Simon Denny's 'Products for Organising' looks at how the organizational structures of hackers have inspired the radical management practices of companies like Apple.
Simon Denny; Formalised Org Chart/Architectural Model: Holacracy, 2015 Mixed media; Photo: Nick Ash; Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne Hacker organizations and corporate culture are explored and visually dissected in the sculptures of New Zealand artist Simon Denny. Denny's current exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, Products for Organising features dual sections which split the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in two. They look at the organizational and managerial models from two sides of the tech industry coin: the hacker and contemporary commercial tech sectors—and how the former influenced the latter.
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"Something that always seems relevant is how changes in technology displace experience and space. I am a fan of the way artists experience and reflect on those changes," notes Denny. "The experience of change through technology is something constant."
In the other section, Products for Formalised Organisations,instead of being rectangular towers, the sculptures are circular. The internal makeup, both physical and organizational, of tech companies Zappos and Apple, and UK spying agency GCHQ, inform these sculptures. These are used as "case studies of their branded managerial techniques such as Holacracy and Agile. Holacracy is a system for redistributing authority throughout the organization. Agile is a highly flexible methodology that grew out of software development methods, emphasizing collaborations between teams by prompting them to constantly reassess themselves."
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