Tristero* is a new media project featuring Michael Landy CBE, RA (b. 1963), a leading figure among the Young British Artists (YBAs).

Taking its lead from the underground postal system in Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, the project invited users to upload unwanted digital files—discarded emails, forgotten documents, redundant media—into an alternative online network. These cast-off materials were then handed over to a rotating roster of seven artists, each taking up a month-long residency to rework, reinterpret or subvert what had been left behind.

Landy’s contribution stood out for its pointed refusal to play by the expected rules of transformation. Rather than repurpose files into polished artworks, he used delay, rejection, and non-response as active strategies—refusing, for example, to return or détourn even a simple GIF. His presence on the platform recalled the stance of a Situationist dissenter, enforcing the logic of exclusion in an anti-gallery built from scraps. In this context, Landy extended his ongoing investigation into the value of labour, ownership, and participation—raising questions about what is preserved, what is discarded, and who decides.

This project fits into a wider practice grounded in the tension between creation and destruction. In Scaled-Down (2018), he compressed earlier works into compact sculptural blocks, pushing back against the idea of artistic legacy. In Breaking News – Athens (2017), he worked with the public to produce a large-scale installation inside an abandoned school. His landmark Break Down (2001), with Artangel, saw him systematically destroy everything he owned in a performance of radical erasure.

Landy’s work has been exhibited internationally, including solo shows at the Museum Tinguely, Basel (Out of Order, 2016), Tate Britain, MoMA New York, the Centre Pompidou, and the National Gallery, London. His participatory installation Open for Business—a ‘Brexit kiosk’—was commissioned for the first Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art in 2018. He was awarded a CBE in 2021 for his services to the visual arts.

Tristero* was commissioned and curated by Film and Video Umbrella, with support from the New Media Fund, Arts Council England.