Installation Views, Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus 09.2023

 


Clipboard
Clipboard, pen with logo of the medication Eskalith (a lithium-based mood stabilizer), pdf print out of scientific research article titled "Geospatial examination of lithium in drinking water and suicide mortality”

 

All Work And No Play Makes Jack Sh*t Keyboard key caps, cardboard mounted on alu-dibond, 45 x 75 cm/29.5 x 17 ¾ in
Using letters from discarded keyboards, the phrase is spelled out and repeated. The original saying is "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." Jack shit is slang for nothing although you can also read it literally. In the film The Shining (1980), the main character, Jack Torrance, types the original saying thousands of times instead of working on his novel.

 

Home (left) Archival-inkjet print, smartphone bezels, key cap
Photo of anti-suicide nets installed inside workers dorms by Apple-supplier Foxconn

Space & Volume (right) Archival inkjet prints, key caps, space bar
Dell factory workers staging a collective ‘suicide action’ on rooftop to protest inhumane working conditions and low pay (top right), ambulances and fire engine arriving on scene (bottom right).


 


Shift Archival inkjet print, key cap
Worker at Foxconn campus with anti-suicide nets above.

In the Mood Pharma-branded CD
Promo CD for Eskalith CR, a lithium-based mood stabilizer. Music licensed from estate of Glenn Miller. Miller was behind some of the biggest hits in the 1930s and 40s such as the song In The Mood. Pharma companies routinely gift such branded items to physicians.

Nirvana Lithium iPad, video (looped, no sound)
iPad playing video for Nirvana's 1991 song Lithium (without sound)

Cut The Wires, Cut The Tears Custom-printed mousepad, two vintage iMac mice
One wired mouse, one mouse forcibly made wireless. Wireless technology is enabled by lithium carbonate. The mousepad features a 1948 photo of Australian psychiatrist and former prisoner of war Dr. John Cade who discovered the use of lithium carbonate for mood disorders. Between his fingers he holds a lithium carbonate pill.

I'm Not Working Pill organizer, keyboard letters
The white keyboard keys in the box spell the phrase "I'm Not Working." The phrase can refer to both wellbeing and/or labor.

 

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