THE FACTORY

The video The Factory shows a network of dialogues stretched between the poles of machine, work, worker, owner and c/Capital, filmed in the context of local manufacturing plants. Intro begins with short statements from anonymous individuals employed in industrial production. Many of them declined to be filmed for fear of losing their jobs, even though I was allowed into the heart of the production plants with the permission of the owner, who ultimately decides if the workers are to be heard at all. An individual’s relation to technology and the way that the latter influences the nature of labour and thus one’s subjectivity is further illustrated with the story of the factory owner (Act I: Love) and the story of a female worker (Act II: Birth). The video discloses man’s relation with machines and his or her submission to the question of power which, in our society is invested in property.

While some people are served by machines, others serve them. The former are convinced that they control the machines and that the relation is a safe and even a loving one. Workers, on the other hand, have assimilated the ideology that conceals the real nature of their state and have become what is required of them: “We have been created for eight hours of work per day.” The machine is the other in this binary relationship. The Factory displays feelings of inferiority or superiority, power or subordination, as well as the more subtle emotions of affection, dependency, love, beauty, dreaming or resignation, and sacrifice.

In collaboration with: Camera by Toni Mlakar / Editing by Ana Fabjan
Year of production: 2013