Exhibition Images

Presented by Annika Bastacky.

DISPATCH FROM 2025
The exponential sophistication of robotics and artificial intelligence granted us the unprecedented potential to augment human labor. In 2020, we saw Amazon implement ill-fated hand-tracking wristbands, and we observed the ensuing micromanagement of every minute gesture made by workers at fulfillment centers with disdain. Our bodies became pure conduits for surplus value. A crystallizing question emerged: what might innovation look like, what form might it take, if it were pursued in full independence from capitalist-militaristic aspirations? This was the question first posed by the founders of USDAP, the US Department of Augmented Productivity.

Join the US Department of Augmented Productivity and learn Militant Calisthenics, a gestural language for worker organizing and exercise within the hyper-surveilled workplaces of the future. Galvanize fellow workers while appearing to do your job as usual! You'll learn and perform spatial inflections which 2D ultrasonic trackers cannot detect. Come prepared to tone your muscles and revitalize the power of labor in a technocratic world!