As of 2024, Spotify pays between $0.003 and $0.004 per stream. This installation, featuring five sound compositions alongside a deconstructed living room, examines the limitations of the streaming model. The continuous playback of the tracks throughout the exhibition duration underscores the challenge musicians face in sustaining a livelihood through streaming income alone.

To afford one square meter of property in Germany, where the average price in 2024 stands at €3,386, a musician requires approximately one million streams. This disparity reveals the widening gap between the value of artistic labor and its compensation in the digital economy.

During the exhibition period, the album accumulated approximately 17,000 plays on Spotify, generating roughly $68. Without advertising, the album reached 2,500 plays in the United States and was streamed across 44 countries, attracting 3,475 active listeners and 1,073 monthly listeners, an audience that extended far beyond the anticipated German listenership. These results raise questions about how technology is reshaping the relationship between artists and their audiences. After three months, 98,300 additional streams remained necessary to reach the equivalent of one 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