How Capital Moves interrogates the predilections of neoliberal investment and the side effects on the lives of workers when it becomes more cost effective for the multinational to relocate operations. Routinely multinational companies have strict confidentiality clauses built into their employees’ work contracts and often discourage union representation; hence, using proxy identities the Internet becomes a site for the dissent and discord of alienated employees. Focusing on one particular online forum maintained by former and current employees of ‘The Company’, Kennedy Browne used this delimited resource as a case study.
Through the development of a script with a loose narrative arc, six distinct monologues have been constructed. These monologue performances are delivered by six different avatars, played by a single actor. Each avatar addresses a particular experience and attitude towards working within The Company, and thoughts about how each one might continue to work there in the future. Each character is dressed in pyjamas akin to their personality, a reference to an account of central importance to the work: the layoff of over 200 employees in an Oregon call centre by The Company on ‘Pajama Day’ in August 2007—typically a day for team-building and general corporate fun.
The video installation is accompanied by artefacts, printed works and a publication, developed for a solo exhibition at Limerick City Gallery of Art (offsite) in 2011, curated by Annette Moloney.
Exhibited at:
The Special Relationship, Kennedy Browne at Krannert Art Museum, Illinois, U.S.A., 2018
LunchBytes, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2014
Imagining Masculinities, screening and presentation at the CCA, Glasgow, 2014
Alternativa at Wyspa Art Centre, Gdansk, Poland, 2014
The Future State of Ireland, screening and symposium at Goldsmiths College, London, 2013
United States of Europe, exhibited in 10 European Cities: Łódź, Helsinki, Vilnius, Guimares, Nicosia, Dresden, Sofia, Paris, Cork, Brussels. 2011-2013
How Capital Moves, solo exhibition, Limerick City Gallery of Art, Limerick, Ireland, 2011
Fokus Łódź Biennale: From the Liberty Square to the Independence Square, Łódź, Poland, 2010
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