Josephine Kaeppelin

Joséphine Kaeppelin’s art works are initially based on the use of machines. These devices are at the same time means of production, co-authors and food for thought. By putting forward use and gestures, she focuses attention on human presence within a production system dominated by technology. By using pre-defined formats, standards and default settings, she experiments with the likelihood of re-appropriation by usage. Indeed, using software or machines in an opposite way or diverting a program from its purpose can be understood as an act of resistance, a way to create a space for free thought in a defined system. Kaeppelin bypasses a program in order to show the structure behind the system. She would like to sharpen attention in relation to an action, strengthen the will of a human user interacting with a system and to likewise enable a kind of self-realization within the context of work and production. She often works in collaboration, with machines firstly, but then with a stone carver, a textile company, a conductor, … More recently, she focuses her attention on the question of the imminent transition of work and employment. In the actual context of general automation, how to rethink human activities, time, work and society?