Cold Call is an unconventional carbon offsetting scheme that draws on strategies of worker sabotage and applies them in the context of high emission companies of the fossil fuel industry. A novel carbon offset methodology called “Time Theft as Avoided Emissions” has been developed specifically for the project. Time theft is where workers are paid for time when they are idle. For example, fake sick days, sleeping on the job, extended lunch breaks, or engaging in non-work related activities like social media or unrelated phone calls. In this installation, we purchased the phone numbers of 1000 executives who work in high emitting industries like mining and oil extraction. Audiences are invited to work in a call center and call the executives in an attempt to steal as much time from them as possible in order to generate carbon credits.

Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne’s collaborative work examines shifts and transformations catalyzed by computational systems and the internet and excavates questions of ecology, climate, class, language, work and economics. In their wide ranging practice they have simulated international organizations, run a dating service in NYC, and enabled online audiences to subscribe to receive the entire Enron email archive. In 2023, they received a Creative Capital award for the development of a series of experimental carbon offsetting methodologies. Their work has been widely discussed in the media in outlets such as The New Yorker, Marie Claire, The Ellen Show, Art in America, The World Almanac, Slovenian Public Radio and India Today, and they have given collaborative talks at the Sonar Festival, and the New Museum. In 2015, the UN filed a complaint with the US Department of State about their work.