Binding: Paperback
Description: 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.
Title: Digital Lethargy Dispatches From An Age Of Disconnection
Author(s): Hu Tung - Hui
Publisher: Mit Press Ltd
Barcode: 9780262548373
Pages: 288 Pages, 22 Black And White Illus.
Publication Date: 3/5/2024
Category: Technology: General Issues