Batch 11

Performative Installation representing the working conditions of employees in fulfilment centres working in a packaging line. This project was supported by fashion designer Stephanie Hahn. 

Description:

Batch 11 is a durative performative installation in which performers are reproducing working conditions of workers in fulfillment centers. Throughout a three hour performance slime is being packaged in small cans and it is pushed on a conveyor belt until it hits the floor. A performer is pick- ing the cans up and displays them as they would be for sale. When the new batch for the display is being arranged, the cans are replaced, the slime is taken out and the cycle starts from the beginning again.

When the performers take took long for packaging or when they make any other sort of mistake, they are being punished by having red squares hammered in their chest to make a reference do different point systems.

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Idea:

Batch 11 is a performative installation that offers insight into a packaging center by re-producing the environment and working shifts of the workers, working on the packaging line.
We are living in a world that values quantity over quality and demands fast and free delivery and returns of products that lose their value and identity in a consumer’s wealth pile.

The material that will be packed in this performative installation is Slime. Slime is a non-Newtonian fluid that takes up the shape of whatever container it is put in, slowly engulfing and seeping through the cracks. Slime is a great symbol for the stuff that we own and after a while do not value anymore.

Workers are paying the price for the consumers to be happy in their never-ending demands. The workers are pushed to meet astronomical quotas and need to process parcels at an impossible
speed.
This is an ongoing performance that will be dictated by the rhythm of the interaction of the performers with the conveyor belt and their dehumanised humanity.

We do not question the authenticity or origin of these products. To keep customers happy with your never-ending demands for same-day delivery, workers have to meet astronomical quotas. For example, they have to process parcels at an 11-second pace. The new forms of commerce often have minimal worker participation and a gigantic new industry is not drawing on the gains of previous labor strug- gles.

Many of the products purchased online have a short life span: “getting it quickly” is more import- ant than “keeping it for a long time”. Through the anonymous online purchasing process, the con-sumer completely loses touch not only with the manufacturing process, but also with the trading and delivery process. When people return products they bought online, it is often difficult to get these products back on sale, so they end up staying in intermediate warehouses for a very long time.

Performers: Luca Calaras, Eunbi Oh, Nadine Karl, Emma Rüther

Links:

• Video on Vimeo
• Article in ArtJunk Online Magazine
• Facebook Event
• Link to Gallery Live Lab Studios

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