Manufacturing computer chips requires specialized environments known as clean rooms, where air pollution is kept at a minimum. Factory work in these spaces is monotonous, socially isolating, and strictly follows an established production protocol. The chips produced in these clean rooms end up in devices like smartphones—gadgets central to digitalization that have replaced the traditional Fordist labor model. In its place, there is now an imperative of self-realization that compels us to present ourselves in an ideal manner. As a result, we find ourselves constantly studying and replicating the ‘best’ poses in our everyday lives, turning our personal performance into a sort of assembly line.
This multimedia performance, which draws on the metaphor of a production chain in a clean room, combines direction, video, sound, and choreography to explore the contrasting dynamics of factory interiors and social exteriors. It addresses themes such as labor and repetition, (post)Fordism, and the commodification of the female body.
Director and media artist Miriam Schmidtke and her team draw from both personal perspectives on self-presentation and her own experiences as an artist and performer, particularly her desire to recognize her artistic work. Using the metaphor of the self-contained clean room—an exceptional, isolated space—she and her team reflect on the possibility and necessity of retreating into the private, the dogmatic, or even the neurotic as a strategy worth protecting. Ultimately, they ask: “How to protect your internal ecosystem?”
Miriam Schmidtke
Miriam Schmidtke, Medienkünstlerin und Regisseurin, studierte Raumszenarien, Bühnenbild sowie Bildhauerei in Berlin und Tokio. Ihre Arbeiten bewegen sich an der Schnittstelle von Regie, Performance, Skulptur und Video. Schwerpunkte ihrer Installationen und Inszenierungen sind gebaute Räume, choreografierte Bewegungsabläufe und die Performance von Frauenfiguren in der postmodernen Gesellschaft. Sie lebt und arbeitet in Wien und Berlin.
www.miriamschmidtke.de
