Adrian Melis, Surplus Production Line, 2014.

Adrian Melis (Cuba, 1985), Surplus Production Line, 10’00”, 2014.

Melis started a private company in Amsterdam, in order to publish a call-out for a temporary job welcoming native Spanish speakers to apply for the role by sending in their CVs. The successful individual was required to work for two hours per day, five days a week in order to print and destroy by means of a shredder all of the CVs gathered through the call. By doing so, Melis initiated a production process based on destruction, one that mobilised the expectations of the unemployed who had applied for the job (and whom he never met) and transformed them into raw material for the company to shred.As an ironic comment on liberal economist Joseph Schumpeter concept of creative destruction (capitalism generates new wealth by destroying existing economic and social structures) labour and work are revealed to be annihilating enterprises under their current, neoliberal guise.