The underlying foundation of Michelle Marie Forrest’s practice lies within the appropriation of work, wherein, she re-forms types of labour (physical / mental, skilled / unskilled, productive / unproductive).
Reconfiguring digital forms of labour, as matter, does not work towards a resolution, but is a continual work-in-progress, which aims to highlight complexities surrounding miscommunication, by activating shifts in thinking, with the potential to impact perceptions, beliefs, biases, technological infrastructures, and the potential re-formation of the currency of labour.
Forrest’s latest works take a ‘psycho-techno-archaeological approach’, in which, she prises-open the black box of complex systems to unearth internal processes. Rendering playful connections and jarring upheavals, which she produces from a mashup of playlists, poetry, facts, fiction, hearsay, and the odd advertisement, Forrest generates a loosely formed referencing system, using colour-codes and word-associations, to map her laborious tasks and spontaneous reactions.
Staging spatial connections between fragments of text, symbols, diagrammatic drawings, and reconstructions, she configures propositions to be considered in conjunction with something other, on a much bigger scale.
The overarching principle of Forrest’s practice centres around a mattering of incoherence, in which, she curates’ constellations within installations as a form of inconclusive language