The sculptural installation Home Office ft. Angola, Iraq, Vietnam, Vicodin consists of a computer workstation playing a video featuring in large part a televisual collage of ads from countries in the Global South.The video investigates consumer culture through a transnational lens, witnessing how it both shapes and is shaped by local conditions and local desires. As an example, one can find an Iraqi ad for an air conditioner by LG, a multi-national and South Korean-owned electronics brand. The dynamism of the video montage attempts to reflect the perverse mirror of reality extrapolated from a series of news shows and commercials that appear to glorify sexual harassment, workers grievances, gender imbalance in the workplace, and cathartic office rage. The computer is flanked by pharmaceutically-branded office supplies featuring logos of bestselling medications used to treat “diseases of affluence” such as diabetes, depression, heart disease, dementia etc.—conditions that are now epidemic worldwide. Unlike infectious diseases that affect the global poor, diseases of affluence are associated with increased wealth in a society. .
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Home Office ft. Angola, Iraq, Vietnam, Vicodin (2021), iMac, desk, chair, pharma-branded office supplies, 14 min looped video + sound |