LABOUR LUNG
Artist｜Nasrin Tabatabai and Babak Afrassiabi
The colonial expansion of the opium trade in the 19th century accelerated the replacement of almost all previous methods of opium consumption by smoking. Before that opium was mostly eaten. But with the spread of smoking, especially after the two opium wars (1839–1842 and 1856–1860), opium soon became the quintessential commodified substance of the colonial trade.
This was because smoking is the most efficient administration of opium, leading to a stronger level of opiate release, a more rapid impact on the nervous system, and a higher rate of dependency. This forced transition in the material state of opium consumption (from solid to smoke) eased not only opium’s commodification but also the assimilation of the function of the respiratory organ into the machinery of the colonial capitalist opium trade and its wars (i.e. inhalation became work and weaponised as it were). Following this, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched then to argue that this assimilation of the lungs anticipated what became the twenty-first century computational capitalism – the exteriorization and assimilation of an increasing part of our biological and cognitive functions by technology.
But while such assimilation under colonial trade was mediated through an organic substance (opium), under computational capitalism any (organic) mediation is becoming increasingly obsolete. This could be seen as a logical transition, from an exploitative system dependent on the integration of the biological interiority, to one technologically moving outside this biological dimension and operating almost independently from it. One can say that with the later it is the biological that’s become technology’s excess.
Artists
Nasrin Tabatabai and Babak Afrassiabi
The artists Nasrin Tabatabai and Babak Afrassiabi have collaborated since 2004 on various joint projects, developed through such mediums as video, text and objects. They also publish a bilingual (Farsi and English) magazine called Pages which is edited parallel to the ongoing topical lines of their projects. Issue 10 of the magazine, Inhale was printed and published recently. In 2018, they launched Pages‘ online platform (pagesmagazine.net) which expands on the magazine’s editorial focus. They often extend their work from unresolved historical narratives that demand for forms of approach that are materially, temporally and aesthetically undecidable. Their recent projects are concerned with making speculative junctures between history, archive, technology and the practice of art. Their works have been exhibited regularly in solo and group exhibitions internationally.
Animation still simulating the sedimentation of opium aerosols in the human airways. From the installation Inhale, installation with animation video and text, 2018.
