The Philips Series 9000 Shaver with ‘V-Track PRO Position Blade System’, ‘8-directional ContourDetect Head’ and ‘AquaTec Wet & Dry’ is marketed as a high-tech gadget that is subject to rapid innovation and obsolescence. Nevertheless, it originates from and ends as bare materiality. The industrial ‘drop testing machine’ - normally used in manufacturers’ laboratories to test product durability - makes this visible. In an endlessly repeating simulation of a user accidentally dropping the device, the high-tech shaver is gradually transformed into a state where it is no longer has any functionality for humans, while it remains present as material.

In preparation of this project, I took on a job promoting so-called ‘male grooming technologies’ for Philips at Europe’s biggest consumer electronics fair, IFA in Berlin. Video documentation of my sales pitch is included in the installation.
 

video of sales pitch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRJarzAuoGs

Commissioned by The New Institute Museum for Architecture, Design and Digital Culture, Rotterdam. Supported by Leiden University and the Dutch Research Council as part of the research consortium ‘Bridging Art, Design and Technology through Critical Making’

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Exhibitions

'neuhaus', The New Institute Museum for architecture, design and digital culture, Rotterdam, 2019

'ZERO WASTE', Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig, 2020