Read "Boredom" by Siegfried Kracauer (1924) and "Meaningless Work" by Walter de Maria (1960). Both writers make some kind of proposal. Both are quite clever and funny in ways specific to their own historical moment. Your assignment is to write a short proposal relevant to your own historical moment in a tone that corresponds to your experience and your generation's perception of work and play. This is a chance to continue to cultivate your own voice and particular sensibility (and wit) as a writer. This is an assignment about voice and observation. What you write should be posted to the blog NO LATER than Monday at 1:00 pm. Please take the time to read other people's posts as well. I'll be asking you about things you noticed the posts have in common (and perhaps how they differ as well). If you have any questions, I'm available by email. Don't wait until the last second to be in touch. Please include a word count. Meaningless Work is also about 500 words, so keep that piece in mind as a kind of model. (Your post can include images and links too. You can post it as a comment below or separately.) If you have any problem posting, please send me your piece by email. I will be happy to post it. Finally, it should go without saying, but this needs to be a polished piece of writing, not a first draft or an unthought stream of consciousness. DO EDIT before you post!
The question I would ask Walter de Maria would be, "is the work meaningless to the person doing the work, or is it meaningless to others, or just meaningless in general"?
ReplyDeleteWalter de Maria gives an example of the process of painting being meaningless work. I, myself, am not talking about photo realistic paintings, I'm referring to those that look like someone tripped and flung paint on the canvas, or just smeared it on without thinking about it. These kinds of paintings can be meaningless to certain people but full of expression and emotion to others. Thinking this way is paradoxical, the process is meaningless, but at the same time could be purposeful because maybe the paintings' purpose is to show the process, the process being anger or frivolousness. The finished piece could be nothing to someone and everything to the next person.
Meaningless work according to my generation might be making ones' bed or vacuuming. One might say "why do it when it's just going to get messy as it was before?" but for me personally, making my bed or vacuuming clears my conscience so that I can relax later and 'be bored' (an example of work and then play [meaningless work and boredom]). In my experience, I know that a graphic designer could work for hours on a design but get nowhere, just pushing things around until they think it looks right, or until the deadline. Sound pointless and like a waste of time?
According to Walter's explanation, non-meaningless work is working knowing that what you are doing is going to give you a sense of accomplishment. It is not meaningless work if you feel you are productive. So if that graphic designer makes himself or herself a goal and reaches that goal instead of pushing letters and graphics around, they will feel more successful, therefore, it's not being meaningless any longer.
It seems that Siegfried Kracauer is referring to boredom as ones' spirit getting chased away, and people that don't get bored are boring. He seems to think that if someone who works most of the time and does not get a period of boredom, they invent, what he claims, "a work ethic that provides a moral veil for their occupation" and from this they get satisfaction, possibly more than they would from being bored, because they feel like they are doing the right thing for their life. He also says that when a person wants to do nothing life does not let them, and I think that is because there is always something to do, always responsibilities, which makes it difficult for someone's spirit to wander.
When someone lets their spirit wander, such as when watching a movie at the theater, they are enveloped in the film as if they are experiencing the life of the film. Kracauer mentions the radio as well as a device that is distracting and "vaporizes beings", which reminds me of Marshall McLuhan’s theory of hot and cold media. Both McLuhan and Kracauer seem to believe that it doesn't take much energy to get completely engrossed in media such as cinematic film.
I think that these two readings are analogous to each other and to the subject of our class in that meaningless work could be considered boring and boredom could be meaningless work. Meaningless work plays off the 'work' section of our class and boredom corresponds to the 'play' portion.
Meaningless stillness, meaningless motion
ReplyDeleteMeaningless work, as touted by Walter de Maria, is the very thing that Siegfried Kracauer might find a distraction from our finding our true selves. But both - meaningless work and being bored - are best done alone. Now, the Internet is a place we spend time alone (physically, at least), but it occupies a role in work and leisure. For example, the task of checking email is hard to divide into work-related and play-related activity. When doing it feels like "plowing" though content, is it work? When it feels like "wandering", is it play? Regardless, you cannot be bored. There is always another link, email, advertisement, bookmark...and after all of that, there is Facebook. With computers and the internet, work can be done at home, and play can be done at work: there is NO staying home and drawing the blinds!
That is, unless you shut off your computer...and then, to achieve Kracauer's boredom or de Maria's unproductive labor, you may end up taking on the challenge of Zen meditation. This is an activity whose aim is to do nothing fully, to sit still amongst un-stillness without any specific goal. But then to go at this activity too enthusiastically would defeat its "nothingness", turning the act of sitting into some meaningFUL work, requiring the "work ethic" that contradicts boredom. Meditation - particularly in the Zen tradition - attracts many people who want to "discover their heads", or counteract a certain kind of hustle and bustle.
At the other end, there is a kind of meaningless motion that might be similar to meaningless work or boredom. I picture a person who keeps walking, without any intention of entertainment or destination, but as a way to stop him/herself from the distractions and engagements of technology and the media, insisting on "presence" and being productive but towards no particular end. Whether this is an ART or not could be (as it goes with meaningless work) determined by the "mover": certainly the Situationists might have an opinion about that.
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Boredom and Meaningless work are very individually based. One is bored when alone. And one does meaningless work when alone. But, meaningless work is done when one is bored, and since the work is meaningless you are faced with boredom again! For example, when one moves items from one box to another, then back to the other box, it is meaningless work with no purpose. But without a purpose, the repetitive action of moving the items from box to box becomes boring.
ReplyDeleteIn the time that we live in today, are we able to do anything completely meaningless? And why would we? True, wasting hours of your time on youtube, wikipedia and google may seem like meaningless work. Just wasting hours of time looking up various random topics, is never just completely meaningless, it provides us with entertainment and some sort of education.
For people in our generation, to do something meaningless requires a lot of thought. We live in a faster paced environment where something is required of you at all times. Many people plan out their whole days. They plan out what time they wake up, get ready, go to work, eat, shop, and even schedule out when they will rest or entertain themselves. With this tight schedule, it is almost impossible to do meaningless work without questioning why you’re doing it, for what reason. While in the act of meaningless work, the whole time you have to remind yourself that what you are currently doing is meaningless but by constantly reminding yourself, is it TRULY meaningless?
In my case, the concept of meaningless work is odd. Since I’m constantly thinking about what is due, what I have to do next, who I have to see and so on, it is hard even to relax since my brain is still going. There is no off switch. Boredom is a happy visitor for me since that is when I know that I have nothing else that I have to be doing at that time and I dwell in it. And if others are like me, then I believe that meaningless work is an odd concept that just CAN’T work. There is simply no time for meaningless work, and boredom is something that should be celebrated.
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SLOWDOWN
ReplyDeleteAfter reading "Boredom" by Siegfried Kracauer and "Meaningless Work" by Walter de Maria and contemplating their proposals with regards to society’s and culture’s current state, I would like to propose ‘The Slowdown Mode’. I would encourage people, whether artists or bankers, to practice this mode regularly.
I cannot remember the last time I did something slowly on purpose. In fact, I cannot remember the last time I saw anyone do anything slowly on purpose. When I think about being slow I immediately get annoyed and agitated. How did I become to be like this? and when did ‘slow’ become a shameful word? I call people to reconsider the meaning of being slow and even start to practice at being good at being slow.
This new habit should be done at first like exercising. Every one should make a habit of significantly slowing down for a limited period of time at a time. During that time we should do all of our daily activities at about a third of the speed we would usually act. This could happen for the duration of a week or an hour, but probably no less than that. This time should not be dedicated to periods of leisure, but exercised while we are trying to be productive, or while trying to get something done. The key is to dedicate more time to everything while we are in our slowdown mode.
The act of slowing down might take several different forms. We might use this opportunity to move slower, take more time for every gesture we make and slowdown our bodies movement. So, for example, if I were to fold my laundry in the Slowdown mode, I would literally make every fold very slowly. I would carefully consider every movement that I do. I could also decide to slowdown in a different way. For example, instead of driving to school, I would decide once a week to walk the journey. Physically, I will not move any slower than I usually do, but my body is moving slower in space. I am prolonging an act that usually would last a much shorter period of time.
I call for everyone to slowdown, in one way or another, at the very least once a week, and for as a significant amount of time as possible. Even if your schedule does allows this, in the beginning, slowing-down might not be as easy as it seems. But practice will pay off, and slowing-down will become easier with time, and perhaps even addictive eventually. In fact, if one becomes addicted to slowing-down they must stop this practice and for a while avoid slowing-down. Staying in the slowdown mode at all times, although beneficial in some ways, can cause a person to not function well in society and can be destructive.
Exercises such as Slowdown, and perhaps others, will force us to contemplate our relationship with time. We might (re)consider how we use time, if we appreciate time and possibly even change the speed in which we progress in time based on how we move our bodies and the way we use time.
Word count: 520
Play is linked to our life's work. Work is comprised of play, the two entwined. What was previously perceived as the double-sided coin of work and play, has transformed amid global turmoil. As markets collapse, play and work emerge not only as a multitasker's challenge, but further, as playful work-acts and work guided by play. We are active participants in a terror-filled, awe-inspiring, beauteous, wonderland - our gamestage. It is through play that we mold our work. Work should, however, be distinguished from job. The job is a dead end and work-play is limitless. In the past the job was anchored, but it has since disappeared, while play (and especially the synthesis of work-play) remains constant and fluid.
ReplyDeleteAs children, we all played and worked, without distinguishing one mode from the other. We should stick to that example as a genuine model, to be adjusted accordingly, of course, but not forgotten. Strangely, without endorsing the likes of Beyoncé or the powers that be, but rather in consideration of pop culture, it is clear that we now have generations full of adult kids, so why fight it, play! It is the play of a child and the awareness of an adult that form the work-play binary.
We view our world as the most advanced open source project around. We steal too often and we share too much, but make no mistake, we create significant change through tinkering, examining, playing, growing, and building. We are certainly aware of the institutions and our roles within them. We are the products of continued capitalist consumption, but we are not led blindly, we play with what we consume and work towards open initiatives . We work-play with technologies, with interactivity, and experiment, explore, strive for societal contributions. We remain weary of our generation's corporate bigwigs, Google, Facebook, etc, yet even they are riding the wave of work-play. Collectively we face the increasing anxieties and despairs with a joint optimism, overloaded but highly immersed in the game. Play heightens our senses and the artificial boundaries of mind vs. body or work vs. play can no longer be adhered to. We have arrived at the union of work and play, in part, due to our immediate ancestors and their strict fixation on labor. Without their stance on work, play may have never had the chance to steep in the richness it now sustains. It has become a necessary companion to work. We strategize and plot our moves as we play through life. Just imagine a world in which we are all at play!
We play like the birds do when working on their nest and use the words 'work' and 'play' as partners or substitutes for one another. Make it your work to play in the sky of no ceilings, the web of infinite possibilities, the theoretical dimensionality in spacetime, and the arts of liberation. In playful work there is a lightness, less strain and more benefit. But make no mistake, this not to say that work-play is easy, because it is of learning and growing and entirely rigorous. Our playful attitude towards work is applicable and vital to our future. Those who prefer outdated modes of work are most appreciated, because for them, we are empowered to inflate work-play in this most necessary of times! Play and work and art and that's how we carry on.
Found drawing collected on the dérive (can't pinpoint it's connection to this writing - but it's there!):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2178226/IMG_3202.JPG
Word Count: 555
I read Walter de Maria's Meaningless Work and I get pissed off. I read it and my blood starts to boil. I start to get pissed thinking about how terribly art is misunderstood these days, how so often it's shoved away by perfectly intelligent individuals simply because it's inaccessible. I think about how this "meaningless" art thing is bullshit because the action is so far removed from the meaning. The action is completely arbitrary, since the act of making art becomes the art, and the result isn't just not important, it's completely excusable. And the irony here is that's exactly what the viewer has to see, has to try to interpret. It's this disconnect that ruins modern art and distances artists from so many perfectly beautiful people.
ReplyDeleteThen I think about Kracauer's definition of boredom, and it's close relation to what so many people come so close to achieving every day, it seems that these two things might be speaking to each other. And I find myself thinking of the Buddhists, and those who try to achieve enlightenment through the repetition of one mindless task. They perform very simple tasks for hours on end in an effort to both focus and unfocus their minds. All of a sudden these Monks are on to something.
And this leads me to thinking about myself, and about my “work ethic”. As an architecture student, I’m constantly being told to “manage my work hours” and to find a way to de-stress. It’s no small secret that the work load given to a typical architecture student far exceeds the number of daylight hours in the week. My life is a very loosely strung series of decisions of what night to choose to get my sleep. I am constantly faced with the decision to rest and to sacrifice satisfaction on a project, or to continue working and satisfy a creative curiosity. There is very little time for boredom in my life.
And I find myself considering this a very important lesson that I might need to teach myself very soon. What time in life is reserved for play? De Maria seems to suggest it can be found anywhere at anytime by anyone - and can be performed in any way or length so long as there is no product that is advantageous to anyone. I find myself kinda keen on that. I could use a non-product around me every once in a while. I think then.. if I really really need to do work without a product, and the product of that work is my happiness, am I stuck? If nothing else I find a little bit of glee to be stuck in a theoretical sort of purgatory.
I think also of Kracauer’s insistence of boredom by isolation, and my tiny little cube in the corner of studio. The number of times I open my mouth in a day can’t be that many. When I actually do work I speak very little, content with filling my sensory system with entirely inhuman dots and dashes of music, text, images projected through tens of thousands of liquid-filled crystals in a grey rectangle. I push down on bits of silicone to express myself. What a strange little world we inhabit.
Word count 546.
The elusive concept of boredom, as defined by Siegfried Kracauer, is a necessary element of life. This empty counterbalance to work carries the human spirit through the moments between exercise and self-imposed distraction. To Kracauer, it is a pure state of mind that encourages unfettered development and speculation. From boredom comes emptiness. From emptiness comes an unresolved, yet satisfying sense of being.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Kracauer warns that attempting to amuse oneself in one’s boredom will eventually destroy that Zen like state. Distractions should be avoided at all costs, as they pervert the being and snuff out the “spark of the spirit” that pure boredom cultivates. Radio, movies, globalization, and other such meaningless distractions are the enemy of true boredom, as their ability to unconsciously drift into and dictate one’s subconscious destroys the spirit of boredom.
While Kracauer argues that boredom is the killer of progress, and that any action taken during this state is literally a waste of time, Walter de Maria argues that it provides a healthy form of exercise for the soul. De Maria says in his dissertation that this so-called “meaningless work” is an honest form of exercise. While it might not contribute to anything of importance, or lead to anything benefiting society, the mere exercise of directionless activity is what leads one to the state of nirvana-boredom as identified by Kracauer.
In these times, the driving need to constantly be busy, to constantly work and strive for achievement is a strong one. In our constantly moving, information-filled world, Internet and videogames have all but replaced radio and movies. They bring the wired nations of the world together as well, ramping up the level of “boredom-killing distraction” that Kracauer warns against in his essay. However, it is these very distractions that the people of today turn to whenever they feel “bored” as a way to relieve stress, or as a method of focused procrastination.
What category, then, does idly browsing the Internet while procrastinating fall into? Is it a distraction, like Kracauer’s denounced examples? Or is it “meaningless activity”, shallow but pure? It is true that idly clicking through sites such as Wikipedia or Youtube might have been started by a need to distract oneself from the stressful structure of a hyperbusy world. However, if one continues to aimlessly “wander” wherever their clicks take them, the mere action of browsing would fall under the category of meaningless activity. This in itself is a reflection of the very nature of boredom in our modern times—fueled by distraction, continued through an almost dérive-like nature.
Youtube links clicked while working on this dissertation: 14
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow-B_R9urM0&playnext_from=TL&videos=myNL1mD3xTk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4w21HcML2M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0-Sv6YnxEc&playnext_from=TL&videos=zrB5sC8W6oI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2NFl86LX3Q&playnext_from=TL&videos=qnljG9lg-3c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvltzwkUEEA&playnext_from=TL&videos=AVo054ytYJI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To34rvyClH4&playnext_from=TL&videos=ekjM4wLWn1E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zbiLjwYSPY&playnext_from=TL&videos=kgPeArQ9ssE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM7FkgrQOl8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqnhhtPNw1c&playnext_from=TL&videos=-uHg70cu_fM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qNVmyGpc40&playnext_from=TL&videos=8LHVQWjFfEM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y90ONojCc6Q&playnext_from=TL&videos=eWavXdXbBvw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phlrgUGpt38&playnext_from=TL&videos=JeXvk2FOc5U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpGK7VVv4Ig&playnext_from=TL&videos=ui8GdIvkt6Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Orxwh-jFGSE&feature=related
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In such a fast paced world, slowing down and “simply doing nothing” seem to become some kind of untouchable expectations among the modern-time people. Everyone is trying to achieve everything at all times. With the aid of technology and mass media, our lives are packed with constantly absorbing information, communicating with others, and trying to be as productive as we can. We are busy. We are exhausted. We do not and should not have time to be bored. However, deep inside our hearts, isn’t there a voice calling boring?
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw the title, “Meaningless Work,” I was thinking about the phenomenon that whether people do or do not admit it, they sometimes find the things they thought meaningful and put many efforts working were meaningless. Kracauer has mentioned the essential reason for people being so busy every day, “They pursue a livelihood on which they expend all their energies, simply to earn enough for the bare necessities.” Life should be more than survival; thus when people spend their precious time merely for the existence, they are bored.
However, my presumption started changing. As I read the “Meaningless Work” by Walter de Maria, I felt a sense of enjoyment of him. I assumed he was proposing meaningless work would give you the opportunity to reexamine the world around you and even your inner self. It reminded me of the recently risen trend of LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability). It advocates us to simplify our lifestyles and suggests everyone to slow down his/her pace, similar to the Zen philosophy of just think about and do nothing in some aspects. As LOHAS and Zen philosophy become popular, it reveals the phenomena that the modern day people are eager to jump away from this fast spinning existence and search for an inner peace, which responds Walter de Maria’s concept and even Kracauer’ idea about boredom provides people energy.
Nevertheless, is it even “possible” for the current people to be bored and do nothing? Just ask yourself, when you have leisure time and know that nothing at the time needs to be accomplished, are you able to “empty” your mind? More likely, people’s minds still spin crazily, planning for the next second, next minute and so on. On the other hand, when we think we are boring, being unproductive and doing nothing—wandering on the internet as most commonly seen—we are still constantly doing something. Thus, let me ask again, is it even “possible”; I cannot say it will be impossible, but it should be extremely close to impossibility.
word count: 427
Attention: WE DONT WORK ANYMORE
ReplyDeleteNo one works anymore, that is to say work no longer feels like work, it feels like play. We are conditioned to be narcissistic and pressured to be the best at what we do. We want to be the unbeatable sports player, the leading doctor, the top designer, the second to none repair man, the principle accountant, the incomparable agent, the elite editor, the number one bartender, or the extraordinary singer. Ignorantly believing that oneself should never do something they don't want to do. Driven by our consumeristic ways, money is the source of life without it we will die. Stuck with the notion of needing to make money and not willing to do work we have crafted individual specialties which we become the master and the maker of our own wants. So who is to say all play and no work makes a man poor. Molded to be very good at anything we do what is stopping us from all play and no work. With what has been called 'lack of work ethic' by some, my generation is creativity subduing the mundane ideas of work. Work is not 9-5, work is not a punch card, work is not a tie and penny loafers, work is not away from your home, work is not a fight, work is not separate from an individual.
Kracauer when addressing work he said, that it "merely expresses a dissatisfaction that would immediately disappear if an occupation more pleasant than the morally sanctioned one became available."(Kracauer Pg.2) In 1924 he alluded to our abomination of work. So I guess work has disappeared and it is all play and no work.
How many people speak more then three languages are active members in at least four social circles, enjoy both monster car shows and silent films, and can compute the speed a train must need to be traveling to get to San Francisco from Bellingham in order to arrive at the exact same time as when someone driving from LA who will leave in 14 hours. I speak one language, go to school and study with the same people I live with, and I have been focusing all my energy for the last four years on Art and Design. Ignorance is bliss. Work is Bad. Play is Good. Being really good at Play, equals no Work, which is Bad, which really is Good. The creation of idiosyncratic, highly particular jobs that feel like play mean one is able to get by not knowing very much about anything outside of their one focus, expelling us from the well-rounded workers of yesteryear's. So now I ask is all Play and No Work really as good at we have proposed it to be.
All work and no play make jack a dull boy.
Master of Business Card Throwing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVq0HdiM-Ok
10 Year Old Yo-Yo Master Trick's
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mIpwjeSwuM
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Needs, Wants, Obligations and Time Management: Are we forgetting something?
ReplyDeleteAs we struggle between what we want and what we need, what we are supposed and what we would like to do our days go by leaving us with a sense of satisfaction mixed with frustration. For we seem to have made a job out of every possible human activity, we have attached to work the function of money gaining, thus morphing it from surviving purposes to quality of life-maintaining. With this approach we tackle and live our “free time”, which we regulate directly with our occupation, but also with social and personal obligations. Meaning not only we have brilliantly cut out for ourselves hours of remunerated work, but we impose upon us a system of rules and behaviors even in our “spear time” that is spent on time-fillers. As social impositions and networking take up sections of our daily lives we seem to have schedule our existence so not to have pauses, so not to have real, unconditioned “free time”. Every action has a purpose, every effort aims to a goal.
In this sense, calls to meaningless work and boredom, as preposterous as they sound, catch us desperately in need of some time to spend with ourselves. Although oriental practices promoting self-dialogue are being “imported” into western culture, we tend to engage in activities that develop outward. Methods of distracting one from the everyday chores, such play and entertainment have developed, according to Kracauer, only to blind us. For they allow people to loose themselves into the realm of fiction and alternatives they get our minds engage into yet another activity that still has a purpose and is not closer to boredom, than work. Moreover, with easy access to technology we are experiencing today, we gain the opportunity and duty to make our own news, give our contribution, express our opinions for the public interest, thus possibly adding another layer from us and our own beings.
For my generation finding oneself into boredom and meaningless work is not only counterintuitive, but more importantly is a waste of precious time. For boredom equals not thinking and meaningless work is possibly moving through life in circles, we are (or at least I am) trained to avoid these two terms as best as we can. As planners and schedules highlight not what we need to do, but they foster panic attacks at any sight of those horrific blanch spots that need to be filled; for us the image of letting go of everything but our one person simply does not compute. In fact, meaning less work is possibly conceived as an activity that has not got you to the point you wanted to in the allotted amount of time you devoted to the cause. Whereas, boredom seems to arouse whenever we are not doing something we either would like or are forced to do. As we, artists-wannabe, are trained to be productive and to push boundaries and limits of mental and physical state, we focus on producing and expressing ideas, without allowing ourselves to nourish and appreciating our human condition that we praise as boring and meaning less.
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Ryan Kreuscher
ReplyDeleteIn today’s society we often find ourselves waiting. Waiting in lines, waiting for others, waiting for things to load on our computer. The newest and most powerful form of the art movement today is waiting. This waiting however is not in service of obtaining something. The waiting should be done to serve no purpose at all. Waiting on a street corner watching the cross walks change from a crossing signal to a non-crossing signal, is one example of a way in which we can exercise our artistic views on waiting. Not crossing the street when the signal turns green and simply waiting. If there is a goal in the waiting, such as just waiting for the signal to change and then crossing, then it cannot be considered an artistic movement. The artist must find ways to wait that do not serve the purpose of then obtaining something after the waiting. Another form of waiting would be navigating to random pages on line and waiting for them to load. The pages must not be in service of an end goal, they cannot actually serve as research or entertainment for the artist. Calling a taxi and waiting for it to arrive only to tell it you no longer need it’s services, or choosing a destination that only serves as a place for you to walk back from, is another form of this ideal that waiting can be an artistic movement. Showing the absurdity of how our society is constantly in this state of waiting. We as a generation seem to always be waiting for something, waiting for change, waiting for others, waiting for a movement. Why not then take the very thing that we are doing, and turn that into the movement. A mass group of people sits on the steps of town hall. People passing by assume they are waiting for something, when in fact the very point they are making is in the fact that they are waiting. There becomes an interesting form of play involved when the object of the play is to do nothing. To wait, and use that as a way to convey your message and comment on today’s society. Waiting can be done in public or on your own. Sit in a chair in your room, and wait. Go outside and wait on a bench. Waiting can be fulfilling because the duration of the wait is up to the artist. The wait can be a few minutes, or a few hours, or even days. There is no set time limit on waiting. You can find ways to pass your time while you wait, but you must not loose sight of the fact that you are still in this state of waiting. Going to a sporting event or watching television can not be considered forms of waiting, because even though you might not be waiting for the game to end or the show to be over, there is still a set duration of the wait that is being controlled by some outside force. The waiting can have a prescribed start and end time, but again, it must not correspond to another event happening simultaneously. Waiting is the new way to show our society’s need to constantly be in a state of limbo, in an in-between, and in a place of nothingness.
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ReplyDeleteAs I was reading “The Case for Working with Your Hands” written by Crawford, I felt relieved. While still acknowledging the importance of academic learning and training, Crawford pointed out the “pervasive anxiety among parents that there is only one track to success for their children.” The higher the degree is, the more successful or profitable lives would more likely be guaranteed. However, all of these theoretical trainings are illusory. “…in schools, we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement. Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged.” Crawford believed that hands on/manual/skilled work was authentic and thus became the essence.
ReplyDelete“Many of us work that feels more surreal than real. Working in an office, you often find it difficult to see any tangible result from your efforts.” (Crawford) Looking at the current educational system, I have always trying to figure out the reason for us to go to the school. Was it even meaningful to me? Institutions surly gain us higher knowledge and skills, but somehow I felt I have been limited. Looking at the artwork I had done when I was younger, even though they were somewhat naïve and rough, they seemed to be more authentic, energetic, and creative. The childlike originality was obliterated.
“A good job requires a field of action where you can put your best capacities to work and see an effect in the world. Academic credentials do not guarantee this.” (Crawford) In the years studying industrial design at CCA, I become more and more confused about the things I was and am doing. On one hand, I did not understand why to put so much energy and effort RE-design something that did not seem to need being redesigned. I would rather try to design better lives which I valued rather than merely satisfying the sponsors of the projects. On the other hand, even though in ID, we have a lot of sketching and modeling work which required a huge amount of labor, I still did not feel I have grasped something concrete. I honored Crawford’s idea that “actually making it” would make us face the reality and be rational. Nevertheless, since what we did were basically still “mock-ups” that we “pretend” it will work, I have always been terrified that how our products would “survive” once entering into the real world. We seem to have the promised and probably profitable future, but the truth is, with such heavy work load without really gaining real experiences, we could not even feel tangible about ourselves.
While Crawford was analyzing the relationships between theoretical and practical, Diedrichsen was categorizing and comparing the two worlds of artistic productions—the expensive post-bourgeoisie world consisted with auratic objects and the cheap proletariat production done by the artists who put their talent on the performances. The following are two links to the video showing the “artistic skills” for the Japanese rushing in the morning to work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pYuYWNjqCM
In this first video, the character aimed to use only 5 minutes from waking up to the point when he stepped outside of his house. He has developed several methods to shorten the time needed for the routines such as getting dressed, cleaned, and preparing for the breakfast.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQm2rC1L95I&feature=related
Similar to the first video, in this one the housewife/mother tried to get her child ready for school in just 5 minutes. Both these videos showed innovations of the methods and continuously practicing them.
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