€32,00
in stock
0
0
Muzak for the Encouragement of Unproductivity is a poetic inversion of Muzak’s traditional role in stimulating seamless productivity in the workplace. Beginning as a pre-radio music distribution network (1934, U.S.), Muzak was transmitted along electrical wires with the intention of being at once ubiquitous and indiscernible, always present yet easily ignorable. As a pseudo-science, its aim was to capitalize on the potential of music to have a psychological effect on listeners and, with the goal of maximum productivity, it was employed as a sonic disciplinary force in the workplace.
Previously installed for Dystopia Sound Art Biennial (2024) at the Amazon Packing Station located before HAUNT-Frontviews in Berlin, Muzak for the Encouragement of Unproductivity sonically addresses utopic notions of seamless, efficient productivity inherent to capitalist cultures, and their very real dystopic effects, from labor exploitation to the impacts of overproduction on the environment. This poetic inversion, further developed as an album, is not meant as a kind of melodic control but rather as a reflective space in which to consider the benefits, personally, globally, and environmentally, of slowing down.
Reverb, essential to the Muzak aesthetic, is programmed (using convolution reverb) with the dimensions of the Berlin Amazon fulfillment center, DBE2. Amazon fulfillment centers are global contemporary factories, promising a consumer utopia of next-day delivery of almost any product imaginable. Inspired by Sam Kidel’s concept of “mimetic hacking” (1), the reverberation characteristics of the DBE2 facility perform a symbolic sonic break-in to the guarded Amazon fulfillment center, a trespass into the flow of production.
Guffond’s ambient Muzak, with its drifting horn, clarinet, and synth-like modulations, is just too down-tempo for upbeat spending. If this is Muzak, it is possibly Muzak for the end of the world, thoughtfully seeking transcendence through implied questioning after all avenues for shopping have been exhausted.
€32,00
in stock
Muzak for the Encouragement of Unproductivity is a poetic inversion of Muzak’s traditional role in stimulating seamless productivity in the workplace. Beginning as a pre-radio music distribution network (1934, U.S.), Muzak was transmitted along electrical wires with the intention of being at once ubiquitous and indiscernible, always present yet easily ignorable. As a pseudo-science, its aim was to capitalize on the potential of music to have a psychological effect on listeners and, with the goal of maximum productivity, it was employed as a sonic disciplinary force in the workplace.
Previously installed for Dystopia Sound Art Biennial (2024) at the Amazon Packing Station located before HAUNT-Frontviews in Berlin, Muzak for the Encouragement of Unproductivity sonically addresses utopic notions of seamless, efficient productivity inherent to capitalist cultures, and their very real dystopic effects, from labor exploitation to the impacts of overproduction on the environment. This poetic inversion, further developed as an album, is not meant as a kind of melodic control but rather as a reflective space in which to consider the benefits, personally, globally, and environmentally, of slowing down.
Reverb, essential to the Muzak aesthetic, is programmed (using convolution reverb) with the dimensions of the Berlin Amazon fulfillment center, DBE2. Amazon fulfillment centers are global contemporary factories, promising a consumer utopia of next-day delivery of almost any product imaginable. Inspired by Sam Kidel’s concept of “mimetic hacking” (1), the reverberation characteristics of the DBE2 facility perform a symbolic sonic break-in to the guarded Amazon fulfillment center, a trespass into the flow of production.
Guffond’s ambient Muzak, with its drifting horn, clarinet, and synth-like modulations, is just too down-tempo for upbeat spending. If this is Muzak, it is possibly Muzak for the end of the world, thoughtfully seeking transcendence through implied questioning after all avenues for shopping have been exhausted.
buitenwallepad 4, ghent fri to sat · 13:00 to 18:00
