The source material for Simon Denny’s Document Reliefs has included documentation of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation laws; a patent filed by Amazon for a cage-like device designed to contain a human worker within a highly automated workplace environment; and patents filed by Salesforce and Palantir. The recurring appearance of patents across the project gestures towards their use by corporations as tax-avoidance tools, while simultaneously showcasing Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial spirit, and the bizarre fabulations it sees fit to bring into being. The relief carvings in each sculpture – from the EU insignia in one series to Peter Thiel’s face in another – highlight the actors involved in these machinations, tracking how power is encoded in the aesthetics of bureaucracy.
Document Reliefs; 2019.
Document Reliefs; 2019.
Document Reliefs; 2019.
Document Reliefs; 2019.
Document Relief 9 (GDPR Legislative acts); 2019; Ink Jet Print on Archival Paper, glue, custom metal wall mount: 29,7×21×12cm.
Document Relief 9 (GDPR Legislative acts); 2019; Ink Jet Print on Archival Paper, glue, custom metal wall mount: 29,7×21×12cm.
Document Relief 13 (GDPR Handbook on European Data Protection Law); 2019; Ink Jet Print on Archival Paper, glue, custom metal wall mount: 29,7×21×12,5cm.
Document Relief 13 (GDPR Handbook on European Data Protection Law); 2019; Ink Jet Print on Archival Paper, glue, custom metal wall mount: 29,7×21×12,5cm.
Worker Cage Document Reliefs; 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Fine Arts Sydney
Document Reliefs; 2019.
Document Reliefs; 2019.
Document Reliefs; 2019.
Document Reliefs; 2019.
Document Reliefs; 2019.
Document Reliefs; 2019.
Part document, part collage, part wall relief, Document Reliefs are produced with a now-outmoded 3D printing technology developed and used in the mid-2010s. The machines that produce these artworks were designed to turn stacks of A4 paper into small 3D prints by cutting, gluing and stacking sheets of paper in multiple layers. Created for rapid-prototyping, the machines were deemed commercially unviable due to the time-consuming and labor-intensive nature of this process.
