‘TBT Dancers’ is the 1st
part of a diptych dedicated to the topic of controlled consciousness of
employees in transnational oil companies.
TBT (Toolbox talk) - is a
monotonous but mandatory ritual performed on oil industry sites and is one of
the key links in the system of mind control of the participants in the oil
& gas production process. The obligatory repetition of safety requirements
as a sacred mantra before starting works ultimately pursues the most important,
but not openly advertised goal - the unification of behavior and control of the
minds of technical personnel in order to achieve their paranoid adherence to
the strict rules of the company. The ritual known to the participants, which is
performed daily according to the invariable scenario of reading aloud the rules
written in the documents, seems to be a very tedious in its course, but bright
in indicative scene of a slow but gradual zombification of the staff in order
to unify its behavior. They circle in an endless brainwashing process. After a
couple of years of such processing of consciousness, a special psychotype of
people is reached, acting exclusively within the framework of permitted rules
dictated by the Corporation - the conditions for the existence of a very far
from normal society.
***
‘Behind Safety’ is the 2nd
part of the diptych revealing what really stands behind safety in the world of
commercial entities.
Research into the closed
world of oil corporations have led to the unequivocal conclusion that safety is
not so much a concern for the life and health of workers in the hazardous industry
as the reluctance of oil business owners to lose billions in compensation for
damage to potential disasters. Though, this is given out, first of all,
precisely for caring for the life of workers and the environment.
The tragic experience of
past accidents has shown that it is much more profitable for owners of a
multi-billion dollar business to spend just several millions to unify the
behavior model of their personnel with the aim of its absolute controllability
within strict limits of permissible actions than to be responsible for
consequences of potential disasters, paying billions in compensation for them. Meanwhile, the 2010 Gulf of Mexico
explosion and similar man-made disasters show that risk is always present and
can be high, and companies’
executives are well aware of how such risks can be reduced, - it is better to
spend millions on brainwashing their employees in order to keep safety under
constant control than to lose billions on the payment of compensation for the
consequences of accidents.
One of the paradoxes of the
imperfection of modern society lies in the fact that behind the safety of
people in hazardous production is not so much concern for their lives as the
desire to save potential billions of beneficiaries of the dangerous business.
In the coincidence of these two factors, the logic of a controlled model of
behavior of some is realized for the benefit of others reaping the fruits of
such control. Unfortunately, it is money in their world that continues to
determine everything, including the safety of the lives of the people that this
money brings. Money is behind safety.
***
This diptych is part of my
many years project ‘Semiosis of Meta-Abstract Symbols / Phenomenology of
Freedom’ that ended in 2023 - https://niyazmamedov.com/category/underground/page/2/. It
has been carried out at the intersection of art and semiotics research, which
resulted in a dozens of artworks and a number of innovations related both to
the formal aspects of art / theory of art and semiotics - Post-Simulacrum,
Signometaphors, Peripheral Meanings-Controlling Signs, Dynamics of the
Development of Meaning, Post-Brand Existence of Signs, Theory of Reverse
Influence of the Sign, etc. - the theories that make it possible to visualize
answers to questions arising from complex modernity.
Much of this research was
carried out in conditions of complete art underground inside the transnational
oil corporation bp where I’d made ‘deep dive’ for the unbiased and unrestricted
studying political/social/environmental aspects of its activity that were the subject
of my interests at intersection of art & semiotics. It was an unprecedented
experience of penetrating the holy of holies of what should be explored, and when
the research was completed, I left the dystopia having sent preliminarily a
letter to bp CEO, substantiating in detail my proposal to liquidate the oil
corporation as axiologically unjustified.
All my observations and
conclusions were described in the theoretical work ‘The Script’ divided in two
parts: 'The Underground' (related to the closed community of the transnational
oil corporation - https://niyazmamedov.com/the-underground/ )
and ‘Art & Signs’ (related to reflections regarding art and semiotics - https://niyazmamedov.com/art-signs/ ).
One of the most significant
achievements (or discoveries) during the project was the Theory of Peripheral
Meanings-Controlling Signs, in which an attempt was made to give the dynamics
of the development of meaning to the static images. The understanding of this
necessity comes from the fact that any image in the picture, being static, is a
priori false in relation to the depicted, since the sign (which is any display of
an object or state), which replaces the referent, always lags in the process of
reflecting the real state of things, and the referent always running away from
us. Any semiotic sign that translates meaning is not a "what", but a
process - the process of conveying meaning - a state that is absolutely
unthinkable in the category of static. Paradoxically, within the framework of
visual art, it is possible to create a conditional effect of the dynamism of
the objects and states under study, revealing in their visuality the process of
developing meaning, which, as it were, has not yet been completed, but brings
us closer to understanding the essence of things, and perhaps still continues.
This is a very visual story.
According to this
theory, such dynamism can be achieved by placing the peripheral
meanings-controlling signs in a pro-semantic zone of gray color, where gray
gradations give rise to a visually perceptible dynamics of the development of
meaning - both the referent of the meanings-controlling signs themselves and
the central object depicted in chromatic colors (placed in the pre-conceptual
dynamism of the background gray zone), supplemented and reinforced by
meaningful signs. “In the shades of gray color of peripheral
meanings-controlling signs, the dynamics of the development of meaning is
revealed, although formally residing in the static nature of what is depicted”
- www.niyazmamedov.com/art-signs#17-02-2016.
