This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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NO FOUNDATION is pleased to present Michael Maranda, Transcribing Capital, Vol. 1.
“In 1867, Karl Marx published the first volume of his Capital.
Meanwhile, in the early twenty-first century, the art world is seeing the effects of increasing income inequality on the social and economic aspects of its organisation and functioning. Setting aside, for now, the distortions of the market, the effect on the ability of emergent practitioners to afford participation in the scene has been particularly clear. The loss of entry-level positions in artist-run organisations, galleries and museums has been paralleled with an unparalleled reliance on poorly paid internships and other wage-theft orientated practices. The next generation of cultural workers and the current generation of institutions are hampered by this, creating a situation where self-exploitation is not countered by relatively-flexible, somewhat-compensatory short-term contract or part-time positions which supply the means of survival.
To understand fully what is occurring, a study of Marx and his heirs would be appropriate. As an artist who came of age in a time when there were still vestiges of the social contract of the Keynsian welfare state in place, however, a top-down analysis of the situation might not be as effective as encouraging and enabling a discussion amongst the generations that follow me.
This project is not quite that. Instead, it is, rather, comprised of a compromised gesture towards that.
Appropriating the labour of others i.e., the audiobook version of Capital available on Librevox.com, I have hired an intern to transcribe Capital, Volume 1, on a manual typewriter over the course of this exhibition. Using Marx’s formula for the determination of wages, the intern is being paid the equivalent of the median hourly wage for individuals not in a census family in Toronto, or $12.49 an hour. The transcriber will work four 10 hour days a week, leading to a manuscript of approximately 800 pages long.
The premise is simple. For me to understand the position of a capitalist, I am taking over the role of the classical capitalist, providing the transcriber with the means of production of this manuscript, all the while retaining the result of her labour. On the other hand, the transcriber, who is being alienated from the results of her labour, will be offered, in the process, a socially acceptable wage as well as the means to understand her position in the exchange being enacted.”
– Michael Maranda, 2015
View more information below:
http://www.katharinemulherin.com/dynamic/exhibitartist.asp?ExhibitID663&ExhibitUpcoming
The artist is grateful for the support of this project from the Toronto Arts Council.
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