The Mini Alcohol installation and The Multi-Funnel, by Atelier Van Lieshout (i know, i know, hardly a month passes without me blogging one of their works) stages soft figures that seem unable to control their own fate.
Both installations are elements from a bigger project, called The Technocrat, a fictional society comprised of 1000 members (called burghers) force-fed cheap food which has just enough nutritious value to feed people but produces an abundance of fecal waste. As illustrated in their biogas installation, called Total Fecal Solution, the waste is sucked out of the people’s intestines and used to fuel and power The Technocrat, otherwise comprised of a sleeping area and a feeding installation.
The alcohol distribution installation and multi-funnel feeding system serve to keep the ‘burghers’ populating the Technocrat, drowsed and satisfied. The food and alcohol are pumped into the people’s mouths while they are lying in the bunk beds in minimal quantities, calculated by medical doctors and nutrition experts.
Exploring concepts of freedom and extreme rationalism, the narrative serves as a model for self-sufficiency that is simultaneously nightmarish and utopian.
More AVL: Slave City, Maxi Capsule Luxus, The Disciplinator and The Call Centre, Caffeinated anatomy. ICON magazine has a portrait of AVL.