LIGHTS OUT FACTORY

LIGHTS OUT FACTORY, SOUND INSTALLATION, CERAMIC CUPS, ANIMATRONIC ROBOT, 2022

‘Lights-out manufacturing’ refers to a completely robotic production that, by virtue of its independence from human intervention, can take place in darkened factory premises. Around the world, several so-called ‘dark factories’ breathe daily life into the wet dream of the worker without needs, demands and senses. A dream of a sustainable future, where the workers’ time is freed up, work accidents averted, overproduction eliminated and, of course, energy saved in the dark. However, the robotic society, where manual labor has been made unnecessary, risks creating a divided society between the cognitive worker and the service worker, blind to the citizen for whom welfare and security largely depend on a place in the labor market. ‘Lights-out manufacturing’ thereby balances between a future that promises unprecedented possibilities and at the same time seems blind to the need to rethink, redistribute and abandon certain established structures. This delicate balance is the focal point of Lights Out Factory, in which a darkened factory floor were created, where artists and thinkers were invited to explore ideas about collective production, lighting of dark machinery and the potential of blindness, whilst labouring in the dark on a production of ceramic coffee cups. Now the factory floor is abandoned - only the echo of workers in conversation take up the space. Yet in the dim light work is still
taking place.

With: Signe Leth Gammelgaard, Eskild Halberg, Molly Haslund, Liv Nimand Duvå, Hannah Anbert, Tais Terletskaja, Ask Katzeff, Malte Starck, Søren Thilo Funder and Tina Helen.

FACTORY WORKERS UNITE is a collaborative factory space for working and thinking shared by Tina Helen and Søren Thilo Funder. It forms an ongoing investigation of the physical, cultural, cognitive and social factory, comprising factory floors of warehouses, archives, assembly lines, artist studios, museum spaces, reading rooms, shopping malls, lecture halls, sports arenas, political assemblies, nature experiences, holiday retreats, family structures, media platforms, game systems, cybernetic networks, playgrounds, love lifes, unions and friendships.