Akeroyd Collection

Works

Mark Leckey, GreenScreenRefridgeratorAction, 2011

In GreenScreenRefridgeratorAction, Leckey voices the inner monologue of a black Samsung fridge-freezer, in a voice that has been manipulated through digital modulation to a pitch-bent, auto-tuned robotic voice. The fridge, ever-present visually against different backdrops and in different contexts, keeping different company, tries to explain itself to itself and the world around it. It is a work of fantasy, only slightly this side of unbelievable, where the narrator, assuming the sentience of an inanimate yet internet-enabled object, is less than human yet somehow better equipped to define the relation of things to each other in the world. As the fridge runs through technical specifications, operating procedures, and limits, it also offers up observations and pertinent questions of a more esoteric and existential nature. This dialogue runs parallel to a sound of intensifying drones generated by the fridge in the first instance and then the chorus of other connected appliances and situations that move through the film. As the machine develops more and more self-awareness, it becomes increasingly confused and overwhelmed when considering its place in the world. For a film about the interconnected nature of internet-enabled consumer goods, it generates an immense amount of pathos. You begin to sympathize with the plight of these goods and as the roar of droning machines builds, so does our own sense of emotional uncertainty in the face of a changing landscape of technology and communication.

MediumDigital film, colour, sound
Duration17 minutes 9 seconds
Editionof 3 + 1 AP