Isabel Mager on identifying the human body behind the making of high-tech gadgets

Isabel Mager presents a project called 5000times, a critical exploration of the way Apple iPhones are created on factory lines. Mager questions the value of having a human body work on the assembly of our much loved smartphones and computers as opposed to total automation of the process, as so many brands tend to propagate the latter notion of their own practices. To better understand the systems that technology companies deploy in the making of their gadgets, Mager decided to dismantle a laptop physically to look for signs of human craftsmanship in the way it was produced. Isabel Mager is an investigative and critical designer based in the Netherlands. Her work investigates culture and structures of power.