From:   To:   (2024) of the
DIM FACTORY experiments (ongoing)
Suzhou factory metal scraps, 3D-printed text and motor mount, LED scrolling display, 12V DC motor, microcontroller + electronics, webcam, TouchDesigner, rubber, stables, fabric, PVC tube, resin, directional speaker


Considering the factory conveyor belt as a critical site of human-machine relationships, From:   To:   reconstructs this mass manufacturing machine to reveal different ways of being, both human and synthetic, that propose an alternate automated future.

From:   To:   (2024) is part of ongoing research and experimentation, termed ‘Dim Factory’, on the object of the conveyor belt and the meanings it can make of production and work. The phrase ‘Dim Factory’ comes both from the Yu-Gi-Yoh! playing card ‘Dark Factory of Mass Production (and ‘Dark Factory of More Production’) and the industry phrase ‘Dark Factory’ used to describe factories in which 100% of human workers have been replaced by automated labor, thus eliminating the need for light inside the factory. Combining hardware and other tangible materials with software-dependent movement calculations, From:   To: conveys production rhythms as they might persist under systems alternative to capitalism.


3D-printed YouTube comments on a reel of Chinese women sealing liquor bottles as they travel along a conveyor belt within a factory, translated from various languages combine with LED-displayed governement slogans and sayings from both the Great Leap Forward and present day. These contrasting textual elements enter into conversation along the conveyor belt, a site for convening and collaboration, for assembly towards the future.

A motor turns the belt, sewn together fabric, rubber, and 3D printed text, according to the average velocity of people’s live movements in the exhibition space, detected by a webcam and processed through TouchDesigner and Arduino, so as to make the conveyor belt speed responsive rather than relegative, as it has always been in factories.





(source video for YouTube comments)


(screenshots of YT comments translations into English)