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STRATEGIES FOR FACILITATING ARTWORK DURING WAGEWORK #1: REMOTE RELAY [WALKIE-TALKIE]

first performed on May 12, 2018
Five Years, London, UK
performed once in 2018

DROSS

London, UK

fiveyears.org.uk/archive2/pages/248/Being_Together_Is%20Not_Enough/participants/11/11.html

STRATEGIES FOR FACILITATING ARTWORK DURING WAGEWORK #1: REMOTE RELAY [WALKIE-TALKIE]
DROSS

This collective action involves three participants. It is designed as a communication loop, to allow an art worker to present a live interpretation of interventions undertaken by a wage worker while on shift, and communicate this live interpretation back again. The loop is completed by a relay-interpreter posing as a gallery visitor who performs the data received back to the wage worker.

The wage worker will perform actions while invigilating at a central London museum. They will then text an account of the actions to the art worker, situated in Five Years. The art worker will take these inputs as instructions to construct an installation in the gallery. The art worker will be in communication with the relay-interpreter, describing what has been carried out in the gallery.

The relay-interpreter will take this information and communicate it to the wage worker through coded actions resembling behaviors of a typical museum visitor. Upon receiving this message, the wage worker will undertake another intervention, in response to or building upon the actions of the art worker. The invigilator will text an account of these subsequent actions to the artworker and the loop will begin again.

DROSS are a group of gallery invigilators who collaborate to covertly perform art actions while at work. “Strategies For Facilitating Artwork During Wagework #1: Remote Relay [Walkie-Talkie]” is an attempt to explore the publicly-presentable potential of such a practice.