Machine Shall be the Slave of Man but We Will Not Slave for the Machine

mixed-media installation, ‘Altermodern’: Tate Triennial, Tate Britain, 2009, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud

Machine Shall be the Slave of Man but We Will Not Slave for the Machine tells the story of the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift, a fringe British youth movement active between 1920 and 1951. Inspired by the writings of Ernest Thompson Seton, as well as the life reform and Arts and Crafts movements, the Kibbo Kift were opposed to the ‘useless toil’ of the factory, adopting William Morris’s ideal of a return to a pre-industrial golden age. Originally part of the Boy Scouts, the Kibbo Kift split off in order to establish a more democratic organisation along with veterans of the Co-operative Movement and the campaign for women’s suffrage. Relations between adults and children, men and women were to be equal in this new educational movement, which advocated such causes as clothes reform, pacifism, vegetarianism, environmentalism, nudism, theosophy and the democratisation of the arts. However, as camping was elevated to a ritualised spiritual activity, the charismatic leadership style of artist John Hargrave led to a further split with the Co-operators. The Kibbo Kift were later radicalised in response to the economic crisis of 1931 and became a uniformed group, promoting a monetary reform system called Social Credit.