Deller’s
show demonstrates the rise and fall of Britain’s manufacturing industries. We
are shown images of early ironworks – he focuses on the iron and steel
industry, with few mentions of the textile mills – and film footage of a
‘modern’ (1945) steelworks. A juke box plays a selection of industrial noises,
interspersed with traditional songs like ‘The miner’s lock – out’. Then the
images show post – industrial Manchester, the silent mills and desolate docks. The emphasis is on
the changes to the career paths of the working people, from agricultural and domestic workers, to factory hands, to entertainers.
Adrian
Street ran away from the mines, the derisive laughter of the miners ringing in
his ears, to become a professional wrestler. Like Noddy Holder and Bryan Ferry,
he used the entertainment industry to escape a life of toil. But, until the
eighties, the life of toil was seen as normal, inevitable. Not now. With the
industry all but gone, now their careers look more like the norm than the jobs
of their fathers.
The Judas
Priest album is significant. Heavy metal was born in the Black Country,
invented, most say, by Black Sabbath. Toni Iommi, Sabbath’s guitarist, lost the
tips of two fingers while working in a sheet metal factory, while the drummer,
Bill Ward, lay at night beating out imaginary drum solos to the rhythm of the
drop forges as they thumped away, all night long. The forges are long gone, but the music endures.
Good album too. I bought it when it came out in 1979.
Deller points
out that the clock was the workers’ enemy. Employers would alter them to steal time from the
workers, and brutally fine them for any deviance from the factory hours. And two pieces showed how
this control has developed. The first was an ancient clocking – on machine, and
the second was the Motorola Slave Bracelet.
Clocking –
on only monitored your arrival and departure time. You could be skiving in
between, or someone else could clock you in or out. I've used one, and with a bit of collusion they're easy to circumvent.
The slave bracelet - this example is used in Amazon's absurdly - named 'fulfilment centre' -
is much more controlling. It logs every movement, every trip to the toilet. The bosses monitor your every move, even, I believe, issuing orders and threats via the machine. Your time really does belong to your employer.
