Class work

Abstract

"As they confront the fallout from this global restructuring, Condé and Beveridge have focused, in their most recent works, on the ways in which corporate culture has appropriated and transfigured representations of class struggle ... 'Class Work', an educational book project produced for the Communications and Electrical Workers of Canada in 1990, [takes as its] central theme management's imposition of the 'team concept' on the shop floor ... Rather than answering directly to a boss, workers are encouraged to monitor each other's productivity and to participate in a team effort to eliminate inefficiencies ... The photo-narratives of 'Class Work' ... seek to expose the consequences of being a team player. Homelessness, underemployment, and fear are represented as the end game of corporate restructuring ... On the visual level, Condé and Beveridge downplay the advertising look and formal constructivism of earlier works, choosing to counter the slickness of the corporate soft sell with hand-painted sets and cutout figures ... Mapping onto these homespun sets highly manipulated and digitized images of compter-driven industries, Condé and Beveridge create a visual metaphor for the transition from an industrial to an information society."--Taken from "Mining the Media Archive" by Dot Tuer.