Projects
CT Pocket
MAN-MADE
Publishing
Film as a Subversive Art
Hijack Reality
Home Sweet Home
Monologues
New Math
Q&A
The Moon
What’s Next?
Talks & events
Dispense and Connect
Inside the Industry
Memories Last Longer
than Things
Print Matters
Victorious Hermit
Pedagogy
What does it mean to be
ANTI-FRAGILE for GEN Z?
The Antifragile Classroom
Pleasure Activism and What
Can a Body Do?
The Long Table
Collective Joy in the
Classroom
ICA x Softlaunch:
Radical Play
About
Contact
MAN-MADE
16–19 October 2008
MAN-MADE was a commercial experiment that explored our relationship with
commodities made by man. Things hold their intrinsic value by supplying
the desires of the mind through their physical qualities and the personal
associations we might bring to that thing. It is that want, and the why in want,
that we are keen to explore.
Things which are repeated are pleasing
Based in the West End of London during the four days of Frieze Art Fair, MAN-
MADE presented and sold identical multiples of one object each day; MAN-MADE
removes the dilemma of choice — the item is repeated to form an army of itself,
provoking our customers’ imaginations and encouraging a sea of associations.
The celebratory and repetitive styling of the object enforces its character upon
the space to create a scene of colours, shapes and contours.
Design historian Emily King has selected an item for sale; artist Oriana Fox
created a performance titled Material Girl; and a site-specific sound installation
titled Consume, by sound artist Shelley Parker, ran for the project’s duration.
Bompas and Parr took us flavour tripping, and a free screening of Rainer Werner
Fassbinder’s Why Does Herr R. Run Amok observes a measured man’s alienation
in middle-class conformity who one day can take no more.
