Working Conditions at Southern Exposure

Digital Dirt, 2011-2012
Clay, Wood, Wire, Video Game
H7' x W12' x D11'

From SoEx press release:   

Carlos Ramirez’s Digital Dirt is an interactive retro play-space where visitors are asked to help the artist by producing clay tiles using molds. Ramirez uses recycled clay, which visitors can shape into ‘pixels’ to compose a structure based on an ancient Mayan ball court. They can also play a game of Donkey Kong, and participate in gaming tournaments on Wednesdays, to win gold, silver, and bronze awards. His project is a monument-in-progress at the intersection of leisure and manual labor, traditional culture and gamer futurism. Over the course of the project, the clay surface of the ball court will be shaped over a chicken wire and wood armature, underscoring the invisible acts of labor behind both ancient Mayan athletic architecture and 80’s video games. The unfinished clay surfaces will slowly dry and crack over time; a tweaking of the geek-chic aesthetic fueling 80’s and 90’s nostalgia and the finish fetish of hard-edged Minimalist forms.
 
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