VCAS conference stream: 'The Art of the Gimmick: aesthetic judgement as a window to capitalistic systems'
Part of the LCCT - London Conference in Critical Thought 2025
Birkbeck, University of London
June 20th – 21st, 2025
Concept
A shortcut, a cheap trick, a ploy to convince you that you need something that you really don’t, the gimmick chronically promises more than it delivers. And yet, it is also an object of fascination and humour, and can even be a tool of social critique. The gimmick is an aesthetic category first presented by cultural theorist Sianne Ngai in Theory of the Gimmick, which reveals our everyday experience navigating capitalistic systems. Ngai describes it as an expression of dissatisfaction “linked to our perception of an object making untrustworthy claims about the saving of time, the reduction of labor, and the expansion of value.” In this way, it is an aesthetic based in economic judgement, especially of unproductively spent money or wrongful praise by those duped by the gimmick.
While the gimmick can be found everywhere, the arts are especially prone to this determination. Ultimately, it is an expression of scepticism in the relationship between the labour and time that goes into something and its value. With this understanding of the gimmick, it is no wonder it plagues the arts: from Marcel Duchamp’s Readymade, to Banksy’s half-shredded drawing, to Maurizio Cattelan’s banana taped to a wall, many artists flaunt the tenuous relationship between the labour involved in production and its value as a capitalist commodity. It offers a glimpse of an alternative measurement of worth that is not determined by labour and time. The gimmick thus indirectly reflects the fundamental laws of capitalism that also make it prone to crisis: a system in which profit (and therefore value) is dependent on labour —all while unceasing technological innovation to stay competitive makes that very labour increasingly redundant.
We encourage submissions from artists and researchers to consider the gimmick, especially within the arts, as a lens to investigate the systems shaping our perception and measurement of economic value. We welcome a combination of (participatory) activities subverting typical conference formats, as well as theoretical presentations.
VCAS was selected to organise the LCCT conference stream “The Art of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgement as a Window to Capitalistic Systems". The stream explored the gimmick as an aesthetic category, theorised by Sianne Ngai, revealing how value, labour, and worth are perceived within capitalist systems. Artists across disciplines examined this tension, questioning the relationship between artistic labour and economic value. The stream was presented in a hybrid format, both in person and using Zoom.
Yet from the stainless steel banana slicer to the cryptocurrency derivative, our very concept of the gimmick implies awareness that, in capitalism, misprized things are bought and sold continuously. Its flagrantly unworthy form can be found virtually anywhere: manufacturing, law, banking, education, politics, healthcare, real estate, sports, art.
— Sianne Ngai
LCCT – London Conference in Critical Thought 2025
Participating Presenters: Patrick Loan, Hoi Yan Guo, Guy Levitan, Ziegi Boss, David J Beesley, Oliver Cloke, Lennart Forster, Q plus I
Stream organisers and curators: Oliver Cloke (Questioner), Patrick Loan (Instructor) and Ziegi Boss
LCCT
Panel 1: The Internal and External understanding of bodies across cultural practices.
Patrick Loan
Object of Desire (The Pump): Nostalgia, Gimmicks, and the Illusion of Exclusivity
Hoi Yan Guo
Sounding the Gimmick: on Performativity and Erasure in Music Gear Culture
Guy Levitan The transparent Gimmick and a world without Truth
Panel 2: Labour and the Gimmick
Ziegi Boss
Performing the Gimmick: Labor, Value, and the Art of Doing Nothing
David J Beesley
Recognising the Detrimental Gimmick of Ambiguity in the age of the Anthropocene: Introducing the Semiotic Triangle Addendum
Oliver Cloke The Aesthetic of Ultra-Processing: Sianne Ngai's "Gimmick" as a Lens on Chris van Tulleken's "Ultra-Processed People"
Panel 3: Popular culture and the Gimmick
Lennart Forster Beauty Ideals as a Gimmick: Capitalist Mechanisms and Identity
Q plus I
WORKSHOP: The Gimmick in Motion: Footballer Hairstyles as Participatory Performance
Ziegi Boss & Oliver Cloke from VCAS participating in LCCT
Lennart Forster presenting in Panel 3