Exhibition - Failures in automation, Kristoffer Myskja

In Kristoffer Myskja's exhibition Failures in Automation, pink latex pigs move from assembly line to assembly line in what is an advanced production and evaluation process. At the first stop of the journey, the pigs are squeezed by a robotic arm, a test of whether their grunting function works. The pigs that pass the test get a small turquoise hat placed on their heads. The hats are moulded in a machine operated by another robotic arm. Visitors can buy a copy of the product, "Grunty Pig with Hat", by using the installation's automated kiosk solution with associated card terminal.

Grunty Pig with Hat is designed to "cheer you up with its quality controlled naturalistic grunt sound when you squeeze it" according to the marketing material that is continuously fed to the public. Like most works of art, Grunty Pig with Hat has no clear utility beyond how it affects us affectively and emotionally. Myskja has long been interested in the flood of goods that are constantly being brought into the world. Even the most seemingly simple things originate in complex, globe-spanning processes that are often invisible to us, the consumers. Is the flood of things for us, or are we also just nodes in the immense machinery?

Kristoffer Myskja lives and works in Oslo. He is a graduate of the Trondheim Academy of Fine Arts and the National Academy of Fine Arts, Oslo. Myskja works with mechanical sculptures and installations that address issues relating to technology and people's use of it, as well as changing systems and forces that affect each other. His work has been shown at Kunsthall Grenland, Porsgrunn (2021), POST gallery, Kaunas, Lithuania (2019), SPACE, Pittsburg, PA, USA (2018), Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium (2018), Galleri BOA (2017), Museum Tinguely, Basel (2015).   Nicholas Norton