Concept

-2008-

For And Your Bird Can Sing, Jankowski visited a Chinese factory making CD players in the form of colorful plastic electric guitars – symbols of Western pop culture – to be sold in the global market.
Himself a former wannabe rock guitarist, Jankowski invited the workers to participate in a contest using his real electric guitar and recorded the resulting audio. Each solo was then burned onto a CD installed permanently in one of the factory’s guitar-shaped CD players, the color of which was chosen by the respective contestant: 34 guitar-shaped CD players for 34 solos by 34 performers. Viewers – and listeners – of the subsequent installation encounter a portrait of each worker in the form of the article that they produce, day in, day out, on a production line. While this may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship between worker and product, it’s in any case a metaphor for global economic relations and cultural exchange.

Installation