Postal Machine Decision 2018–2021

The work Postal Machine Decision seeks out the imperfections in the logistic systems. Nowadays, large parts of logistics systems are computerized and processes automated: most decisions are made by computers.

The work reinterprets The Postman’s Choice by Ben Vautier from the year 1965 in which a postal worker decides where a postcard that has two delivery addresses is finally to be sent. As it was back then, the standard rule in digital shipping operations is that for every shipping unit there must be one sender and one clear recipient.

Postal Machine Desicion is a performance for two recipients, where a number of parcels, each with two receiving addresses, one address on each side of the parcel are posted. Whatever side happens to face the automated logistcs scanners determines the route the parcel takes. This can change with each new scan in every sorting center the parcel passes. Before reaching their final destinations, many of the parcels travel back and forth between different postal facilities. Depending on which side is scanned, they can change directions multiple times.

The resulting installation at the two receiving exhibition spaces is formed from the letters that randomly arrive at each location, leaving the authorship of the work as much to the postal machines as to the artists.

Within the exhibitions, a TV screen documents the movements for each parcel, documenting the surrealist journey of the piece. The now empty boxes are presented in the gallery as the remaining envelop of the work and skeletons of the process.

In todays fully automated logistics systems, it is no longer the postman’s choice, but rather a question of which side of a parcel is “up” for the automated scanning process to read. The logistics system works mechanically by means of barcodes, scanners and programmed directives. Until the human supervisor spots and corrects the anomaly of the undecided recipient.

The performance was commissioned by Werkleitz Festival in Halle the exhibition Holen und Bringen which focussed on logistics. Starting point for Postal Machine Decision was the artists’ studio in Berlin and the recipients were Werkleitz Festival in Halle and Super Dakota gallery in Brussels.

The site-specific performance Postal Machine Decision: Decisions, Decisions, Decisions took place between two exhibition spaces from December 2020 to February 2021. Starting point for the performance was the artists’ studio in Berlin and the recipients were the exhibition space Drugo More in Rijeka, Croatia and Aksioma in Ljubljana, Slovenia.