Beste Steve

In Beste Steve ('Dear Steve'), a man is smoothly dismantling a brand new MacBook Pro. Meanwhile, in a voice-over, a letter is read, addressed to Steve Jobs and signed by the artist. Beste Steve reveals the irreducible materiality of a tool that symbolises so-called immaterial labour. It lets us travel through immaterial worlds and, as the product of a brand, represents record-selling numbers and profits one can no longer grasp. It also subtly reveals a set of paradoxes and ambiguities which might reside in the actions effected by the artist with this tool, such as informing ourselves and others about a political conflict happening elsewhere in the world. The tools necessary to do this might have a history that is partly imbedded in such conflicts. But there is hope. Thanks to Herman’s internet research, revealed in his writing to Steve, we easily learn where the object that lets us travel in immaterial worlds has been manufactured. The artist uses a wide range of cultural references, such as the use of a language of the "Old Continent" in the voice-over.