Karolina Adamczak is a Dublin-based artist with a background in dance, who works primarily in the field of moving image and performance art. Her work depicts the crudeness of human connection in a modern alienated society. Karolina sees her practice as a form of activism and a way to challenge and expose social issues and taboos. Karolina has participated in multiple live art exhibitions, including Rebirth, hosted by the Evil Collective in Limerick in 2019, FOMO, organised by Livestock at the Harold’s Cross Studios in 2019 and Portals, an online live art exhibition hosted by Livestock in 2020.
Customise Your Worker,
00:02:25,
The film mimics the format of an advertisement. Employees are regarded as a business product. The work exposes the dehumanisation of the worker as they are expected to abandon their persona and perform an automated version of themselves.
Induction,
00:03:39,
The work has been constructed directly referring to the online customer service training from the artist’s job. The training instructs employees to ‘greet the customer as if they’re walking out on the x-factor stage’, alongside all the other instructions given which are demonstrated in the work.
Rate Me,
00:02:56,
The work questions the ethics of rating people. Employees are rated by customers, secret shoppers, managers as well as having to perform self-assessment. The questions in the piece are inspired by a real self-assessment form from the artist’s workplace.
My Life Does Not Belong to Me,
00:02:58,
The work depicts the loss of oneself involved in the sale of time and the mental impact of durational emotional labour. The meaningless small talk conversations an employee performs are often hard to distinguish from one another and blend into one dialogue repeated endlessly.
In This Shirt,
00:03:27,
The piece demonstrates the discipline involved in working unsatisfactory jobs while pursuing one’s dream. Simultaneously, the piece highlights the dreams lost/put on hold within the service industry.
Who Would you Like to Be When You Grow Up?
00:01:55,
The work highlights the employee’s individuality, dreams, hopes and ambitions. The figures in the video can be interpreted as younger and older versions of the same subject.
Good Girl,
00:02:07,
The work reveals the dangers of the ‘never say no’ customer service policy. The text in the work is based on real experiences of the customer service industry.
Ethics are a Privilege,
00:02:08,
The work exposes the alienation of being forced to work against one’s morals in order to make a living.
I’m Selling Myself consists of a series of short films exposing the self-estranging process of emotional labour and the marketisation of feelings and emotions. The work also critiques the ethics of business structures and exposes the dangers of employee rating and customer service policies such as ‘never say no’ and ‘service with a smile’.
Employees must perform the role of someone at peace with the world while often being paid below the living wage. Many artists and creatives are forced to work within the service industry to support their careers. My work highlights the employee’s individuality and the dreams put on hold or lost, within the customer service industry.
This work is based upon direct experience of the customer service industry and I have used real documents, files, employee training and assessment sheets as source material.