EVENT: WORKING TOWARDS OUR OWN OBSOLESCENCE (JUNE 18 - JULY 23 2021, LIMASSOL, CYPRUS)
An exhibition curated by Régine Debatty
June 18 - July 23 2021
NeMe Arts Centre
3603 Limassol, Cyprus
Artists: Pippin Barr; Larisa Blazic; Peter Buczkowski; Stéphane Degoutin, Gwenola Wagon, and Pierre Cassou-Noguès; Dasha Ilina; Sanela Jahić; Lisa Ma; Liz Magic Laser; Julien Prévieux; Laurel Ptak.
This exhibition features the work of artists who are critically investigating the ways the Silicon Valley economy is affecting labour conditions. Their works help us understand the pervasive constrictions we, as passive consumers, have unintentionally aided implement. The proposed works fall into five spheres of investigation: the myth that the machines are replacing us; the emergence of an army of invisible, or rather invisibilised workers; the transformation of labour conditions through precariousness and the atomisation of tasks; the body of workers disciplined to act like machines and finally, the ways workers and consumers can fight back with not just resistance but positive alternatives. (read more)
Régine Debatty curated a fantastic exhibition for the NeMe Arts Centre in Limassol, Cyprus, which I had not the pleasure of attending. Nonetheless, the exhibition was accompanied by a consistently phenomenal amount of content, including a series of interviews with the all the artists involved (the entire archive is available on YouTube), plus a killer interview with Pippin Barr on Regine's We Make Money Not Art, which you can read here.
Here's a juicy excerpt:
Indie games are also becoming this massive thing with some titles that become surprising successes. One game that i would call experimental and that met a broad success is Papers, Please. It’s an independent title and it’s pretty surprising that people were so excited about it. Like It is as if you were doing work, it’s a representation of labor. You’re asked to do what seems to be an extremely boring job which is stamping people’s passports. It’s not relying on an exciting narrative with spies coming through, bombings and shooting people at the border. That’s not what the job of a border officer is really like. Lucas Pope is an incredible game designer, he found that balancing act between an unlikely premise and a set of mechanics which are in some sense boring and a narrative framing around that and beautiful tiny elements of design that drew people in. Many of the more experimental games are pulling conventional game design into more interesting areas while acknowledging some of the conventions of design. (Pippin Barr)
And here's the conversation on video:
: Working Towards Our Own Obsolescence
LINK: Régine Debatty's curatorial text
LINK: Pippin Barr interviewed by Régine Debatty on WMMNA (text)
LINK: