KAWITA VATANAJYANKUR Mental Machine: Labour in the Self Economy

Kawita Vatanajyankur creates performances and videos that require her to endure prolonged physical and emotional hardship. . These performances are offered as a critical response to the exploitation of textile workers, the problems associated with hyperconsumerism, and the changing relations between humans and machines.

Mental Machine (2022) is a new, live performance by Vatanajyankur made in collaboration with Pat Pataranutaporn from Fluid Interface at MIT Media Lab. Directed by two cybernetic selves, in this durational performance Vatanajyankur becomes a human-machine hybrid as she uses her body to thread a massive graph-like textile pattern across the floor of the Gallery’s concourse.

The performance is made as a response to rapid developments in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, which are training machines to think, talk and work like humans. By positioning herself as a ‘mental machine’, Vatanajyankur create openings for new modes of labour and production to emerge, and ultimately questions, what it is to be human.

Image: Kawita Vatanajyankur, 'Knit II', 2021, 4k Video. Courtesy the Artist, Nova Contemporary and Antidote Organisation

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