A black & white image of a toaster on a table. A common object, but there seems to be something wrong with the control knob. Then a hammer appears on screen and gives the body cover a hefty blow. First one blow, then another one. There is some suggestion here that a faulty control knob is being 'repaired', but that can no longer be maintained once the toaster falls apart. Body cover and innards are now separate from each other. Then a game starts up between body cover, slice of bread and two hands. Accompanied by sounds that make one think of factory production lines, a hand pushes a slice of bread 'inside' through one slit and takes it out with the other hand using the now open side. This is repeated again and again and would perhaps be repeated endlessly if the piece of bread didn't crumble to bits. And that is why the action stops. The game continues a bit longer between the body cover and the bread crumbs until, finally, the movement stops and the action comes to an end. For Summers the game with the toaster is a reference to current methods of mass production. Many of the common consumer products that invade our daily lives are factory-made nowadays at a large number of assembly lines. Summers holds strong views on this: he is fed up with it all. His manifest aversion leads to the destruction of an archetype. The image that the video ends on - 'still-life of breadcrumbs on the body cover of a toaster' - can be, then, interpreted as an appeal to creative re-cycling of everyday objects. You never know, something new might come out of it.
– Carla Hoekendijk
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Ricardo Summers ° 1953, Madrid (Spain)
Lives and works in Madrid (Spain)
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