Kybernein Institute at Index Foundation
The Campaign
Location: Public gathering at Index Foundation in Stockholm, 21 August 2020
Kybernein Institute presents the exhibition The Campaign during one evening at Index Foundation. The Campaign is a new investigation of how a network of think tanks led a hidden revolution in Sweden during the 70s and 80s which transformed the foundation of a unique social model.
BUSINESS MODEL
WELCOME TO A BETTER WORLD
The project investigates a business model as a form of ideological and cultural production. The model has the specific aim to use architecture as a tool to produce a well-designed social culture.
Kybernein presented the fusion between three institutional frameworks that operates within the model: art, work, and economics. These frameworks have in common one thing: the belief in creativity, in this case generated through interdisciplinary knowledge exchange. This idea, which we could call ideology, or a set of shared beliefs, affects how work is organized and how the environment is shaped, and creates a setting for social culture.
The network-based working environment is acted through two different institutions: an art, craft and design academy that is located on a historical site in Stockholm, where the shift between material-based labor and immaterial labor is a part of its history; and a business company that uses aesthetic strategies to affect the meaning of work.
To date, the project consists of three parts, each staging the fusion between art, work and economics:
FIRST ACT: Work Place Strategies
Work Place Strategies, 2014, performance-lecture and seminar, Konstfack University College of Arts, Stockholm, 2nd December 2014
The project Welcome to a Better World stages the fusion between art, work and economy through three acts. The first act was a lecture held at Konstfack – the University Collage of Arts. Kybernein (Nathalie Gabrielsson) invited Sweden’s leading real estate company, Vasakronan (also the owner of the Konstfack building), to present their new initiative called “Work Place Strategies”. It is a model of how to organize a work place environment, both physically and socially. It proposes a well-defined work place aesthetics for immaterial labor, which needs a type of leadership that gives the employee more freedom; the aesthetic environment will create a creative atmosphere where interdisciplinary knowledge exchange can take place. The performance stages a cultural and ideological production through the idea of interdisciplinary exchange.
Organized by Kybernein.
SECOND ACT: The Model
The Model, 2015, performance, head office of Swedens leading real estate company Vasakronan, Stockholm, 6th March 2015.
The second act took place within the model, Vasakronan gave the visitors from Konstfack a round tour, and a lesson how to adapt and create this type of environment within the art institution. Konstfack as institution has been one of Vasakronans most important inspirations when developing the project.
Organized by Vasakronan.
THIRD ACT: Social Networks
Social Networks, 2015, video screening and seminar at Konstfack University Collage of Art Craft Design, Stockholm, 13th-24th May 2015.
Social Networks, 2015, video screening and seminar at Vasakronan head office, Stockholm, 14th August 2015
The third act was a film screening in two parts, where the model, created by Vasakronan, is presented as a scenography for immaterial work. We can watch the employees work and at the same time here their voices speaking about the social culture within the space. The film reconnects to the art institution through a film commercial screening that takes place within the environment.
Organized by Kybernein.
© Kybernein [Nathalie Gabrielsson 2017]