[...] The motif of toast here represents the seduction of the sense of smell and pinpoints the strategic appropriation of emotional desire to increase economic usability. Where Wessel reflects the marketing of feelings, he does so to question the artif icial production of needs and meanings. Wessel thus appeals to a form of perception that eschews economic appropriation and political channeling. For, according to Hito Steyerl, an “insurrection against an Empire of Senses that tries to purge all difference by means of a dictatorship of affect and noise” is necessary.

Nadine Droste | dense cloud
VIS | 2018