Neur-O-Matic is a series of twelve identical situations displaying the average generic workplace of the cognitive precariat, whose labour is deeply rooted in the absurdly static environment of communication capitalism. Unconscious gestures, dictated by information technology are triggering ideological operations in space-time medium, in which time is increasingly limited and space progressively diffused. The authors (in close collaboration with electrical engineers Simon Bergoč and Boris Košak and sculptors Neža Jurman and Staš Vrenko) have chafed this fantasia of the abundance of knowledge and information to its essence – to the absurd, whose desire due to its inability to achieve gratification is bent upon destruction. The installation mechanism is set on partly self-destructing the installation, manifesting the fragmented and disruptive results of the overproduction. All twelve situations are linked into a central network, that triggers the hammers punching on these clones. The central operating system of the installation works as an online environment connecting all twelve units together. Visitors are likened to the roles of operators, who are unable to control their actions, for every keystroke denotes destruction. The only means of resistance and transformation of the inert overproduction and operation is a radical withdrawal from the system and absolute inaction.
Production: Projekt Atol Institute and Društvo Ljudmila, Art and Science Laboratory
Co-production: MOTA – Museum of Transitory Art
Project was supported by Ministry of Culture and City Municipality of Ljubljana – Department for Culture.
