New American Sweatshop

Amelia Marzec in conversation with Prof. Dr. Verena Kuni

In the global economy, we have enjoyed more connectedness than ever before but have paid a price in privacy and autonomy. We must learn to use what is at hand to be prepared for disruptions, and we must re-think our relationship to technology to build systems that are more democratic. Amelia Marzec’s multilayered work ‘The New American Sweatshop’ manifests itself as an installation that models a functioning, manufacturing plant and comprises different modes of presentation. It consists of durational performances, wall displays, business plans, documentations of collective working sessions as well as of a game: ‘The New American Sweatshop: Training Module’.

The talk was followed by a gaming session.

 
 

The Training Module

The Training Module addresses the lack of common knowledge surrounding electronics manufacturing through a tabletop resource sharing game. Players become trainees in this fictional electronics cooperative. They barter for materials using real electronic waste as game pieces while avoiding hazards. The goal is to complete simple circuits that become building blocks for futuristic communication devices. In this way, they contribute to new models for economics and manufacturing. The game teaches players to identify common electronic components and introduces the idea of a schematic. It uses barter, strategy, and chance to achieve its goals, raising the question of how a phone company could function in a dystopian future.

 

Photos by Eda Temucin and Marie Brauburger

 
 

About the Artist

 

Amelia Marzec

Artist

New York

Amelia Marzec is an American artist focused on rebuilding local communications infrastructure to prepare for an uncertain future. Her work has been exhibited at ISEA, SIGGRAPH, MIT, the ONCE Foundation Contemporary Art Biennial in Madrid, and is part of the Rhizome ArtBase. She has been a resident at Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, an EARS resident at Harvestworks, the A.I.R. Gallery Emma Bee Bernstein Fellow, a Fellow at the Tow Center at Columbia University, a grantee of the Research Foundation of CUNY, and a nominee for the World Technology Awards for Art. Her work has been featured in Wired, Make, Hyperallergic, Neural Magazine, Metropolis Magazine, NPR, and the front page of Reddit. She holds an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design, and a BFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts. She is a founder of the Radical Networks conference, has written for the Huffington Post, taught at Hunter College and Queens College, and has given talks at RISD, Barnard College, and the Queens Museum of Art.

Verena Kuni

Curator, Educator, Researcher

Frankfurt am Main, Germany

kuniver.se

Verena Kuni is a scholar in art, media and cultural studies and professor for Visual Culture at Goethe-University Frankfurt a. M.

In her research, teaching, projects and publications she is, a. o., exploring transfers between material and media cultures; media of imagination and technologies of transformation; DIY & critical making; toys and/as tools,; visual epistemology; information design and (con)figurations of knowledge; biotopias and technonaturecultures. She has a special crush on interdisciplinary projects and programs at the intersections of theory and practice.