Sleeper cells is an online environment where office workers can submit creations they've made with office supplies. Participants play the role of "Double Agents", sharing and taking part in strategies for subversive play in the workplace. The project hinges on the idea that office workers frequently perform a role similar to secret agents, concealing private lives in the face of business politics. Sterile office environs are often host to sly and subversive hacks of office supplies in undercover expressions of creativity. For an office worker, stumbling upon someone else's creation can create the feeling that one is an "understood" member of an unrecognized club.
My artistic research at Banff involved giving creating a subversive "mission" for scholarship participants undergoing the stress of high productivity requirements. The mission was "manipulate an office supply so that it prevents you from doing your work" (the subtext being, if you can't get your work done, you can just blame your tools). Putting the manipulation of office supplies into the context of productivity made it easy to see them as metaphors. In this context we assign a narrative and imagine an intriguing struggle behind their making.
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Materials: everyday office supplies.
