The deadline as future fetish

Fotokopiergerätfitness, performance intervention, 2011 [1]

'Über Maschinen konnte man zwar mit jedem Winkel der Erde kommunizieren und es war die Rede davon, dass es bald möglich wäre, ohne Körper zu reisen.'[2]

This is one strand of research, which imagines the quaint practices that must have been necessary in the early 21st century for the human body to perform menial office tasks. So mannequin-esque figures either limber up, warming their muscles before using the photocopier, or they flex their biceps and their neck, ready to hold a phone. These figures are positioned in the center of attention, unsure static specimens. Sometimes there is a pre-recorded lecture read out by a computerised voice. The performances are awkward, immobile and tense. It's low volt sci-fi, a dirth of imagination about future possibilities coupled with fantastic fetish for yesteryear's body.

System Voice Victoria Monologue, 2062 (sic):

Listen to the lecture here: [3]

Normally I would connect with you via a sub-screen, but I thought it better considering our topic today to appear a variation in meat. We think / interestingly enough, did you know that the etymology of the word meeting came from this - Like the old-time meetings – fleshy juice bags? People rubbing up together. I got that from unter-wiki. Before the great Wikipedia war. we used to come by that kind of knowledge a lot easier. Illogical sentences. Did you know... sorry, of course this doesn’t make sense to you at all. It’s a tick. Let me do this in the old fashioned way... (hahahahahha haha no of course not a piece of paper.) I mean. try to speak in a linear fashion.

So I'll just speak a quote by Boltanski and Chiapello, from The New Spirit of Capitalism, which came out in 2005... and although that might seem trite now, as it’s over 50 years ago, I think it’s a relevant access point to start to understand today’s topics...

'Great men do not stand still. Little men remain rooted to the spot. It is by moving around that great men create new links. It is by remaining where they are that little people lose their potentially most profitable links.'

We can understand this incessant moving in it’s antiquated sense, in terms of spatial mobility, but we should also consider it within the more modern concept of mobility within a network.

The mobility of the ‘high flyer’ is cited as the first stage in the meat-to-meta process. This started in the late 20th century. The ‘high flyer’ seems to be a common term used to signify those that stepped onto a mechanical contraption called a plane. I mean, we might laugh at it nowadays, but these people were considered incredibly successful. At first - it was just business executives flying here and there, doing deals, setting up connections, but very soon, actors from other walks of life, known as gallerists, curators, and artists all got in on the act. (I think these terms are relevant to today’s meating?) Mobility was a transition from one location to another. It was a change in physical space. We understand that the people of this eera red Boltanski and Chiapello, and thought that this mobility made them ‘great’.

((ASIDE: My mother was actually one of those ‘Artists’! I know, I know, nowadays that’s like saying – my mother was a human being... but that was in the transition period. In the beginning, the terminology was applied only to a select few. Later, the sanctioned ones started to call other chosen sections of society ‘Artists’ – for example: prisoners, clowns, labourers... eventually, the word was claimed by every global member, and being an artist became a pre-requisite for being alive. Of course, at that point, the expression faded out of it’s specialized usage, denoting, as it does today – a person not out of the ordinary.))

I recently unearthed one of mum’s diaries, let me just speak? you a paragraph:

This year I flew to art Basel, then on to the Venice Biennale, then on to Performa New York... but although all this travelling ensured my trademark glasses, my frizzy hair and my funny face were seen in global art events, I’m not sure it brought many outcomes... in fact, I suspect I might just be an art tourist.

We think that this bodily presence in various locations must have worked to build social capital, and that somehow, it must have been possible for it to be converted into money. We are not really sure how this worked... it seems to have been an ambiguous process to say the least. But at that time, social capital differed from financial capital in that it didn’t have its own autonomy - for social capital to be potent, the actor had to be present. This must have been a ‘real drag’, and as my old mum used to say:

I can hardly get my mate in London to go to the serpentine gallery, meet Hans Ulrich Olbrist, and hold up their I phone, so I can have a nice chat with him, can I?.

((For those of you not so linked into art history, Hans Ulrich Olbrist seemed to have been famous for organising marathons for artists and forgetting to show up at his own events.))

Social capital was therefore a bit inadequate if the person was not physically there, the interaction apparently could not take place in meta-space – rather in meat-space, that was, of course until the time that technology upgraded itself, and made the virtual/actual duality a thing of the past. (smile welcomingly)

We can see a parallel between the initial understanding of social capital and the time before labourers were separated from their labour. A person, with her skill to produce this early social capital, needed to be in the event location, hence the pressure to get around a lot, and hence this idea that success was coupled with movement.

If we transpose this idea of ‘being great’ on contemporary times, we can see that it still holds valid. Functioning well in a connectionist world that relies on ever-new technology means successfully building links to others and forging relations. In the past, as today, these links resulted in profit – whether that was monetary or social, although today of course we make no such distinction.

A person is indistinguishable from a node. The central point in a network of connections. Success is measured not only in number of connections, but in perceived value of connection and meta-proximity - an idea that appeared mysterious to early internet users.

If I can poach from mum’s diary again:

I have 863 friends on facebook, but people who view my page either think I'm in a band, or that I'm a facebook slut?

The quality of association has – thankfully - since become a more legitimated, tradeable concept.

Of course people still get together (roll eyes) Initially, there was a dispute as to whether artists had first struck upon the idea of: 'The Experience'. as a memorable and changing event provided for an audience, or whether capitalism had seized on. 'the experience'. in order to generate profit.

Artists jumped from buildings, shot themselves, and sat at tables, staring at visitors. They had an idea of an authentic, provocative act. Of course nowadays, this seems arbitrary– why would people get together if the event had not been planned and managed online beforehand? An unorganised meeting – what in olden days used to be called ‘bumping into someone’ sounds unbearably painful. By the 2020’s this ‘on-the off-chance’ was considered both inefficient and laughable.

Businesses also at first aimed to produce authentic experiences for consumers, but this idea very quickly became outmoded. Market research departments gathered their feedback, and realized that a simulated experience was just as profitable as an authentic one... and nobody really gave a fuck about the veracity anyhow.

It was far more important what kind of subjective experience one had had... and all in all, it was ravenously desired.

People became so addicted to this exciting subjectivity, that it became the main mode of consumption. The norms of everyday life that people had say, pre 2022 fell away, and now we are either online or at a profit-managed event. Other kinds of social interaction just seem a pointless waste of time.

Those proclaimed artists tried to cope with a kind of guilt that arose during this transitory phase. They pigeonholed themselves as being the forerunners of a trend of total entrepreneurship, demonized themselves as instigators of the hyper-service economy and chastised themselves; claiming that business had followed their lead of immediate, ever-ready flexibility in their work.

We have to take these worries seriously, without applying, as we are wont to do, the stereotype of historical naivee tee. In any case, the figure of the pre-post-modernist artist is idealized. ‘He’. oh – and I know that gender sounds strange to our ears, unfortunately that’s how pre-21st century global members termed it. Before gender roles totally changed, making the male figure quaint and fundamentally inaccessible to contemporary society. lol lol lol lollol. ‘He’ was able to achieve catharsis through his work: passion, irritation, emotional involvement built up and up and finally... EXPLODED! in a work of art that left him spent, prostrate, happy - sleepily smoking a cigarette.

We do, however, look wistfully at these past concerns. Some of their worries or pressures seem to actually have had beneficial effects.

Aesthetic stimulation has become more and more prevalent, but this stimulation does not lead to any form of release as people used to know it, it’s an endless tickling. This has made us terribly desensitized.

Unfortunately, nowadays, the build up that used to lead to release has vanished. It used to be found in many forms: project based work, real-time event planning, the creation of art. In these times, all work is process based and bought from us in little segments of time. It is the amount of time, rather than the completion of the task, which is bought and sold... Although these small performance segments fill us with a sense of responsibility, we know that the performer is ultimately interchangeable - each person being as creative and as capable of spending 20 minutes as any other. We are always aware though, that we can not see the big virtual picture (which is literally infinite) that our work fits into.

The historical notion of an office space, where workers sat together, is now romanticized. We are also really interested in this idea of ‘the deadline’. In a time before work was depersonalized, ‘a deadline’ must have been a wonderful bodily experience! As the notion of ‘a deadline’ has grown more obscure, it has also come to be fetishized. We believe that the rush to complete the task had an erotic effect on the workers, culminating in that little known, olden-day phenomenon: the orgasm.

Some historians and manifesters today aim to recreate the lived experience of these old-world deadlines. This is, however, a slightly illicit and frowned upon activity. Interested global citizens can visit a real (not online) museum, where they experience being given an office task that must be completed within a certain- what seems to us – very long timeframe. Here, people can hope to achieve through the bygone impositions of slow, methodical, linear work, the intense bodily pleasure we have lost today.

What is really interesting about comparing the two ages, is the way that personality has changed.

Like every economy, it has privileged certain personality traits and quite literally devalued others. Early 21st century wo/man may have found some of the shifts surprising, as what were once considered disabilities are now advantages. For example, former A.D.D. sufferers are the most capable of functioning in a ciber-space that is a fully lived everyday reality. They were more adapted towards splitting their attention into small pieces, and had the right streamlining for the requirements of speed of information and processing.

Those more territorial people have suffered through the changes. As flexibility and disaffiliation became positive norms, the people who enjoyed the traditional property rights of monogamous relationships and established, permanent, local roots simply couldn’t cope. It was found that these more territorial people had huge problems with progressive ciber-mobilities. They used the internet as if it was like living in a hamlet... two mate’s houses, one porn shop and the local off-ee. But in any case, these people didn't seem to have a high intelligence - buying cars to drive to work; driving to work to pay for their cars. People stopped buying houses or even letting as they needed to be where the opportunities were. In the end, before the great meat-to-meta switch, they were simply renting rooms for the night.

Those semi-open or long distance relationships that were once very fashionable began to die out... The problem was, that a) people could not focus their ever dwindling attention spans for any extended time, and b) the inability to simply ‘navigate away’ from a partner became an intolerable proposition. Aesthetic over-stimulation led to a numbing of the nervous system, making the body unresponsive, and orgasm near impossible... and in any case, the person doing the rubbing or licking often got distracted half way through and wandered off to check their inbox.

Most people, however, have adapted to these new demands; ‘actual’ physicality has become less and less important as the abstraction of labour progressed, and the old-fashioned human rights associated with the needs and comforts of the body died away. In their place grew a politicise ayshon of time and attention.

Nowadays, attention is a resource that we use as a political tool. We direct and control it as far as we can, because we know that attention is measurable and valuable. Many tests have been carried out to try to increase the level of information processing, but although we can increase the length of time an organism is exposed to information, it seems that the experience cannot be intensified beyond a certain limit.

It appears gross to us now, but in the past, people would use their whole bodies to operate machines. It is approximated, for example, that to use a photocopier, a human had to activate over 500 muscles. We can only imagine the physical preparation they needed to perform such a task. Moreover, at the same time, humans were also required to have conscious and emotional reactions to stimuli. On the one site, we are overawed at earlier wo/man’s capabilities. On the other site, we are disgusted. Imagine! Just answering an email relied on factors such as context, headspace, guilt, enthusiasm for the subject, duty, and much much more.

Now that automatism is the prevalent form of reaction to stimuli, we are freed of such burdens. Thank Jobs.

But looking at the past always leaves us curious. What was this thing, the body? This museum specimin does not provide many clues. The traditions of yesteryear confound us. We will perhaps never know why people climbed into all sorts of moving, metal, objects, in order to experience the ecstasy of vomiting, into little, paper bags.

Research continues. Thank you for your attention. Clap clap clap.

(text from performance lecture given at The Meter Room, Coventry, 2012 & Piet Zwart, Rotterdam, 2012)