Jordana Maisie

Democrata Automata 2011

Project description

From the moment the visitor opens the door to Jordana Maisie's installation Democrata Automata, their every action is supportive of the system that she has created. Obeying the neon commandment to ‘participate' is inevitable and almost effortless, as Maisie has ensured that visitors activate the system before they are properly aware of it: just by pushing open the heavy gallery door the visitor mobilises a system of ropes and pulleys.

Our mere presence makes us complicit in this system, and even the action of complaint bolsters its power. A focus-group exercise, with three large coin cylinders labeled Satisfied, Indifferent, and Dissatisfied, allows people to pay for the privilege of providing feedback. This mechanism anticipates improvement of the system according to the needs and desires of the participants, while allowing those who are in some way dissatisfied the singular satisfaction of communicating a complaint.

In political, economic and social spheres, this level of systematic coherence would usually make the system itself nearly invisible and thus protect it from critique. In this perfect system, however, Maisie has made a platform for the interrogation of habitual acquiescence...

In past works, Maisie has invented technologies - both systems and contraptions - that function to support bodily interaction and physical awareness. These technologies de-alienated their participants, providing spatial compensations for the repressive effects of capitalism and technology. In this present work Maisie has leapt to the other side, designing an installation that exemplifies repressive systems rather than trying to cure them.

But it seems to me that the playfulness of the work does offer some consolation: it is a reminder that our economic system is a contrivance - aesthetic and coherent, but by no means inevitable or necessary. There are other ways - better ways, most likely - of working together.

Words by Anna Saulwick.

Many thanks to Uli Knorzer, the talented Berlin-based illustrator who created the drawings for the show.