Knowledge Editing Division
2017
Installation, wood, anodized aluminum, speech prompters, sound, light, plexiglas, sofa, LED screen, and media player, font Helvetica for Theranos, voiceover based on Elizabeth Holmes speech
Commissioned by V-A-C Foundation
Processes making up the fourth industrial revolution change the role of thought in economics, politics and technology. Descriptive models become a way for start ups to plan their actions and often their cognitive model determines not only the corporate culture but also the public value of ideas of a given start up. The interaction between humans and objects, as well as the interchange between data and knowledge, constitutes a social sphere operating under a threatening shift in cognitive behavior that I find analogous to the shift effected in Soviet times.
The work is built upon the history of usage of descriptive models, visualization, politi- cal techniques and cultural positioning by the Theranos company, which has become an example of monetizing of an inexistent promise of biochemical monitoring of human body. Such a practical science-fiction idea has been built upon finding a new way of relationship between body and intellect. The biochemical analysis of blood and the depiction of natural utopia based on the knowledge about the body appealed to emotional intelligence. And the Theranos tech was hidden behind such image, so the public has seen the whole situation as a role playing game with the start up by Elizabeth Holmes where the knowledge served as a basis. At the same time similar organizational-performative games make up the practices of a soviet philosopher Georgy Schedrovizky. Based on this methodology he attempted to overcome a cascade of shift in the cognitive dimension of soviet political, economical and cultural spheres.
The narration is based on public speech by Elizabeth Holmes at TEDMed and descriptive models developed by Schedrovizky. The shape of the module is determined by the visual code of wellness centers. Within the installation natural and synthetic materials are fused together.
