For the opening program of Kanal Centre Pompidou, we are currently developing a new edition of 7 Walks. It takes its name from the first Peoples House, which was situated close to Kanal Pompidou's current location. In the Salon Monplaisir, weaver, playwright, and activist Jacob Kats (1804–1886) informed workers about their rights through theatre performances and meetings. Salon Monplaisir explores parallels between the Industrial Revolution and the current accelerated rollout of artificial intelligence (AI), which appears to be equally disruptive to our contemporary social fabric. A spatial installation centered around the sculpture Le Travail, a work by the 19th-century sculptor Guillaume de Groot, forms the invisible common thread in this process. The sculpture was displayed on the Materialenkaai opposite Kanal Pompidou but recently disappeared from public space. This determined how we are developing 7 Walks (Salon Monplaisir), which consists of an exhibition, a series of public walks and a symposium. Salon Monplaisir compels us to reflect on a new narrative about work, a narrative that replaces the working masses as the focal point of a struggle for emancipation with a more contemporary means of social struggle. Today, AI calls into question the value of human labor. Unsurprisingly this is nothing new. In 1857, Karl Marx had already analyzed the effects of automation. No longer labor, but technology and science would produce value. Salon Monplaisir aims to be a visual and narrative starting point for public debate about a new narrative that unequivocally asks whether citizens today should claim the right to work or the right to exist.
Gesture: 7 Walks (Salon Monplaisir) (in development)