Samsung Masterpieces

Solidarity and Subversion – Making ‘My Samsung, My Best Fiend’

Q & A between Sharon and Maryann about their collaboration ‘My Samsung, My Best Fiend’ for Samsung Masterpieces digital art platform. It was rejected based on legal grounds. Read about it here.

Sharon: When I approached you with the idea of collaborating, I’d already done some research and found out about Samsung workers getting cancer. I remember you being skeptical about being anti-corporate and anti-Samsung because that was an easy position to take. Actually it was your natural skepticism that made me want to collaborate with you in the first place! What was the progress of your thoughts and feelings as you researched and developed the script?

Maryann: I think the more accurate description of my feelings then would be wariness. When we criticise actions of others, if we’re not careful we let our fervour take over and then it becomes a battle to win the argument at all costs. I feel responsibility to think carefully about the messages we put out there; whether we’re perpetuating false ideas, especially since these bits of information are given material form and will presumably survive forever or at least for a much longer time than ink and pulp. Like conspiracy theories, some ideas become so convincingly burned into people’s imagination that no amount of reasoning and evidence can persuade them to consider otherwise.

I was also feeling a bit strange that as a regular smartphone user, and of a Samsung, at that, that I would be hammering the company. I felt like a hypocrite. I still do. I’ll admit to being very seduced by these devices. Have you seen the new-generation flexible screens? They are fantastic.

Sharon: Can you list some of the info sources, like news articles and documentaries, you looked at?

Maryann: This story has been big news for several years in South Korea so finding sources was not difficult. We have Bloomberg Businessweek, the Wall Street Journal, a documentary by Al-Jazeera and of course the very vocal, SHARPS (Supporters for Health and Rights of People in the Semiconductor industry).

I also searched the chemicals used in semiconductor manufacturing to look for other opinions. I found an article by Elizabeth Grossman to be fairly objective. The direct link between cancer and clean room conditions is still being debated although there certainly is an unusually high number of cancer cases with Samsung. Some of the chemicals used like benzene, are known human carcinogens while others like trichloroethylene are strongly suspected to be carcinogenic. Some epidemiologists note that the cases in Samsung fit a pattern observed in a study of IBM workers but the Semiconductor Industry Association contend that those studies were flawed. Another study commissioned by the SIA and conducted by Vanderbilt University found no conclusive evidence of a causal link. It may take a really long time before we know for sure. But even though we can’t be unequivocally certain of the cancer link, Samsung still acted in bad faith as evidenced by underhanded moves like intervening in workers’ claims from KCOMWEL, a quasi-government worker compensation agency.

Thumbnail layout during first discussion.

Sharon: Why was it important to make the story personal as well as a very blunt critique of Samsung’s labour practices?

Maryann: I think that’s related to the conflicted feelings. While I’m unhappy to know that people are suffering to make these wonderful things that I enjoy as a consumer, I’m also very dependent on it and I don’t wish to discard it. As much as I’m criticising Samsung, I’m also criticising myself and observing how bewitched I am by modern technology. I think many of us will feel this dissonance if we’re aware of what happens in the supply chain and production line. When it’s personal and relatable the story becomes more meaningful.

I remember asking you: ‘what am I to do as a consumer?’ If we bring attention to this through art, what are we telling people to do? You pointed out that it is enough to raise questions, which seems to reflect the thinking of the 19th Century Russian author, Anton Chekov. In a letter to A S Suvorin, he writes:

“You are right in demanding that an artist should take an intelligent attitude to his work, but you confuse two things: solving a problem and stating a problem correctly. It is only the second that is obligatory for the artist.”

What’s great about this information age is that news travels quicker and it’s harder to hide bad behavior. However, I think this problem with Samsung would have remained a domestic issue if not for the relentless campaigning by the families of the victims, and worker groups.

As for why be blunt with Samsung, well, this is a Samsung campaign which we know is an effort to associate the brand with creativity and positive attributes. But then here’s something not so positive that they did and it deserves attention. If we want things to change in the manufacturing of smart devices the best place to start is with the world’s largest maker.

Sketchbook page. With most projects, I start drawing without a plan or much research, to see what images come up. This process is important to find the emotional thread of the subject, which I can never get by thinking. I have to find it with my hands. – Sharon

Sharon: The three victims you choose for the memorial portraits section happen to be all young women. Was this a conscious decision?

Maryann: No. It was driven by the availability of their portraits. We needed the faces. There were a lot of faceless names. There were also suicides reported of male workers working in different plants, not in semiconductor lines and not necessarily due to exposure to hazardous chemicals. I also wanted to pick from the category that represented the large number of people who died from cancer induced by exposure to toxic materials.

Historically, more women than men have been hired to work in the assembly and routine work of electronics factories, for a variety of reasons (that also raises an interesting discussion). So I think having more women was just circumstantial.

One thing that disgusts me now that I’ve learned about this, was the sort of positive perception of chip makers that media and advertising had impressed upon me. I was reminded of the “Intel Inside” campaign featuring people in “bunny suits”. It was paraded as cool, geeky, intelligent, and high-tech. I knew vaguely that the suits were meant to protect the chips from contamination, but I had no idea that the people inside were handling carcinogens and breathing recirculated toxic fumes every day while on the job. It’s easy not to care when no one kicks up a fuss and you don’t feel compelled to investigate if there really is any link. I think the people in Korea did the right and brave thing. I wonder if I could be as devoted as Hwang Yu-Mi’s father in demanding accountability. Seven years is a long time. Most of us would’ve buried the cause or settled for money.

Sharon: Why did you use the brand name ‘Samsung’ instead of the generic word ‘smartphone’ in the script?

Maryann: Samsung is a special noun and I wanted to give the device a persona to illustrate the relationship. We’re getting close to making artificially intelligent smartphones which may know us better than we do ourselves. I think it’s remarkable that in future that there will be apps that are capable of predicting our emotions, maybe even offer some kind of therapy. “Samsung” in this case represents everything that combines to integrate technology into our lives.

Sketchbook page

Sharon: We knew from the the start that didn’t we want to make this a piece of self-righteous agitprop. You talked about the guilt that comes with inconvenient truths, and the impossibility of squaring the ‘moral balance sheet’ in the age of capitalism. What are some of the questions that go through your head about this?

Maryann: To be honest, I had to look up “agitprop” when you first mentioned it 🙂 Goes to show how unacquainted I am with the history of art as propaganda.

Yes, the impossibility of being non-complicit in the destruction of the environment and the exploitation of people becomes apparent when we examine how we live and the things we consume. It brings to mind the calls to abstain from palm oil products because of the destruction of rainforests. Is that even practicable?

Sometimes it’s easier to just not think about it or slip into a sort of moral-licensing, like being careful and conscious with waste or doing charity to “pay” for other vices or indulgences so that we feel better about ourselves.

Maryann: From the very beginning you wanted to tell the story about the Samsung workers. What moved you to do this?

Sharon: Solidarity, and subversion. I felt that being invited by Samsung to make art on a Samsung device for a Samsung sponsored digital art platform was a rare opportunity to explore how we’re connected via our magical smartphones to a web of labour, manufacturing, marketing and consuming. Not only is this expressed through the art, it’s also happening in the real-life meta-level context of the Masterpieces project. In this case, the context and the art are like a call and response – they echo and amplify each other. Drawing the memorial portraits of Samsung workers on the Galaxy S Note was a mini mindfuck. I kept thinking about the human who’d assembled my device. It wasn’t just telling the story of the workers, but showing how that story is part of the technology we use every day. That story is more than something that happened to people in another country – it’s sitting there in our pockets; we’re holding it in our hands.

First rough of Panel 3. We did two photoshoots at a friend’s apartment. The first was just playing around and seeing what shots could be interesting. By the second shoot we knew the composition of the images we needed.

Maryann: What does the Kraken signify?

Sharon: The invisible tentacles of corporate capitalism, reaching into every aspect of our lives, from our bodies to our minds – gripping tightly in some places and caressing lovingly in others. Hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. It’s all connected.

Maryann: That’s a fitting choice, a cephalopod’s tentacles have minds of their own which sense and react to their external environment. What do you hope this piece of work will achieve?

Sharon: For Samsung, I hope it sparks an internal conversation about what they can expect from artists when they choose to initiate digital art projects like this. The optimist in me asks them to consider how cool and truly innovative they’d be (or appear to be) if they accepted outcomes like our collaboration as part of the open-source digital culture of the Internet, which is so heavily biased towards sharing and exchange; to see that we are not trying to ‘bring them down’, but to initiate a true conversation that could lead to technology that isn’t destroying people or the earth.

I hope workers in the semiconductor industry who see this will feel that their struggles are shared.

I hope people will connect to the emotions and ideas in the work, and realize that we are not limited to using these devices (or services) in ways that the companies that made them want us to use them. These are powerful tools that can help us imagine and construct a more just, less destructive civilization.

First rough of Panel 7. The final script was developed from these roughs. We needed the images to see how much text was necessary to tell the story. The roughs also helped me learn to how to draw on a tablet, which is so different from pencil and paper. The best thing about it is being able to experiment wildly with colour. The worst thing is that it’s very hard on the eyes. – Sharon

My Samsung, My Best Fiend – The Art of Corporations

The first half of this post is written by me. The second half by my collaborator on this project, Maryann Tan.

Sharon:

In April, a curator invited me to be part of a new digital art project sponsored by Samsung.

It’s called Masterpieces, an online platform to crowd-source and showcase digital art from Asia. At this moment, anyone can go to the website, create a free account and upload images. But what gets shown is subject to review and selection by the curator, Iola Lenzi.

Disclosure: Iola Lenzi was co-curator for Negotiating Home, History and Nation: Two Decades of Contemporary Art in South East Asia 1991 – 2011, an exhibition that included my work. I’ve also corresponded with her professionally on a number of occasions.

Samsung would send me their latest tablet, the Galaxy S Note 10.1, on which I was to create at least 3 works to be self-uploaded to the Masterpieces website. A real-life exhibition of selected works would be launched later. In the Philippines, the Masterpieces exhibition was held at the Ayala Museum, in Singapore at the National Museum – plenty of institutional cred.

I was offered no contract, artist agreement or fees, only a ‘possibility’ that I would be given a Samsung device as ‘thank you’ for participating. After I requested twice that this ‘thank you’ not remain a matter of ambiguity, Samsung confirmed that I could keep the Galaxy S Note I was sent.

Iola Lenzi told me I was free to experiment and create whatever I wanted, including being ‘provocative with the brand’, with the exception of hardcore pornography. In the absence of a contract, I was sent Terms & Conditions of the Masterpieces platform – 24 pages of legalese that I didn’t read.

I decided to collaborate with my friend Maryann Tan, a writer and content developer, to produce a story about the troubled relationship we have with our smart devices.

This is what we made (if you can’t see the reader below, please go here):

We uploaded it to the Masterpieces platform in mid-May and waited.

Last week, I received a call from a Samsung executive informing me that our work was not acceptable due to legal concerns, citing unauthorized use of the Samsung trademark.

I pointed out that such restrictions were never mentioned in any of their communications with me. Since there was no contract (though I requested it repeatedly), I could only follow the curator’s ‘you’re free to experiment, except for porn’ statement as a guideline.

The executive explained that any mention of Samsung was not allowed because Masterpieces was a strictly non-commercial CSR project. This was also the reason why artists were not given contracts – since it was non-commercial, my participation was a ‘non-commission’, and because it was a ‘non-commission’, they were not REJECTING my work, they were merely not including it because of legal reasons.

Flummoxed by this circular corporate logic, I forgot to remind her that the Android app in the Google Play Store is called ‘Masterpieces Art by Samsung’, and that the exhibitions held in museums had been called ‘The Samsung Masterpieces Digital Art Exhibition’.

The executive went on to assure me that they really wanted me in Masterpieces, and asked me to create new work so I could continue to be part of it. I said to send clear guidelines on the permissible content, and asked if there were specific clauses which our first submission had violated. She said she wasn’t sure and would have to check the Terms and Conditions.

Evidently neither she nor the curator had read the document. Can’t say I blame them.

Well, they can breathe easy. Their asses are covered. After the Samsung call, I did what no one would do in ordinary circumstances and read the Ts & Cs. Buried in there is this clause: ‘You are not entitled to use any of Samsung’s (including Samsung’s Subsidiaries) trade names, trademarks, service marks, logos, domain names, or other distinctive brand features (“Samsung’s Brands”) without Samsung’s prior written consent.’

I haven’t heard from Samsung or Iola Lenzi again.

I estimate that I and Maryann laboured a combined total of 150 hours to produce this work. In the DEDICATION section for each uploaded image we wrote the following: ‘Dedicated to workers in the semiconductor industry worldwide.’

Maryann:

When Sharon asked if I’d like to be part of a new art project that she’d just taken on I didn’t think twice about it.

There are some things you just don’t say no to. Psychedelics that may afford transcendental experiences could be one of them, the other is an opportunity to collaborate with one of Malaysia’s most thoughtful and unaffected visual artists.

Sharon explained that Samsung would afford no pecuniary reward for whatever work we might eventually submit but in any case, the project was novel to me and I’d have the opportunity to flex some creative muscle, so that was attractive enough.

While I knew I’d be doing the easier part of the work, I also believed that I could be part of something meaningful. A reader of the documents on this blog will gather that Sharon’s output, especially in recent times has been motivated by a desire to use art as a means to be in solidarity with ordinary folks everywhere. In drawing beauty from the mundane and familiar, and even the “wicked”, her art reminds us of our humanity and calls for compassion.

She warned that the work might be rejected because of the subject matter we chose. We discussed that a couple of times. Somehow, that risk didn’t trouble us much and we went ahead, putting a lot of thought and effort into it. I guess this is an instance of two people in their own way having to justify doing something for which there seemed no real purpose nor reward. Knowing that somehow accrued gravitas.

Without exaggerating, I found the entire process, in the end very rewarding indeed. I’m not one known for being a conscious consumer. But Sharon raised this real issue that all users of modern mobile devices ought to be aware of and think a bit harder about. At least, it has made me consider getting the Fairphone, when my Samsung wears out its useful life, although I do admit technological advances continue to tempt and enthrall me.

I am also very proud of the end result. The art was beautiful and Sharon’s depiction of the writhing tentacles of a Kraken is a wonderful metaphor for how technology creeps into and grips our consciousness. By then I was hoping that the curator would accept the work on its merits. The story, while it may not put Samsung in the most positive light, was based entirely on news reports and documentaries so we weren’t exposing anything new. Indeed, there is a full panel dedicated to the apology that Samsung issued to the aggrieved families of the deceased and afflicted.

When Sharon told me the news I chuckled with cynicism. I was neither angry nor disappointed. Just resigned. I thought about the Samsung executive and imagined how she’d prepared a script to explain the decision to Sharon. How, she might have calculated the possible repercussions from a very conservative management if she’d let this through. And what about the curator? Might she have felt that the artwork, judged purely on its merit could have been exhibited but then corporate and marketing objectives took precedence? Maybe Iola Lenzi herself wished she wasn’t put in that position; after all she must have pursued a career as curator out of her love for art.

*chuckle* *chuckle*

Still, I wished they’d just be more upfront with their reasons for the rejection. They wouldn’t use the negative, and instead tried to appear conciliatory, although I think they failed miserably. Deferring to item 13 on page 8 of a 24 page-long Terms & Conditions was a convenient bureaucratic manoeuvre. The part about this being a “non-commercial CSR project” also strikes me as disingenuous. Incidentally, neither executive nor curator pointed us to that clause when Sharon asked them to be specific. I looked it up after I got the news. From the language used in the first email that invited Sharon to submit her work, I’m inclined to think that they didn’t take the time to read the Ts & Cs because let’s get real lah… Who does?

Because I’m really an outsider without any investment in the art world, other than to view beautiful creations on gallery walls on occasion, I think I’m less affected by this revelation. However, I think it adds another weight to the argument that CSR is mostly an insidious and elaborate marketing ruse. It’s not that they are purposefully evil but when your fiduciary duty and obligation boils down to making profit for shareholders, how can you truly care?