Training: the Basic Question, 2000, video, color, sound, total running time 1 minutes and 46 seconds
Training: the Basic Question is a distillation of an entire informational video series created by the McDonald's corporation to regiment proper workplace etiquette and maximize production. The series has been edited, compressed, and restructured so that the logical points and authority from the original message have been transformed into an incoherent, rambling series of half completed sentences and uncomfortable silences. The video, whose purpose was to describe efficient communication techniques, is now ultimately incapable of following through on its own suggestions. Directives have been meticulously excised from the video leaving behind a pervading sense of confusion, including a number of workers who seem to have developed an uneasy relationship with their primary product, meat. Numerous images of individuals obsessively attending to and handling meat in Training: the Basic Question generate a connection between employee and product that borders on fetishistic. This project is a collaboration with Tom Kehn.
