Project Fast Work – Time consuming Landscape – 2017

"I need to work faster than the smart robot!"

The ICT revolution has a great effect on our lives, our jobs, our prosperity and ourselves as human beings. New developments take place faster and faster. These intelligent machines and robots take on tasks, which previously could only be done by humans with increasing speed, knowledge and power. What will be the consequences of this big acceleration, the digitization?

The challenge 
In her project 'Fast Work, Time consuming Landscape' Pauline challenges herself working with an increasing shorter time limit in production. She tried to make four similar textile paintings which every following painting had 15% less time available than at the previous one. So when she started with the textile painting number four she had 45% less time to complete this work. Each painting must be as optimal as possible and be salable, with no loss of expressive power.

Pauline wanted to see if she could work faster. She could. But it has been a heavy burden physically. The American philosopher Michael Sandel says: "And see the body as a gift and do not want to improve it endlessly. If you want to change man so he will fit better in society, you make a thing of him." We have to accept our limitations. That makes us who we are.

The results of this project were presented in an installation consisting of four textile paintings, the log, movie recordings, and comments from visitors on Instagram and Facebook. The installation was part of the exhibitions: Time, Space and Architecture at Cityscapes Gallery in Amsterdam (2017),CBK Emmen (2019) and Dat Bolwerck te Zutphen (2020).

In the book "Project Fast Work, Time consuming Landscape" (2017) Pauline tells about the impact of the increasing work-pressure in her working process, on the creative part, on the changing time perspective and what this did to her.
Her research, texts from her logbook, photos of the four works of art and reactions from the public have been published in a compact edition.

Summary
"I have to work faster than the smart robot!"
The IT revolution has a major impact on our lives. Intelligent machines take over tasks with an unprecedented increase in speed and power. Like most people, Pauline does not want to be replaced by a machine and in this project challenged herself to work with decreasing production times. She made four identical textile paintings, each subsequent painting in 15% less time. The final work had to be done in just 55% of the original production time. 
The results speak for themselves, explaining what happened during this process? 

When you are interested in this research and the book, please contact info@paulinemmnijenhuis.nl

Click on the pictures for more info