Spotify currently pays between $0.003 and $0.004 per stream. This installation, featuring five sound compositions alongside a deconstructed living room, critiques the limitations of the streaming model. The continuous playback of the tracks throughout the exhibition time underscores the difficulty musicians face in sustaining a livelihood through streaming income alone.

To afford just one square meter of property in Germany, where the average price in 2024 is €3,386, a musician would need roughly one million streams. This stark imbalance highlights the widening gap between the value of artistic labor and its compensation in the digital economy.

During the exhibition time the album had around 17,000 plays on Spotify, generating approximately $68. Without any advertising, the album reached 2,500 plays in the U.S. and was streamed in 44 countries. The album had 3,475 active listeners and 1,073 monthly listeners, even though I only expected a small audience in Germany. These results were completely unexpected and raise bigger questions about how technology is changing the relationship between artists and their audience. After three months, I still needed 98,300 more streams for my first square meter.

The album was removed from all streaming platforms by the distributor in February 2025.

“We were recently notified by Spotify that they detected irregular streaming patterns associated with a release distributed through our CD Baby account. These patterns were identified as unusual, artificial, or manipulated streaming activity, violating the terms of most digital music services."

You can listen to the reuploaded album on Bandcamp here

Photos: Juan Bermudez / Patrick Bäuml / Kyongseo Min