2013 - ongoing
I commissioned factory workers to insert errors into the products they ordinarily manufacture. Each worker had total authorship: I simply asked them to make their object dysfunctional.
Following thousands of confused emails to factories across the globe, twenty-one objects were finally produced. These became the product collection of ERRATUM®, a dysfunctional luxury brand. Here, the objects were subject to the apparatus of commodity fetishism: fashion shoot, billboard advertising, sales assistants, pop-up boutique, online store.
ERRATUM® explores the radical potential of dysfunction within a globalised economy. Subverting dominant notions of use value, authorship and mass-produced vs. unique, it foregrounds the agency of a global workforce in the relentless production of stuff.
This work was triggered by a report about the Foxconn / Apple factory in Shenzhen, China. Workers were responding to the labour conditions by taking their own lives. One employee claimed ‘sometimes he would deliberately drop something on the ground so he could have a few seconds of rest while picking it up.’ ERRATUM® extends his gesture, examining how a deliberate error might offer a moment of freedom within the relentless logic of global production.
Following thousands of confused emails to factories across the globe, twenty-one objects were finally produced. These became the product collection of ERRATUM®, a dysfunctional luxury brand. Here, the objects were subject to the apparatus of commodity fetishism: fashion shoot, billboard advertising, sales assistants, pop-up boutique, online store.
ERRATUM® explores the radical potential of dysfunction within a globalised economy. Subverting dominant notions of use value, authorship and mass-produced vs. unique, it foregrounds the agency of a global workforce in the relentless production of stuff.
This work was triggered by a report about the Foxconn / Apple factory in Shenzhen, China. Workers were responding to the labour conditions by taking their own lives. One employee claimed ‘sometimes he would deliberately drop something on the ground so he could have a few seconds of rest while picking it up.’ ERRATUM® extends his gesture, examining how a deliberate error might offer a moment of freedom within the relentless logic of global production.
Media
Exhibitions
Press
Exhibitions
Press
Sculpture
Performance
Video
Email correspondence
Advertising campaign
Billboards
Retail furniture
Paradise Row (London)
V&A Museum (London)
Saatchi New Sensations (London)
Threadneedle Prize (London)
CCCA (Manchester)
Kunstverein Wiesbaden
The Art Foundation (Athens)
Z33 (Hasselt)
Artwall (Prague)
Nieuwe Vide (Haarlem)
Budapest Design Biennale
Cypriana Majernika (Bratislava)
National Technical Library (Prague)
Oriel Sycharth Gallery (Wrexham)
Division of Labour (Salford)
Third Text
Artforum
Ibraaz
Manifesto Magazine
TimeOut
Guardian
The Independent
Frankfurter Allgemeine Feuilleton
Aesthetica Magazine
Art:Review
Another Magazine
The Financial Times
Port Magazine
Creative Review
Icon magazine
Performance
Video
Email correspondence
Advertising campaign
Billboards
Retail furniture
Paradise Row (London)
V&A Museum (London)
Saatchi New Sensations (London)
Threadneedle Prize (London)
CCCA (Manchester)
Kunstverein Wiesbaden
The Art Foundation (Athens)
Z33 (Hasselt)
Artwall (Prague)
Nieuwe Vide (Haarlem)
Budapest Design Biennale
Cypriana Majernika (Bratislava)
National Technical Library (Prague)
Oriel Sycharth Gallery (Wrexham)
Division of Labour (Salford)
Third Text
Artforum
Ibraaz
Manifesto Magazine
TimeOut
Guardian
The Independent
Frankfurter Allgemeine Feuilleton
Aesthetica Magazine
Art:Review
Another Magazine
The Financial Times
Port Magazine
Creative Review
Icon magazine