Economy of Reality-Maintenance

Economy of Reality-Maintenance

Negotiator, Allocator, Validator, Survivor, Activator, Participator, Dictator, Complicator,
Mediator, Stimulator, Dislocator, Anticipator, Collaborator  (detail)

Economy of Reality-Maintenance, Marshall Library, 2014

Art Language Location invited artists across disciplines to site work across Cambridge which create conversations between artist, artwork and location. Together with Clemens Gresser, Robert Good (ALL organiser) and Lisa Wilkens we discussed my proposal for the Marshall Library of Economics. My work ‘Economy of Reality-Maintenance’ involves applying text to the majority of chairs in the library. The real, twisted and made-up roles and positions reflect on identities we take on in the world of work and the everyday.

Economy of Reality-Maintenance, Marshall Library, 2014

Using Deutsche’s terminology of site-specifity (Deutsche, R.: Evictions. Art and Spatial Politics, Cambridge (Mass.) and London: MIT 1996), this installation is charged with a disruptive rather than a harmonising quality. The library is a public institution as such a regulated educational environment; a place of focused study and minimal verbal exchange. The installed text defamiliarises the library environment and disrupts habitual patterns. Will it make people more self-conscious? There is an underlying humour in the installation whilst being unsettling. Looking across the options makes one think of who am I or wish to become. Will it create hesitation before someone sits down? It triggers a stimulating mind game between the real and the made up. Yet, language is neither straightforward nor transparent. Words are setting up an idea but fail: the label on the chair is not doing what it says, you don’t become that position. Formerly authorised language (Bourdieu P.: Language and Symbolic Power, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991, p. 129) is undermined. But is it an attempt of audience manipulation? No it’s not; it is rather a joke and contradicting. With the audience in mind, Willath (Willath, S.: Intervention and Audience. London: Coracle Press 1984) endorsed conflict as ‘generative’ for attention. Besides, materiality and aesthetics make a difference to perception and engagement. Here, non-permanent lettering is placed employing the library’s formal aesthetics, almost blending in. Library visitors make a choice of sitting, focus on their reading and may forget the chair’s label. However, looking up one can see others and make assumptions. How does it feel to be labelled? As the text is placed on the back one is not in control. The installation is reflecting on the way we face and take up roles whether unconsciously, taken-for-granted, by choice or pressure. Here, I am drawing reference to Berger & Luckmann’s ‘Social Construction of Reality’ (P.L. Berger and T. Luckman: The Social Construction of Reality – A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, Doubleday, London 1966, p. 149ff.). We act in a web of relations, and occupy a number of different roles in the personal, social, economic or public arena. By looking beyond the veneer of how we manoeuvre my performative text installation challenges the audience to question their position.

Thank you to Marshall Library of Economics for hosting my text installation.


AnnaMaria Kardos


London based artist AnnaMaria Kardos questions the relationship of power and control that are inherent to language and objects we use in our everyday interactions within public, educational and corporate settings. She graduated from Central St Martins, joined altMFA and is currently undertaking a MFA FA at Goldsmiths University. Working across media and functional spaces her site-related installations and performative works come inseparably with a layer of humour. www.akardos.net