Wal-Mart

(Installation)

DESCRIPTION

A 30 minute video/audio loop of a register at Wal-Mart. It was simultaneously played on a number of TVs that are part of an information system at the College of DAAP/University of Cincinnati. When a visitor could not directly see a TV (a challenge in itself), they could still hear the beeping of the registers echoing throughout the building.

STATEMENT

Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world, the largest grocery chain in the US and the largest private employer in the US, Canada and Mexico. It has been criticized for entering rural markets and through legal and illegal means, forcing its competition out of business. This leaves Wal-Mart free to use its position of market dominance to promote, or even create a new ideology: that of or for its low-income, rural, religious consumer base. The work WAL-MART addresses the power of its namesake to create this new (hyper)reality for its consumer citizens and demonstrates Wal-Mart’s reach into our homes, institutions, lives and culture.