Atelier Van Lieshout proposes collectively organized forms of working and living that circumvent conventional categories (see their Disciplinator project). The collective is currently working on a sinister utopian project that, they hope, will be highly efficient and profitable.

Joep van Lieshout showing models of his project

Formerly known as the Call Centre, Slave City is an up-to-date concentration camp made out of the latest technology and with the newest management insights. The highly profitable Slave City (7 billion euro net profit per year) is provided with all necessary facilities to make sure that the inhabitants (called “participants”) are as efficient as possible. Values, ethics, esthetics, morals, food, energy, economics, organization, management and market are turned upside-down, reformulated and designed into a town of 200.000 inhabitants.

Detail of Slave University (Female)

They all work 7 hours a day on tele-services such as customers service, ICT, telemarketing, computer programming etc. After that, they work 7 hours on the fields or workshop and the rest of their time is used for education, sleep and other necessities. This Slave City is a self sufficient ´green town´ that does not use or waste the worlds resources and does not produce any waste material because of efficient recycling.

Slave City’s Modular Brothels

The project is still in development but 3D models such as the Slave University 2006 (scale 1:12), various Modular Brothels and paintings have been produced about life in Slave City. These works are currently on show at the Mapping the Studio exhibition that runs until August 20 at the Stedelijk museum “>Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Images: Picabia, AVL and Stedelijk.