Ballad of the graveyard shift
Installtion + Audio
Images by Basil Tan
Inspired by Zainab Mahmood’s account of the grueling "4-4-3-3" shift rotation, this work explores the sonic potential of the factory punch card. By feeding these chronological records into a custom music box, the worker's schedule is transformed into a mechanical melody. Automation of the machine was made possible through a collaboration with Basil Tan, who engineered the machine’s fluid motion and aesthetic form. Another purpose of this work serves as a subversive echo of the "piped music" once used to pacify factory floors.
The work hinges on a poignant irony: the music only exists where parts of the card is missing(the holes punched to mark attendance). The worker’s presence is documented through a series of absences, suggesting a surrender of the "quotidian subjective self" to the industrial time.
