“We think that trauma-feeding is shaped formally by its adaptive role in a neoliberal art economy. Consumable spectacle invites attention, capturing spectatorship, gallery foot-traffic, gallery product purchase, media attention, and direct investment of various forms. Trauma-feeding also keeps the system just as it is, since it does not challenge the boundaries of the installation in any fundamental way. Come, spectate, and go home – feeling your moral feeling, too! Nothing more is required of you to change the system that has caused the trauma – or so the enclosed art experience relays in its framing. Finally, trauma-feeding sets up its artist and institutional practitioners as sympathetic people in their own right, capturing the appearance of moral authority and credibility. This both incites investment and keeps the system just as it is, while setting up a star system of artists who are parasitic on everyday moral sensibilities.” Found via e-flux conversations.