As art of the This Time WIth FEELing programme, Hutchison presents a new outsourcing model for the affective economy. Meat is a 3D body-scan; a digital simulation of the artist’s anatomy. It enables him to divert his responses to capitalist spectacle away from his embodied matter and towards Meat, his digital counterpart. Hutchison explains this as follows: “Like everyone else, my feelings are at the mercy of capital. The John Lewis ad gives me tingles up my spine. The Habitat in-store lighting makes me feel nostalgic. These are obedient responses to mechanical triggers. I can’t hide from them, as spectacle is everywhere. But perhaps I can dodge them, psychologically? Meat is an attempt to do this. It’s a model of psychic resistance: a receptacle that functions as a psychological trashcan. Since most of us are already comprised of multiple selves, I wanted to explore how we might manufacture new selves - consciously - in order to perform different kinds of labour.”
The work is a situational performance that sees the artist rehearsing the psychological supply-chain between his organic matter and Meat, his digital counterpart. The central wall of the gallery displays a projection of Hutchison’s scanned anatomy. This visualisation is imperfect, corrupted by the 3D scanner’s attempt to grasp his body. It resonates with Kristeva’s concept of abjection: ’the abject is what I must get rid of in order to be an I.’
Hutchison works across performance, video and installation. He constructs situations that disorder the power relations encoded in consumer capital. By retracing the standard arrangements between bodies, labour and material, his projects propose alternatives to the structuring of human subjectivity.
