MANUAL & BOUNDING OUT

The following two works are proposals for new works that take the printed material from the Prior ART AUTOMATON (PAA). PAA was born as an illustration exhibited at the 2018 Venice Biennale within The Institute of Patent Infringement. Prior art “is any evidence that your invention is already known” (epo.org). While an automaton “a moving mechanical device made in imitation of a human being” (oxford dictionary). In 2019, PAA as an installation was exhibited at the ICIA. There, columns of prior art, created by a neural network were printed by our automaton [trained on patents from Amazon and the field of autonomous drive]. Thus, blocking any claims and creating new formations –prior art– faster than we can. The laborer became a figure of both contention and concern. What is the role of the laborer? There is, undoubtedly, time to fill. MANUAL is a piece that centers the laborer caring for the Prior Art printed by the Automaton and BOUNDING OUT is a piece concerning the printed matter produced by the Automaton. MANUAL and BOUNDING OUT departs poignantly from the riverfront neighborhood of Ringön and the location of our studio practice which is a current space of manual laborers and a future space of knowledge laborers. The audience targeted are folks who are laborers of all kinds.

MANUAL is a proposed performance work and a continuation of artworks reflecting on non-human intelligence, such as AI and machine learning. Generally, many do not reflect upon the implications of these technologies while it lives in our homes and is carried in our pockets. Labor, particularly, is being remodeled. How shall we labor? Do we work alongside these autonomous systems? Shall we collaborate? What will be the manual for the relationship? What will be manually performed?

Practically speaking, the performance is proposed to be a view of a laborer binding the columned Prior Art, from PAA, into archive material. The paper column will transfer into material that could be handled, flipped through, and browsed. As part of the activity surrounding the performance, a greater discussion speculating our human futures as laborers, as inventors, and as protectors of intellectual property will take place.

MANUAL’s main artistic output is a film. The bound productions will become a library that can be, too, exhibited in future exhibitions.

BOUNDING OUT is a proposed series of exhibitable imagery imagining a world where Prior Art is printed and printed and printed to infinity. It is a world where the digital copies of the Prior Art are still not legally binding material. A world where digital copies are suspiciously seen. And, a world where the human laborer of the Prior Art Automaton, the paper filler, has realized that there is just too much Prior Art and consequently there must be a second use for this enormous archive. And while they are waiting between needed moments of manual labor they begin to sketch out and propose new uses for these stacks of paper. Could it aid us in creating our built environments? Could it be used to insulate? Could it be used to block potentially harmful rays of our solar system?

Practically speaking, this piece is the residue of a performance never witnessed by any audience. It is a series of wall hanging works displaying conjectures of the PAA laborer’s attempt to solve a second use for the piles and piles of printed papers. Piles of papers that they so need to print continuously – as their livelihood is at stake. Yet, piles of papers that weighs heavily. This work aims to incite a greater discussion speculating our human futures as laborers, as inventors, and as souls worried about wasting our limited earthly resources.