Chris Burden: When Robots Ruled the Air

At the end of the twentieth century ordinary people have little or no understanding of how the world we live in functions, how the food we eat is grown or how the objects we use are manufactured. For The Two-Minute Airplane Factory Burden has designed a factory-like assembly line which will construct model aeroplanes from paper, plastic and balsa-wood parts. The process, which is all on view, culminates in the launch of the planes, which fly up and circle round before descending to land on the gallery floor, to be collected and sold to visitors. Burden lays bare the principles of mass production in a way that is entertaining, ingenious and provocative.

Frances Morris is Curator at the Tate Gallery of Modern Art.