The boudoir, the desk & the couch : Histories, practices and speculations on labour

6. Is it a strike?

This chapter re-writes the last chapter within the times of global lockdown. The couch signifies exhaustion but also unwillingness/resistance to work, it functions as a symbol of unproductiveness, inactivity and a state of suspension that is always preceding any revolutionary “awakening”.

Image reference: https://twitter.com/PiersatPenn/status/925536035693580288

 

References:

01’08”   Fifth Harmony “Work from Home”

02’59”  Herman Melville, Bartleby, The Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street, 1853 read by Jo Willoughby

05’20”  Mariah Carey “A No No”

06’55”  Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism, 1891 read by Tracy Hanna

08’23”  Nas ft. Lauryn Hill “If I ruled the world” 

10’39”  Clip from StarTrek “First Contact”, 1996

12’34”  Clip from German government advert, 2020 

13’48”  Oasis “Importance of Being Idle” 

15’20” Clip from Matthew Fuller, Son[i]a #245,  2017 

16’45”  Quoted from Anne Boyer, The Undying, 2019 p. 81

17’30”  Quoted from Schaffner Anna Katharina,  Exhaustion: A History, 2016  p.139

17’48”  Quoted from Anne Boyer, The Undying, 2019 p. 34

18’28”  Gabrielle “Dreams” (Original Bootleg 12inch Mix) 

 

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