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The People Who Invent the Tools to Invent the Dismantling of a World In Harmony. 2019.

In the 1957, American company Fairchild Semiconductor is becoming one of the leaders of technological innovation through the evolving design of the transistor and integrated circuit, paving the path for the technological world we’ve come to know so intimately. 

The legacy of Fairchild is a dissonant one, being responsible for everything from the ArmaLite rifle, the AR15, the Apollo guidance computer, and chips for nuclear missiles. In an era before overseas production outsourcing, Fairchild built a factory in Shiprock, New Mexico, hiring over a thousand Navajo women. The company presented the idea to the Navajo Nation as craft production, comparing transistor design to that of textile design. Not mentioning the exploitive intentions of choosing the workforce due to a lack of labor rights asserted by the women. This is a perpetuation of dissonance.

Another story tells that the evolution of the design of the transistor eventually leads to the development of the integrated circuit based synthesizer. The oscillation of which has become present in just about every aspect of the world we experience.

The People Who Invent the Tools to Invent the Dismantling of a World In Harmony is an embodiment of these tensions in history and technology. It exists as an instrument built on a synthesizer circuit, creating patterns of oscillation feedback. It exists as instrument of the embodiment of place in an act of story and dissonance.

Dylan McLaughlin