Patterns of production and consumption
From the material effects of digital sites to discarded electronic devices and packaging, the traces of daily patterns of production and consumption often end up scattered over large areas of the Earth. As the impact on climate and ecology prompts a comprehensive rethink of the systems that support our ways of life, each artist featured in this section takes a unique view of the commercial processes and product lifecycles that shape our everyday activities.
There are the colourful building blocks of brands as presented by Iranian-born German artist Rozbeh Asmani. He explores how colours that are subject to intellectual property rights have helped carry the consumer world into collective memory. At the same time, Asmani probes questions of agency: both specifically in terms of the freedom of an artist to apply colour, and more generally in terms of the influence of colour in advertising all around us.
Then there is the moment of purchase, out of which Latvian photographer Ivars Gravlejs creates his Shopping Poetry series, examples of which are displayed in one of the small rooms to the left of this gallery’s entrance. Having experienced the sudden change of systems in light of Perestroika as a child, he transforms supermarket purchases into instant illustrated poems. This kind of creative (re)classification of objects is further explored by Icelandic artist Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir, who worked with pre-school children to create a system of grouping found objects that are products of mass-manufacturing. The resulting artwork is dedicated to the renowned eighteenth-century naturalist Carl von Linné, author of Systema Naturae.
As such, Birgisdóttir introduces a multigenerational thread that runs throughout the exhibition, at the same time as hinting at another featured artist’s favourite theme: the similarities and differences between technological and natural systems. Czech sculptor Krištof Kintera pushes these to the limit by giving a single branded product a life of its own in Homegrown, where he transforms beer cans into a singularly smooth cactus. In a further act of metamorphosis, Lilly Lulay transforms multiple electronic and data storage devices into traditional, almost homely fibre art, complete with printed circuit diagrams.
The home is also a preferred site of Polish-German multimedia artist Alicja Kwade to explore the restlessness of daily life amid a mass of electronic devices. Kwade’s technological nocturnes were shot in her own apartment, as the Fourth Industrial Revolution commenced at the turn of the new millennium. These instant iterations of technical accomplishment glowing insistently in the night contrast with Valérie Belin’s photographs of electrical appliances waiting to be processed in a specialist waste centre. The French photographer’s images of silent black-and-white monuments to the afterlife of branded products speak volumes about the 3Rs of the circular economy: reduce, reuse, recycle.
As repurposed everyday devices, objects and materials shed new light on our actions, habits and values, artists are capturing the emerging archaeology of our times, during which technology and innovation may well have become more intimately woven into the fabric of society, and the environment, than ever before. What would you change to make future patterns of production and consumption more sustainable?