When the Lights go out. Blackout Prepar...

Given its ubiquity in Austrian state and media campaigns, a Europe-wide blackout is imminent. A blackout, experts warn, will bring society to the brink of collapse within a few days due to supply, communication, traffic, and other failures. The project is based on an ethnography of blackout preparation campaigns and political and bureaucratic action in Austria. It examines how the concept of urgency shapes blackout disaster scenarios and how state agencies, political actors, and civil society create a sense of urgency and engage citizens in an emotional regime that reifies the relationship between citizens and the state through securitization.