Cosmic Generator

Sacks of pearls, inflatable toys, plastic flowers and sizzling pans: Mika Rottenberg’s cinematic installations explore the relations between immaterial goods and manufactured products and blur the boundary between reality and fiction.
Mika Rottenberg’s Cosmic Generator is a video work that establishes a connection between various places and actors, including Calexico (California), Mexicali (Mexico) and Yiwu (China), to recreate the imaginary life of an object, from its production in the factory to the moment of sale.
The film, whose title is a reference to the engineer and physicist Nikola Tesla (1856–1943), highlights the absurdity of our human condition and of the systems of production and circulation. The artist links footage of a restaurant and a shop in Calexico to a huge market for plastic goods in Yiwu, China. The system of tunnels suggests a reflection on how certain objects are allowed to circulate freely in the world, while for others covering a distance of a few metres can be a long and complex process.
The tiredness shown by some of the female protagonists is also a reference to sleep as a temporary means of withdrawal and as one of the few bodily resources left that cannot be exploited.