Ahmet Öğüt: Labour after Like, Love before Work

Labour after Like, Love before Work can be seen offline, but can be followed via an online livestream. The public can watch Ahmet Öğüt paint for eight hours. However, only as long as the stream receives 'likes' will the artist work.

In this project, members of the public will be able to make the artist (me) work (paint) for one day of working hours (eight hours) by clicking "like" on Instagram during a livestream. If the livestream doesn't receive "like" clicks, I will remain passive and wait to work. My labour will be visible online, yet the painting will remain offline.  
 
Labour after Like, Love before Work is a project not only designed to question and critique the Attention Economy, but also how to image alternative ways to connect immaterial labour and the surplus value with material labour. In today's world, not only people are being watched by the social media and use virtual likes as a measurement of interest, popularity and reputations, we also witness the absurd reality of the existence of things like click-farms (companies specializing in selling "likes" from fake accounts) using the actual physical labour of low-paid workers, generates a number of overblown importance of likes on social media.  

About the maker

Born in Silvan, Diyarbakır (Turkey), Ahmet Öğüt works across different media including photography, video and installation. Öğüt often uses humour and small gestures to comment on pressing social and political issues. The artist has has exhibited widely, with solo exhibitions in institutions and Biennals across the globe including Stedelijk Museum, State of Concept Athens, Nam SeMA, Seoul Museum of Art, Biennial of Visual Art Performance, New Tork and many more. 
 
He also co-represented Turkey at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009) and was awarded the Visible Award for the Silent University (2013), the special prize of the Future Generation Art Prize, Pinchuk Art Centre, Ukraine (2012), the De Volkskrant Beeldende Kunst Prijs 2011.

WORK WORK WORK

During WORK WORK WORK, Frascati will open its doors as a museum for performance art for four days. Each day the building will be open for eight hours, representing a working day. Dries Verhoeven co-curates the programme with his own work and that of others into a large number of performance, fine art and video works about the relationship between employer, employee and (art) consumer. Together, the artists explore the politics of the working body now and in the future.

Check out the other works of WORK WORK WORK