Growth Machine references the dominant role that capitalism and capitalists play in (re)making cities primarily as sources of continuous capital accumulation, rather than as living and dwelling spaces for the cities’ occupants. Beginning with a voiceover from found footage of a YouTube how-to tutorial video, this installation took a satirical stance (against) the development of urban space as a growth machine. In this how-to guide, all decisions about the development of a ‘successful city’ are based on land value and the accumulation of wealth. This work juxtaposes a broad range of urban scenes in order to illustrate the politics of urban transformation. Growth Machine both investigated and contested the commodification and financialization of both urban space and urban life itself. It contested (through satire and suggestion) the way that important questions of urban existence get reduced to questions of profit and loss in a system designed as an urban growth machine.
