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Mediatheque
ALCO Story 愛高的故事
2003
This work documents the complex choreography between people and machines in a factory run by ALCO, a Hong Kong–headquartered manufacturer of consumer electronics. Close-up shots of precise machinery movements are interspersed with longer views across the factory floor and cuts that follow workers as they manipulate electronic components on assembly lines. The rhythmic sounds of factory equipment underscore a near-total absence of human speech until the end of the work, when workers finishing their shifts are finally free to converse with one another. The video concludes outside the factory, as workers swipe their staff cards and exit through a gate watched closely by uniformed security guards.
Based in Hong Kong, Laurent Gutierrez and Valérie Portefaix have worked together as MAP Office since 1996. Their practice moves between the disciplines of art, architecture, and urbanism, often taking the form of public installations or research projects. ALCO Story forms one part of their larger PRD Stories project, which attempts to record the networks of manufacturing and trade in the Pearl River Delta. With little in the way of a specific narrative, the work offers a documentary portrait of the often-invisible labour that produces global consumer goods. Its suggestive parallels between the repetitive motion of factory machines and the tight constraints on workers’ movements also draw attention to the tight regulation of time, space, and bodies in a factory setting.
Based in Hong Kong, Laurent Gutierrez and Valérie Portefaix have worked together as MAP Office since 1996. Their practice moves between the disciplines of art, architecture, and urbanism, often taking the form of public installations or research projects. ALCO Story forms one part of their larger PRD Stories project, which attempts to record the networks of manufacturing and trade in the Pearl River Delta. With little in the way of a specific narrative, the work offers a documentary portrait of the often-invisible labour that produces global consumer goods. Its suggestive parallels between the repetitive motion of factory machines and the tight constraints on workers’ movements also draw attention to the tight regulation of time, space, and bodies in a factory setting.
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