The work examines an idea of hyperinflation as a cultural and industrial process, in a video-installation ventriloquizing a cheap video-projector bought on Aliexpress.com.
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Transcript
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Look at me.
Yes, not at the projection on the screen.
Down, at my plastic body.
Tiny, you think.
Now,
You do not need to close your eyes, but please concentrate on the sound I make.
I’ll let you listen to it…
What do you think?
Noisy?
Yes, a rich noise of rough plastic blades propelling the air on the over-powered cooling fan.
Who could imagine a tiny projector like me could make such a colorful roar.
Actually, that noise brought me here.
This 40db fan noise started a dispute between Mladen, who bought me for 75€ and the seller from China.
You imagine Mladen’s smiling, self-satisfied face, finding a compact projector having the characteristics for which some brands would ask ten times more.
And the cost of delivery, nothing.
Free.
The only one, Holy China post.
He even googled my factory to double check.
Compared me to other low cost projectors, and …
BOOM !
Wished for me so hard.
He hit that “pay” button with his sweaty fingertip.
VOILA, ten days after crossing the half of the world, I found myself being impatiently, but carefully unpacked on Mladen’s kitchen table.
I felt the boost of electricity running through my wires, illuminating my LEDs, launching the system and the cooling fan start spinning.
I started breathing.
Then nothing.
I will not see Mladen’s smile for the next seven months.
Actually, I will not see anything except the interior of my cardboard box for this period.
Mladen was obsessed with making me sound quieter. He changed adapters, checked for particles, read the manual five times.
He started a dispute with Ms Shirley from BYINTEK Projector - Top Brand.
He did not want to listen to me, and tried using me with noise cancelling headphones, for example.
I could not help him to pass easier that self-realization of unrealistic expectations he has constructed about me.
Ms Shirley found no problem with noise, and suggested playing speakers louder than the sound of my breathing.
After threatening to leave a negative feedback, Mr Hans from BYINTEK Projector - Top Brand jumped into the dispute, offering to send one super bluetooth speaker, which costs 35€.
As a gift.
Free of any charges.
Mladen accepted.
The day delivery was supposed to take place, Mladen was frequently refreshing the page with tracking info about the package.
Only to find that package had been returned suddenly.
Mr. Hans had nothing to say, except to try to contact Belgium Post.
Weirdly, the package had not been returned to the sender in China, but to Malaysia.
Reasons unknown.
At that point, nobody could help Mladen feeling how globalized commodity trade had undergone catastrophic hyperinflation.
He even wrote a few lines in style of Immortal Technique hip-hop lyrics:
Chinese electronics industry exploits its own people,
So they suicide from their living, made for labor steeple.
For the idea only to sell products cheaper,
becoming a poor countries market-keeper,
and a need, real like the world of Pan Peter.
A bit trashy, but don’t blame him, desperate people – desperate lyrics.
In the meantime, Ms Shirley and Mr Hans had no idea how difficult it was for Mladen to find an argument for buying me from Aliexpress, in the first place.
His beloved wife Lucie did not like the idea of choosing a product from China and supporting labor exploitation and waste of resources and energy.
She claimed Mladen does not care for the planet.
After my cooling fan noise, she called me a useless vacuum cleaner.
So, you can imagine how far Mladen had to push to find me a useful role.
He finally came to idea to give me these thoughts,
and BOOM.
I’m finally being used and my cooling fan is no longer a disadvantage.
New price, …
I guess much better than 75€.
Ok.
I will not watch Netflix. I accede to misssing it. That should be the paradise of every low-cost video projector.
But, as we know one projector's paradise is another projector's hell.
Ah yes, and Mladen smiled again.