My work investigates what happens when human experience is translated into the language of systems — the tone of customer support, the logic of platforms, the structure of policies, and the metrics of productivity. As the world becomes increasingly optimized and automated, the self is framed less as a life unfolding and more as a product in circulation: evaluated, tracked, upgraded, returned, or discontinued.
I use the aesthetics of warranties, terms, disclaimers, and corporate documentation to expose how everyday emotional realities—burnout, grief, reinvention, uncertainty—are treated as deviations from spec. Help is conditional. Care is procedural. Identity becomes something to be validated, not lived.
The work is not a rejection of systems; it is a recognition of how deeply we've internalized them. We apologize for changing. We fear becoming outdated. We measure ourselves in metrics we never chose. Through interaction and participation, the viewer encounters the same bureaucratic distance that shapes modern life, but with the clarity and scale to finally see it.
These pieces ask a simple question with difficult implications:
If our value is determined by performance, productivity, or perception — was it ever human value we were measuring?
— Aaron Vick