Shrink is an installation based on a grotesque vision of humanity reduced in scale. It presents human miniaturization as an absurd response to overpopulation, excessive consumption, and the climate crisis.
The installation resembles a futuristic spacecraft or satellite designed to carry a miniaturized human civilization into space. Its structure combines light tubes, electronic devices, screens, and exposed cables.
The accompanying sound is created from processed signals received from satellites and radio telescopes, transformed into an abstract cosmic transmission. A digitally pitch-shifted adult voice appears within the soundscape, suggesting the voice of a radically miniaturized human being.
The work combines humor, science fiction, and dystopian imagination to reflect on humanity’s desire to escape the consequences of its own expansion and consumption.
The idea of reducing humanity to the scale of dwarves came to me when I was listening to the punk-hardcore band Dead Kennedys - the song Shrink. The leader and founder of this band was Jello Biafra, real name Eric Boucher (born June 17, 1958) - an American musician, vocalist, songwriter, and poet. The pseudonym Jello Biafra comes from the name of the food product Jell-O and the name of the famine-stricken country of Biafra. From childhood, he showed interest in socio-political issues.
His attitude was greatly influenced by the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which he saw on television. He said he became a rock fan in 1965 when his parents accidentally tuned the radio to a rock station.
In the late 70s, he became interested in punk rock under the influence of a Ramones concert. In 1978, he answered an ad placed by East Bay Ray, who was seeking a vocalist for a punk band he was forming. This is how Dead Kennedys was created, which greatly influenced independent music in the 80s. In 1979, Biafra announced his candidacy for mayor of San Francisco, presenting a provocative election program (including announcing that American politicians and businessmen would dress up as clowns). He won about 4% of the votes. In 1981, he founded his record label, Alternative Tentacles, which published and promoted broadly understood alternative music.
Throughout his career, he was critical of the American lifestyle - the so-called American Dream, unbridled consumption, and the hypocrisy of democracy (as he said, any idiot can be elected in a democratic election).
A fragment of the musical piece Shrink
Dead Kennedys
If only people could shrink
Our world wouldn't be so overcrowded
Bring ourselves down to size
There'd be so much more food to go 'round
Why don't we build a machine
With all the know-how of the industries
We put a man on the moon
On earth we'll need more room to breathe real soon
Drink your vaccine and let's shrink
And bring your poodle so it doesn't eat us
The roads will be so wide
No traffic jams when we're half a foot tall
Bring what you need down here
We'll shrink it all by microwave
Don't want to die like dinosaurs
We'll have enough resources to go round
So now you've made the big shrink
Meanwhile we'll keep acting big
We well-bred beautiful people
Who says we have to go too?
Cops and Mason businessmen
Were exempted from the ovens
As if you weren't already.
The rest of you are all our termites now
The idea of humanity shrinking and taking up less space on Earth is a grotesque utopia - a bitter joke. Sending humanity to a distant planet or moon is a humorous parody of the dreams of the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, about space flight and the conquest of space.
