Preserved, Permafrosted, Perverted II; Abort, Retry, Fail?; Control Freak; Data Never Dies; my appliance, my compliance

In ‘Preserved, Permafrosted, Perverted’, consumer refrigerators become a cryogenic force regaining a new standing outside the home. Forming a small herd of human-scaled fridges, they are inspired by recurrent fabulations of immortality elixirs, fountains of youth, and cryogenically preserved brains. Cari works with the bio-availability of information in teeth: as the final part of a body to decompose, they represent a signifier of one’s life: frozen (bio)capital.

In a digitally mediated society, usership becomes a means of production and consumption, confusing the role of the user as consumer, when in fact she is the unconscious producer of data goods. Labour hides behind the appearance of control. ‘Control Freak’ gives controllers a chance to replay the game and notice dominant behaviours in digital interactions. Exposed to the internet and migrating toward niche online communities, Calinici understands digital identities as a means of protection. Growing up lesbian in Romania, and needing a place dislocated from the IRL, the internet offered a secondary virtual map of the world and its inhabitants. Forging digital profiles allows for constant self-reinvention and awareness of identity as means of defence. ‘Data Never Dies’ and ‘Abort, Retry, Fail?’ are objects of performative protection behaviours shaped within constructed online identities. Ultimately, ‘my appliance, my compliance’ is a swansong to the acceleration of global trade, in tech goods and information. The corrugated cardboard from a luxury tech commodity is permanently cast in metal, not dissimilar in texture and purpose to that of containerization and the (corrugated) steel shipping box.