Alice Creischer & Andreas Siekmann

MONOPOLARTIGE PRODUKTIONEN / DER FALL COLTAN“, 2005
ink-jet / lightfast pigment print

Since 2002 Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekman have been concerned with a model of political and economic education developed since 1925 by graphic artist Gerd Arntz and philosopher and economist Otto Neurath — the ‘Viennese method of pictorial statistics’— which takes the form of comprehensible pictographs. They use Arntz’ and Neurath’s so-called ISOTYPE method (International System of Typographic Picture Education) in relation to current socio-political circumstances.
The extraction of coltan ore in Central Africa, the basis for producing the tantal needed throughout the entire mobile communication industry in the manufacture of condensers, promotes political violence and the destruction of other resources. The panels of Monopoly-like Production / The Case of Coltan, illustrate the relationship between coltan extraction, the profit interests of transnational companies and the dependence of various local actors on the raw material.