Total Output is an exercise in remixing visual vocabularies drawn from open source archives. It ventures into experimentation of patterns as glitches, acting on collected, sourced and recognised motifs in cultural and industrial circulation. Through sampling (taking fragments from a whole), a process of extraction, analysis and repetitive labour ensues, where a collective of artists work simultaneously on the same set of sources, each creating within their own system and rhythm of control against the backdrop of a shared grid. Formally, the work resembles modular LED screens but one that is in the process of being composed. This alludes to grid technologies as a system of digital organisation and distribution, an arena within which the visual remixes and glitches stage an ongoing cacophony of discordances between the digital and analogue.

The work’s title references the measurement of productivity in an economy but while the method of quantifying labour outputs obliterates individuality, Total Output proposes speculative and productive forms of artistic labour that is premised on the cumulation of independent agency – the sum of the creative energies amassed in the artist’s studio.

The installation witnessed 3 sets of variation updates which will be updated by end August 2023. The work was a proposal and commissioned as part of the inaugural biennale project focusing on emerging practices and generative trends in Singapore, titled SAM Contemporaries: Residues and Remixes presented by Singapore Art Museum.

Further reading:
Facture of the Anti-Grid, in Glitched Syncopation by Dr Karin G. Oen
Fyerool Darma at Asia Now Paris Asian Art Fair by Dr Roger Nelson