All day and All night gets us interested,
gets us interacting, but it does this by using the same tricks and attractions
that marketers use Ð the packaging, the commercials, the aesthetics
of the object. This is a fun art show. The gallery-goer comes
into the space without any expectations of purchasing, without need
for any of the products, no excuse of use; the contents of a gallery
are expected to be purely aesthetic. Thus, instead of MarxÕs opposition
of use value and exchange value, in which the market transforms unique
objects into exchangeable commodities Ð All day and All night
presents an opposition between use value and desire value. The
visitor is in a situation where any use value of the object is precluded;
the products are seductive solely on aesthetic grounds.
The paintball gun interrupts
this aesthetic. Its loud crack intrudes into the pristine commercials
and light conversation. It is a stand-in for violence, somewhere between
human and mechanical, a release valve for the alienation produced in
the dual experience of the product, the manipulation manifest as we
scan and watch. The alienation is real because our attraction is real.
All day and All night is a pleasure that cuts two ways Ð the
products are tactile, colorful, desirable, triggering commercials that
remind us why we might want them; at the same though, we are constantly
reminded of how false the pleasures are, how manipulated the position
of the consumer remains. Without the gun, firing away at a canvas on
the far wall, one paint ball per product scan, the visitor might remain
on the surface of this pleasure, never forced to acknowledge the divorce
of consumer desire from the rationale of use that the exhibit implies.
The paintball gun is a supplement, a reminder of the surplus produced
by the product/advertisement cycle, the energy seeking outlet, what
was lost in the collapse of product into art and vice versa. Without
breaking the mood of fun, the gun is the sign of the unstable relationship,
a precipitate of consumer desire, the unravelling point.
