contributions and make them available online for the first time. New contributions add to and expand the ongoing discussion…</p>