This project analyses and questions power structures, those generated by indices, lists and hierarchies of today’s world. This study focuses in the development and dissemination of telecommunication technologies and how they Impact society on all levels. At the same time, it explores different means of labour, non-regulated work, outsourcing, work materials and other factors which support the privilege positions in the world indices.

The piece is a luminescent altar with ephemeral energy, constructed to worship the first place in the list of “WEALTHIEST MAN IN THE WORLD”, which is a fundamental index to understand the global economy. SUPER INDEX is the first part (physical) from a series of projects focused towards the investigation of the data flux in the telecommunication era.

The starting point was the positioning in 2007 of Carlos Slim as the richest man in the world in the specialized economic lists, over the informatics tycoon Bill Gates. Slim is a Mexican businessman who has focused his businesses in the telecommunications, especially on telephony.

The construction of this artefact proposes a direct connection with the production characteristics common to the environment where the businessman has created his economic empire. 

2 people have participated in the construction process. One is a carpenter, ex-convict who works in an irregular way; he borrows workshops or houses where he is installing woodcrafts; His work is done with improvised equipment, easy to carry. He doesn’t pay taxes and his employers are varied, some of them are multinationals and telephonic companies. The second worker is an electronic engineer who works for a company that works, at the same time, for Telmex (Slim’s head company), he outsourcing the production therefore giving lower wages to his employees.

The production decisions were taken by the workers (e.g. the fragmentation of the piece in many parts for carrying purposes) and, finally, all the pieces were put back together by the back side from pieces of a wooden box called “huacal.” Typical from the popular markets in Mexico, this object is used to delimit public spaces and make them negotiable for some coins (e.g. parking cars in places with parking problems) and whose owner is invisible until someone needs to negotiate it.

It is established, in the collective conscience at least, that this illegal appropriation is respected and no one dares (not even the police) to take the huacal out of the street. It can be risky.

The altar has an interface that can be activated by the audience. This interface activates the piece’s illumination which is fed by small batteries. The installation of this luminous system proposes questions about the incoherence of how complex technologic systems at the end throw obvious or non-transcendental results.

On the other hand, the illumination makes reference to the will of the people to feed/illuminate the prominence of the Media Success lists. The actualization property of the displayed data which is characteristic these days is present in this piece because the luminous sign can be changed/actualized according to the historic moment.