“All that Is Solid Melts Into Air” Curated by Jeremy Deller

The “All that Is Solid Melts Into Air” show curated by Jeremy Deller provides a visionary experience of how the Industrial Revolution has made an impact on British popular culture and how its persisted its influence on the industry and lives today. The show has been created with visual artwork consisting of Photography, Paintings, Videos, Signs and written documentation the experience can be heightened with the use of audio whilst viewing the show.

The show provides the positive and negative progressions from the industrial revolution.  A specific piece from the show created by John Martin, titled “The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah” stood out to me. The image conveys the idea of an apocalypse however when you place it within the exhibition it allows the mind to assume that this is because of the Industrial Revolution. Another piece that stuck out for me within the show was the Motorola WT4000 a modern observational device that boosts workers’ productivity and performance.

"The destruction of sodom and Gomorrah"

The painting featured shown cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and throughout the Hebrew Bible and depicted an apocalypse. Society was struck with the sublime feeling, a feeling of being scared of the unknown. What was to become of this? Mass production created a social stand-off with employers as less workers were needed to distribute products. This goes for the use of the Motorola WT4000 it looked at workers as the same and worked out the average rate to which a person should be able to produce outgoing orders and sets them this time to complete it. Both images resemble how the industrial revolution has progressed and shows how it has gone from dangerous work conditions, exploring the unknown to progressively strict working standards.

Motorola WT4000

Taking into account the cultural diversity of British workers with restricted work for racial and ethnic areas of employment. Both Pieces within the exhibition represent a strong visual restriction on freedom within the working sector. The painting shows the apocalypse, consequences of being completely consumed by fire and brimstone and the Motorola shows a visual restriction to fatigue and lenient productivity of the workers time.