Description
Die Zeichen stehen gut
<em>The Signs are good</em>
Post-industrial society has lost its grip on notions of work, rest and leisure. The rise of immaterial labour has been met with a growing optimisation of the individual, a continuous variable with multiple presences and temporalities. The prevalencetide of mixed, private-professional engagement forces us to be always, all ways, switched on. What does this mean for our intimate lives, our privacy and our integrity? Our needs and desires are changing, as are our values. Well, the <em>signs</em>, the prospects, the indications <em>are good</em>. Good for what, for whom? Ask the objects that surround us, that serve us and distract us on a daily basis. Objects that perform so that we can too. They help us tend to our delicate, docile bodies so we can stay in the race, multi-tasking and mobile. Carefully compartmentalised, even our tears are ergonomic these days. Kinesio tape on the shoulder replaces a warm hand, a touch helping us keep it together. As technologies of self-regulation and -exploitation are condensed and dispersed through our mental, emotion and physical lives, we’d better stay on the good side of these gadgets and tools.
Miriam Stoney
