Dejan Marković

LiYCY, UTP patch, flat Ethernet, FFC cables, glass, stainless steel
2-channel video, colour (HD), sound, 4-track (stereo), 14 min

A comprehensive research project, Aptiv Syndrome (2024) investigates the production process of infrastructures enabling digital capitalism, exposing the psychophysical effects and the patriarchal structure of its production modes. The starting point for Dejan Marković’s research was a recent Serbian state initiative promoting cheap labor with the aim of attracting new tech industry production sites: Global corporations quickly moved in, with a large number of branches springing up in the southeastern part of the country – especially the automotive, and electrical engineering industries. It is mostly women who are employed here in the production of semiconductors and microchips, as well as electrification and data connectivity. The project’s title “Aptiv Syndrome” refers to observations made by a local orthopedic surgeon, who noted a range of symptoms that appeared in female workers employed at “Aptiv”, a US company with headquarters in Dublin, after their work shift was increased to 12 hours. These included thumb and wrist injuries, swelling, sciatic pain, and spondylosis. By shedding light on the structural and psychophysical exploitation of women at locations away from the centers of the global North, the project deals with the relentless production conditions found in the contemporary tech industry.

A multi-part installation based on Marković’s collaboration with former workers from the companies Aptiv, Yura, and Leoni in Southeast Serbia and with weavers from the “Atelje 61” association in Novi Sad, Aptiv Syndrome features nine tapestries, hand-woven from electrical cables, and presented alongside the workers’ illegible diaries and an operation video. LIYCY, UTP patch, flat Ethernet and FFC cables that form the essential infrastructure of the tech industry are woven into carpets, countering the tight timing of exploitative industrial labor – the collaboration was carried out using decelerated design processes and under fair conditions. The utilization of notoriously female-ascribed weaving techniques points to the gender relations supporting the invisible production processes of the otherwise visibly male-dominated tech industry. From the perspective of a, so-called, European periphery, the installation – featuring the tapestries as well as elements of video, photography, and drawing – examines the physical and mental impact of repressive labor in a digital capitalist system based on patriarchal and neocolonial systems of power.