The exhaustion, disappointment, and listlessness experienced under digital capitalism, explored through works by contemporary artists, writers, and performers.
Sometimes, interacting with digital platforms, we want to be passive—in those moments of dissociation when we scroll mindlessly rather than connecting with anyone, for example, or when our only response is a shrugging “lol.” Despite encouragement by these platforms to “be yourself,” we want to be anyone but ourselves. Tung-Hui Hu calls this state of exhaustion, disappointment, and listlessness digital lethargy. This condition permeates our lives under digital capitalism, whether we are “users,” who are what they click, or racialized workers in Asia and the Global South. Far from being a state of apathy, however, lethargy may hold the potential for social change.
Hu explores digital lethargy through a series of works by contemporary artists, writers, and performers. These dispatches from the bleeding edge of digital culture include a fictional dystopia where low-wage Mexican workers laugh and emote for white audiences; a group that invites lazy viewers to strap their Fitbits to a swinging metronome, faking fitness and earning a discount on their health insurance premiums; and a memoir of burnout in an Amazon warehouse. These works dwell within the ordinariness and even banality of digital life, redirecting our attention toward moments of thwarted agency, waiting and passing time. Lethargy, writes Hu, is a drag: it weighs down our ability to rush to solutions, and forces us to talk about the unresolved present.
5 有用 Prunus d 2022-11-12 00:59:55 美国
把“电子疲劳”这个现象的表层刮开,进行了一番诠释——电子设计的一大assumption就是人的选择,人的活动,人的连接,是一种对自主性的神话。但这样的追求的另一面则是 lethargy,没有选择,大部分时间不活跃。作者比较大胆的一点是把这种活跃与非活跃状态和当下的电子劳工问题结合起来了,反正我们都是无往不在枷锁之中对吧……实证基本无,而是一系列对于艺术展示的诠释,扣一分
1 有用 廖芜 2023-06-18 05:16:37 美国
电子疲劳,以疲劳写非西方自由话语下的非反抗可遗忘的自我。在这种不选择不回答不应对的疲劳状态下,人和server的区隔被模糊, “Everyone is becoming a service; they just don’t know it yet.” 作者是英语系的教授,写作内容也都是艺术文本的分析,不过和他之前的prehisotry of cloud放在一起倒是能看到一些隐约的发展脉络。