Hacking IKEA Trailer #2 from Taeyoon Choi on Vimeo.

It’s estimated that 1 in 10 Europeans is now conceived in an Ikea bed. Needless to say, the world’s largest furniture retailer has achieved a level of cultural ubiquity and capital hegemony that invite the kind of subversive critique on display in Taeyoon Choi‘s performance art piece at the company’s Malmø megastore. The piece, which saw Choi set up shop in a kitchen display room, spin tables and bow tie in tow, involved the artist channeling Macgyver and outfitting products with motors and microcontrollers in order to create six minimalist, yet interactive sound sculptures. A half-eaten trademark cinnamon bun revolves on a record needle, wheezy mechanical forks and knives dance about, and night tables are arranged into a mini tower. Of course, such antics, however innovative or witty, do little if anything towards changing the political and cultural context into which it has been asserted, as Choi readily admits, yet “it is the uselessness [of the piece] and its evident impossibility that grants power as an artistic resistance.” This aside, I still think it’s the tie + headphones combo that makes it all work.

[via The Creator's Project]

by Samuel Medina

posted in Uncategorized

tagged furniture, hacking ikea, IKEA, performance art

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