“Between 2015-19, I have conducted artistic explorations of consumer technology on electronic-waste dumps, a war zone, EU border barriers and a technology trade fair, among others. I consider these places as ‘extreme everydays’, dynamic environments on the so-called ‘frontiers of capitalism’ (Moore and Patel 2017). These environments are often radically different from the clean and organized consumer spaces in large parts of the global north, which form the starting point for the conceptualization and production of most consumer devices. Building on Lefebvre’s (1987) writing on the politics of the everyday, I will argue that looking at – and responding to – the ways in which consumer technologies are appropriated and re-purposed in ‘extreme everydays’ will allow us to imagine innovation beyond ‘technological rationality’ (Marcuse 1941), challenging the logic of endless growth and exploitation of labour and resources.”

Dani Ploeger (www.daniploeger.org) is an artist from the Netherlands whose work has received commissions from ZKM Center for Culture and Media in Karlsruhe, New Society for Fine Arts Berlin, V2_Lab for unstable media in Rotterdam and the Cité Internationale des Arts Paris, among others. His VR installation The Grass Smells So Sweet was awarded the 2018 jury prize of the VRHAM Festival for art and virtual reality in Hamburg.

Poster