Labor Power Plant
Titre de Travail, FRAC Grand Large–Hautsde-France, Dunkerque, 2018 (exhibition views, photos: Aurélien Mole).
In those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, labour power is tradable as a commodity and, as such, not a natural good or human capacity, but rather a socially mediated and constituted relation. The project “Labour Power Plant” operates on the fictitious assumption that the everyday, all-pervasive, seemingly natural and therefore invisible micro-politics present in society do in fact not exist. In other words, that society is by itself unable to provide for the human capital on which it depends. Instead, the production of abstract workers is outsourced into a dedicated “labour power plant” – an institution that equips people with the general capacities that make them fit for the demands of the labour market. Labour Power Plant – a success story of the past, the present and the future describes the story of the institution from industrialization to today, its reaction to the labour movement, and new trends in corporate governance.
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