HAYDN JONES, FABIO LATTANZI ANTINORI, JONATHAN MUNRO
Guest Projects
Sunbury House
1 Andrews Road
London
E8 4QL
http://executivechair.co/
The
contemporary world presents us with goods and services whose means of
production and circulation are often taken for granted by the end user. How are
power relations reproducing meanings and discourses in the workplace and how is
this reflected within human communication in general?
Through a
series of installations, artists Fabio Lattanzi Antinori, Haydn Jones, and
Jonathan Munro touch upon issues such as corporate influence upon workspace,
the office as a site of production, and the factor of miscommunication in work
relations.
Each
artist’s approach to the idea of office work and office work relations
references the positioning of bodies within current systems of production and
the cultural values that come with it. To question these values, they will
produce an alternative workspace comprising familiar elements, yet these
components will bear subtle defects, provide unknown functions. The elements of
unexpectedness, opportunity for chance, and the feeling of incompleteness feed
into the idea of how profoundly fragile our relationship with the external
world has become.
In their
work, the artists take the office as the site where bodies and discourses are
produced, and reflect upon an almost ritualistic behavior that stems from the
politics of the space. The artworks in the exhibition range from utilitarian
products with defects, to performative works expressing the nature of
misunderstanding as an integral dynamic in production processes.
In talking
about the historical change in sovereign regimes since the 18th century,
philosopher Michel Foucault emphasised the essential role that taming of the
bodies has played in the development of capitalism, which “would not be
possible without the controlled insertion of bodies into the machinery of
production and the adjustment of the phenomena of population to economic
processes. But this was not all it required; it also needed the growth of both
these factors, their reinforcement as well as their availability and docility;
it had to have methods of power capable of optimizing forces, aptitudes, and
life in general without at the same time making them more difficult to
govern.
Departing
from the common theme of how larger economic structures play a role in how we
construct our social space in our times, each artist will develop works that relate
to each other in terms of narrative. Fabio Lattanzi Antinori’s work deals with
issues of social production, body, and data. Haydn Jones’ interest lies in
re-purposed technologies and the relationship between individuals, states, and
networks. Jonathan Munro is concerned with creating sculptural objects;
intervening in spaces and crafting experiences which question different notions
of seeing and interactivity within art.
This
event’s public engagement activity plan consists of artist talks. In addition,
a program of curated film screenings, which is being developed around the same
theme, can run in the parallel program of the exhibition.