I like the way you Like
Rebecca Agnew

I like the way you Like was a three-channel installation exploring the variety of social and physical worlds connected by the supply chain of mobile phones. It traces the entanglement where the mining of conflict (blood) minerals, the state of the technological industry and the everyday use of mobile phones coexist.

Channel 1
Deep in the jungle, humanoid workers play out an endless cycle of conflict and struggle. When Cam the Minor Miner becomes ill from exposure to toxic minerals, they entrust a healer to find a cure. In the meantime, a machete–wielding worker fights off a Hydra of serpent birds of paradise.

Channel 2
Set in a disco a disenfranchised man reflects on life before the rapid globalisation of the cultural economy.

Channel 3
An armless woman sits on her bed speaking seductively of her love of technology, the implication of her 'click farm' or 'like factory' that allows her this status.

I like the way you Like constructs a world from recycled old phones—reanimating their normally hidden mechanisms—that questions relationships of status, addiction, ownership and production. With the ubiquity of mobile phone use comes increased demands for raw materials and an explosion of resulting e-waste. Market competition and consumer demand has extensive material impacts: social, environmental and psychological.

Rebecca Agnew was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, Aotearoa, in 1982. In 2004 she completed a Bachelor of Fine Art, University of Otago, Dunedin, before relocating to Australia and completing a Master of Fine Arts, Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, Melbourne in 2012. In 2015 she was awarded the Keith and Elizabeth Murdoch Travelling Fellowship, with residencies undertaken with Waaw, Saint Louis, Senegal, and Theertha Red Dot Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Agnew is currently a studio resident at Gertrude Contemporary, and in 2013 was commissioned by Artbank to produce a work for their permanent collection. She has led animation workshops for the inaugural NGV Triennial, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, and previously received an ArtStart Grant from the Australia Council for the Art in 2014. Recent exhibitions include Pink Frost, Tinning Street; Gertrude Studio 2017, Gertrude Contemporary; Melbourne International Animation Festival; Waaw Gallery, Saint Louis, Senegal; Immaterial, Articulate Project Space, Sydney; Interior 2.1 (TRAMA Centro), Guadalajara, Mexico and Video Arte Australia Nueva Zelande, M100, Santiago, Chile. Agnew’s work is represented in the collections of the University of Otago, Dunedin; Artbank and private collection in Australia and New Zealand.

Rebecca Agnew was a part of the Gertrude Contemporary Studio Program 2017 - 2019. The Gertrude Studio Program provides sixteen large, subsidised, non-residential studios to early-practice and mid-career artists for two year tenures. Studio Artists benefit from working within a supported and collegiate environment, and have the opportunity to exhibit their work in the annual Gertrude Studios group exhibition, as well as have an ambitious solo artist exhibition at Gertrude Glasshouse. This program is a highly coveted opportunity and is subject
 to a rigorous and competitive selection process involving a selection panel of both Gertrude staff and external advisors.