Above Marc’s office desk hung a large framed photograph of a dark scene inside a manufacturing facility. The left side of the photo shows a red-hot piece of iron in the process of production. It’s the size of a small house. You can tell by how tiny the men look standing alongside it. They look like ants wearing yellow hard hats, inconsequential beside the industrial machinery.
The right side of the photograph shows a business office in which five or six men listen obediently to a supervisor. You know they are underlings not because the boss is visible but because of the workers’ physical demeanor. Their posture signals that they comply with orders, as professional workers do.
The two parts of the image comment on each other through their depictions of the workers’ lack of agency. What chances are left for these faceless, voiceless apparatuses of production? The scene’s mood is both everyday and infernal. It encapsulates Marc’s vision of industry as a monstrous organization of forces that renders individuals invisible.