Regulate (2024)

The piece contains a capacitor, two cans of energy drinks with missing labels, and one poster with a font size of 18-38pt and arranged on a 38×18 grid with information about the chemicals advertised by energy drink brands.

The age range of 18 to 38 years old is recognized as the age group that consumes the most energy drinks, indicating that earning a livelihood becomes a hardship in life. Many workers use energy drinks on a daily basis in order to maintain short-term energy and work harder for capitalists. Everything is founded on the supply and demand premise, with consumerism reigning supreme under capitalism. The difficulty is that many capitalists are not excellent at sharing wealth, which is why one of the most common accusations leveled against capitalism is that it is a significant driver of social and economic inequality. Karl Marx also emphasized the system’s ability to dehumanize workers, writing that capitalist methods of production “mutilate the worker into a fragment of humanity, reducing him to the level of an appendage. of a machine, destroying all the remaining charm of his work and making it part of it.” into a miserable drudgery.” As the imminent danger of automation and the degradation of public health care places further strain on the working class, demonstrators believe that capitalism prioritizes profit over all else, implying that those who sell their labor will be worked to death.

This reminds the artist of the labor that goes into found-object art. The artist’s abilities evolved as mass production and technology advanced. They alter in accordance with production relations. Skills eventually emerge via the selection, arrangement, and juxtaposition of materials, including traces of others’ labor into the piece.

• Kim Kelly. 2020. What ‘Capitalism’ Is and How It Affects People. Teen Vogue

• Robert Health. 2012. Seducing the Subconscious: The Psychology of Emotional Influence in Advertising. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated

• Roberts John. 2007. The intangibilities of form: skill and deskilling in art after the readymade. London: Verso