Exhibition: Mark Schroder's 'Fortune Teller' in 'happiness is only real when shared' (2021)

Detail of Mark Schroder's Fortune Teller at Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland, 2021. Photo credit: Sam Hartnett. Image Source: https://eyecontactmagazine.com/2021/04/keep-laughing-even-when-you-are-surrounded-by-corp

Seen in person.

The exhibition happiness is only real when shared (2021) at Gus Fisher (Shortland st) combines artists Mark Schroder (NZ), Wong Ping (Hong Kong), Pinar Yoldas (Turkey / USA) discuss "modern capitalist desires with astute criticality and satire." [1] This show was seen in person during Summer seminar week.

I was particularly interested in Mark Schroder's Fortune Teller (2021) due to it's use of fictionality and alternative time or space to critique an existing and real world system and environment. And Schroder's choice to materialised a fictional business.

Inspired by the history of Dome Gallery being television studios, the the locality to the CBD of Auckland and his profession as a corporate lawyer, Mark Schroder's Fortune Teller juxtaposes desire of a corporate body and their employees: placing business goal's in competition with individual's happiness. [2] Fortune teller, an installation which consumes the majority of the dome gallery, is a half-constructed fictional corporate business "Bureau of Happiness" and it's building. Within the the bureau, Schroder utilises colour and furniture choices of (bad) 1970s and 1980s office décor within a labyrinth of reception counters, teller windows, cubicles and offices. [3]

The employees role at the bureau is to produce motivational posters and memos.[4] The pursuit of KPI’s and completing mediocre tasks devoid the wellbeing measures which their creations are suppose to facilitate. [5] And so, these creations become decoration within their own environment, and become subject the staff’s malaise and "graffiti". [6] Additionally, the spaces are littered with a plethora of debris; office supplies, personalised good luck trinkets, employee property, food and drink, post-it notes.

Decorated with corporate paraphernalia; documents, agendas, minutes, and powerpoints, objects, both real and surreal ceramic replicas, and Schroder's use of experiments with motifs, textures and visual cues makes the work oscillate between the expected and the outright unconventional. [7] Fortune Teller can then be seen to use absurdity humour to critique global employee experiences, the aspirational clichés companies use to motivate their employees, and immerses them into an environment that is as fiction and surreal as it is uncanny. [8]

What I found particularly interesting about Mark Schroder's Fortune Teller is its use of a pseudo or adjacent office to critique the context comes from and the ideologies it is subject to. Adjacent or fictionalised spaces are an idea I have explored in previous works via 3D animation / moving image. And, I think its interesting to consider how 3D physicality (rather than virtual 3D) adds to the conversation. Though, I think wha tis fundamentally different between mine and Schroder's work is he is recreating an actual space but heightening its contents. Where as I have been creating spaces of speculative fiction - that have no current "real life" or physical counterparts.

The work physically places the audience within the space it critiques making them subject to it's ideologies first hand. Though the audience may not be an employee of such corporations - they vicinity of the exhibition in the CBD increases the likelihood they could be. The presence of "wellbeing" posters have proliferated themselves outside of the corporate sphere, in fact, there are man littered throughout Whitecliffe. Such posters often cause a sense of "cringe" personally, especially the ones that exclaim faux motivation, "Today's a good day to get stuff done." Ironically, most of the time these posters serve the people who aren't actually present in the spaces. Additionally, their location in hallways and bathrooms is also odd. Productivity in these spaces is adjunct to the studio. What interesting about Fortune Teller, is that the employee themselves create the posters to which they become subject to.

[1] - Gus Fisher Gallery, "happiness is only real when shared", 2021, https://gusfishergallery.auckland.ac.nz/happiness-is-only-real-when-shared/

[2] - [6] - Gus Fisher Gallery, Exhibition Interpretation, 2021, https://cpb-ap-se2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.auckland.ac.nz/dist/e/421/files/2021/03/happiness-is-only-real-when-shared_-artwork-text.pdf,

[7] & [8] - Alena Kavka, Happiness in the Age of Personalised Corporations, Smart Tech, and Digital Media at the Gus Fisher Gallery, 2021, https://cpb-ap-se2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.auckland.ac.nz/dist/e/421/files/2018/08/happiness-is-only-real-when-shared_Alena-Kavka-Turquoise-FINAL-EDIT.pdf