Consumption

Developed as the scarcity of basic goods in Venezuela reached critical levels, for Consumption I asked willing families in the neighborhood to collect UPC bar codes from all packaged food consumed in their household over a period of time. I then used the bar codes to produce the family’s consumption record, a collage or drawing which, if displayed with a UPC scanner allows the viewer to read the codes. Consumption makes visible what Teddy Cruz calls “the political equator,” an imaginary line separating developing and developed worlds.