A Modern Worker Basks in Artificial Sun explores themes of technological dependency, energy consumption, and the value allocation that pervades our digital spaces. For this work, a small, single board computer sits perpetually solving hashes to mine minute quantities of cryptocurrency on my behalf. It's my first employee. The “worker” is powered by a custom battery made from the rechargeable lithium cells found in single use disposable vapes. By using the energy this e-waste provides, the worker can labour with no connection to external power for over a day. Once their power runs low, they are kicked back into action and charged by a one-kilowatt halogen work-light beaming onto an array of solar panels. The efficiency of the entire process sits around, or below, one percent. The crypto is virtually worthless. Still, the worker mines away.
A Modern Worker Basks in Artificial Sun mimics acts of corporate greenwashing. It presents a grotesquely inefficient method for value creation and energy consumption, as wasteful and enticing as a ‘single use’ rechargeable battery coated in nicotine. While the work itself ostensibly utilises renewable technologies, recycling this e-waste barely covers my contempt for its existence in the first place.