ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORY COMMONS DEBATE The Vertiginous: Temporalities and Affects of Social Vertigo edited by Daniel M. Knight, Fran Markowitz and Martin Demant Frederiksen https://www.at-commons.com/debates/the-vertiginous-temporalities-and-affects-of-social- vertigo/ 2 Alertness Marek Pawlak (Keywords: Alertness, Vertiginous Orientations, Temporalities, Affects, Iceland) ‘I always keep a couple of empty oil barrels in the basement’, said Sigrún sitting comfortably on the sofa, ‘they’re great in making some noise, so you know, they’re very useful in case something’s happening’, she added with a sneaky smile. Sigrún made this rather surprising remark during our talk about the lingering effects of the economic collapse that hit Iceland in 2008. It was a clear reference to the so-called ‘pots and pans revolution’, which began in Reykjavík in January 2009. Icelanders took to the streets to express their angst and outrage resulting from the broken promises of the bright future made by the Icelandic political and economic elites in the years preceding the financial meltdown. Indeed, the crisis came as a sudden rupture in the otherwise prevailing neoliberal mantra of Iceland’s economic progress, rapid modernisation, and its accumulation of wealth and unlimited growth. The neoliberalisation of Icelandic political economy went hand in hand with Iceland’s colonial resentment and nationalism, which took a form of the Viking-ridden discourse about the Icelandic pioneering nature, expansion, and exceptionalism. The financial meltdown, however, shattered the dream of becoming ‘the best in the world’ (Loftsdóttir, 2019) and the subsequent ‘pots and pans revolution’ was a clear message of social discontent. Although it did not lead to any substantive changes in political economy, it certainly left a significant mark on Iceland’s social history. Sigrún’s remark, however, shows something else; something more visceral and unexpected. It indicates a sense of alertness, a particular affective state of understanding, which surfaces and makes her vigilant and ready to act. Sigrún is not alone in being alert. In Iceland, alertness seems to be a common, yet contingent, vertiginous state of experiencing temporal disorientation. Alertness is vertiginous, because it creates dizziness and bewilderment; it makes people see and sense the present as it becomes replaced by the social experiences of the past, which now begin to serve as the template for forecasting the immediate future. Alertness highlights the contexts in which the past and future co-exist vertiginously in the present. It stems from the affective encounters with the unexpectedly emerging matters and materialities – objects, items, landscapes, issues, practices, habits, and conducts – which are somehow known and recognisable as already once lived, experienced, and supposedly belonging to the past. Their emergence makes the ordinary uncanny; the past repeats itself and informs social reasoning about the anticipated future. This often takes a surprising form. For example, the numerous construction cranes cramped in Reykjavík’s skyline, which in the local imagination are not simply steel building contraptions, but also ‘national birds’, which forecast an uncertain future. It might also be induced by the luxury cars on the city’s narrow streets, as well as the sudden increase in consumption and the promotion of lavish lifestyles, or even by the excessive waste production and high-quality goods found in charity shops. These seemingly insignificant matters and materialities fuel the social