Electrical

Home.html

Our departments: Grocery - Fashion - Electrical - Pharmacy - Gifts - Money - Security - Auto        

Your shopping baghttp://www.flickr.com/groups/followthethings/
 

Legals - FAQ - Contacts - FIY - Friends

Laptop (assembled in China, used in Senegal, Peru and elsewhere) Undergraduate coursework (2009): using only the internet, email and a telephone, students Sabrina Skau, Julianna Friend, Jenna Harris, and Sarah Cocuzzo investigate the manufacture and use of an inexpensive laptop computer designed, distributed and put in place to transform the educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children. Click for more...onelaptopperchild.html
iPad (assembled in China, used in the UK). Newspaper article (2010): on May 27th, the front page of the UK’s Independent newspaper is devoted to photographs of two things, placed side by side: an iPad and a framed portrait of a young Chinese man who has recently committed suicide. He had worked in the factory where iPads were being made. They are going on sale in the UK the following day. ‘A gadget to die for?’ is the headline. Journalist Martin Hickman investigates the connection between this commodity and this man’s death. Click for more...agadgettodiefor.html
Cell Phone (assembled in China, used worldwide) Documentary film (2005): film-maker Thomas Balmès follows Nokia executive Hanna Kosinen and consultant Louise Jamison as they undertake Nokia’s first ‘ethical audit’ of a cell phone factory in China. Their job is to see for themselves if and how Nokia can exercise its ‘corporate social responsibilities’ both to its shareholders and to its factory workers. Click for more...adecentfactory.html
Global positioning system (made in China, used worldwide). Digitally generated animation and catalogue (2007): starting in a consumer’s lounge, artist Melanie Jackson deconstructs a GPS (or ‘satnav’) device via an animated film made from photographs, drawing and audio clips from the places, people and things that it’s made from. It’s a truly global story. It’s complex, intricate and troubling. But what can animation do that documentary filmmaking cannot? Click for more...aglobalpositioningsystem.html
Laptop + (ingredient mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, used worldwide) Art film (2007): Gravesend, by artist Steve McQueen, shows the mining and processing of coltan, an essential component of countless electronic devices assembled and purchased worldwide. Its title is taken from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. It has no voiceover. You can only watch it in an art gallery. It’s deliberately not like a documentary you’d watch on TV. Click for more...gravesend.html
Batteries (made in China, used worldwide) Documentary film (2010): Ren left rural Sichuan to work in a nickel-cadmium battery factory in the city. She and her workmates get poisoned by cadmium dust in the factory air. Filmmaker Karin Mak challenges the stereotype of the quiet, passive Chinese factory worker. She follows Ren and her friends as they demand justice from local government and the battery manufacturer. Click for more...reddust.html
Iron+ (made in China, used worldwide). Documentary film (2006): filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal follows industrial landscape photographer Edward Burtynsky as he visits factories, dumping and recycling sites in China and Bangladesh. His photos are stunning, beautiful, mesmerising and disturbing. Her film picks out the details and follows them, ‘unfreezing’ his photos in time. Click for more...manufactured.html
iPhone 4cf (ingredients from conflict-free areas, used worldwide). Website and press release (2006): culture-jammers the Yes Men create a spoof ‘Apple’ website to launch a new iPhone whose ingredients are ‘conflict free’. They announce that you can upgrade your iPhone 4 to the conflict-free version free of charge. But this phone doesn’t exist. Apple aren’t making it. They can’t make it. Apple forces the site to shut down. But an important debate was stirred in the process. Click for more...iphone4cf.html
iPod (assembled in China, used in the UK). Undergraduate coursework (2006): student Rebecca Payne is sitting at the back of a computer lab on campus. She is listening to her favourite music on her ‘little white friend’. She wonders where he came from, and who helped her listen to him. She gets interested in the inner workings of the music industry, the inner workings of her ipod, and the people who put him and it together. What is this thing? Click for more...ipod.html