Nell Frizzell, ‘Human for sale: the artist who turned herself into a corporation’, The Guardian, February 2016

Human for sale: the artist who turned

herself into a corporation

Responding to the stalker economy with her own brand of extreme capitalism, JenniferLyn Morone™ Inc is making her life her business. So why, she asks, do we hand ourdata to big tech companies for free?

Nell FrizzellTuesday 9 February 2016 12.32 GMT

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W e live in a world awash with stories of stolen metadata, search engines thatallow us to watch live videos of babies sleeping and toys that can be hacked to

steal your child’s name, birth date and gender; what Al Gore summed up as our “stalkereconomy”. So the image of Jennifer Lyn Morone, standing in an oversized suit, bulldog-clamped down her spine like a fabric dinosaur, and talking about the “businessopportunity” of buying her “blood, sweat and tears”, is strangely hilarious.

But Morone is only doing what David Bowie, Madonna, Prince and Kim Kardashianhave hinted at: turning herself into a registered company, Jennifer Lyn Morone™ Inc.Walking into Neoliberal Lulz at Carroll/Fletcher gallery in London, you are confrontedby an introductory video of Morone, her hair static, her cheeks flushed, talking down

 ‘We confess our darkest secrets to the search bar, and line the pockets of big business as we do’… Still from shoot of Promotional Video for Jennifer Lyn Morone™ Inc Photograph: IlonaGaynor/Courtesy of the artist and Carroll / Fletcher, London

the camera in the corporate babble that saturates modern life. “My data is a resourcefor me to exploit,” says Morone, the camera panning round to reveal the bunched jacketat her back. “I want to make me, my life and my experience my business.”

I’m not saying this shouldn’t be done – I’msaying it is being done already

Another video shows Morone conducting a three-way boardroom meeting as director,secretary and treasurer. There are adverts for diamonds made from her hair, her ownsignature perfume and a manual called How to Become a Corporation in 10 Steps, onsale in hardback. But the most troubling, and arguably most daring part of Morone’sexhibit are the dossiers of the artist’s real data – her bank statements, emails, medicalrecords, photographs, digital content, all of it – on sale for as little as £100. 

Isn’t she terrified by the possible ramifications? “Perhaps I would be if I had moremoney,” says Morone, in her native drawl. “It’s interesting to see what could happen –how something like that is treated once it’s an artwork; why people are buying that. Is itbecause a gallery is telling them it’s worth something? Or because they just want toknow that stuff?” The complete dossier, including a year’s worth of data on hercharacter, demographic, lifestyle, health, digital activity, identity, finance, can be yoursfor £7,000.

Morone, who moved to London 14 years ago, studying Design Interactions at the Royal

 ‘My data is a resource for me to exploit’ … the promotional video for Jennifer Lyn Morone Inc.

College of Art after a BA in sculpture, wants to highlight our state of “data slavery” – thewillingness to submit our every moveto social media and confess our darkest secrets tothe search bar, lining the pockets of big business as we do.

But the show also explores how much value society puts in data – birth dates, heartrates, holiday photos – compared to art. “Art is a business,” says Morone, flatly. “It’sjust how many people you can get to believe in something. Same with the show; samewith the stock market. This show proves it’s impossible to live outside any market.Everything – whatever its intention at first – gets turned into some sort of product.”

It’s satirical, of course, but like all satire, it intends to make the familiar unfamiliar. “Dopeople have to ask my permission or sign a terms and conditions agreement if theywant to speak to me?” asks Morone. “It’s a ridiculous scenario, but that’s what we doevery day, with technology like Google Glass and Skype. You don’t know who the enduser is and for what purpose. We sign away our rights without thinking.” 

 Artist for sale … Jennifer Lyn Morone’s data packages. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist and Carroll / Fletcher,London

We are no longer a proletariat, argues Morone, but a procureiat - constantly creatingprofit for someone, somewhere; probably shareholders in a company registered inDelaware that harvests our data like a hurricane. “There’s a whole rule book that otherpeople are playing with and we don’t understand,” says Morone. “I’m not saying thisshouldn’t be done - I’m saying it is being done already.”

The purpose behind Jennifer Lyn Morone™ Inc is tomake people think a little more about the mess we’vegot ourselves into. “When knowledge and wealth arein the hands of so few, it becomes a scary situation.When I started looking at the data industry, I realisedit was just another industry. When the Snowdenrevelations came out people were concerned aboutprivacy, but I was interested in the value of thatinformation. It’s such a high-worth industry. So whois collecting and trading that information for profit?”

It’s a question that, for Morone, is best answered byrunning headlong at the problem; by embodying the

discomfort; by turning her flesh and blood into commercial commodities. The fact itdoesn’t quite work – that the suit jacket is too large, the boardroom meeting straightout of a sketch show, the corporate diagrams just a little too hand-drawn – is the point.“The jacket doesn’t quite fit,” says Morone. “This whole thing doesn’t quite fit. I’mhuman, natural – and that’s something I couldn’t mask.”

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Neoliberal Lulz is at Carroll/Fletcher, London, from 12 February to 2 April.