The unobserved worker is an inefficient one. That’s one rule of Taylorism, a management theory that aims to increase efficiency. Frederick Winslow Taylor tracked workers’ movements in the late 19th century and regimented workflows through „performance monitoring“.
Nowadays, workplace performance is monitored through a variety of methods, technologies and reward systems. But what happens when a pandemic turns our home into our work place? How do we deal with the employers’ desire to observe and control our work in our homes?
Home is where the work is ¯\(ツ)/¯ was commissioned by Cornelius Puschke for 100 new words for home a lecture performance series in seven parts that took place from May 2022 to February 2023 at Literutarforum im Brechthaus. In the series, seven artists examined the concept of home in a performative manner, creating perspectives on the places where people eat, drink and sleep every day. The series focuses on a place that was once associated with peace, intimacy and security and that in recent years has become the scene of an accelerated present. So-called home technologies, the containment measures of the corona pandemic, flight and expulsion due to wars as well as the pressing energy and climate issues are all directly linked to what is described, at least in German, by the term home.
With Antonia Baehr, Steven Solbrig, Sebastian Schmieg, Franziska Pierwoss & Siska, Nava Ebrahimi, !Mediengruppe Bitnik & Senthuran Varatharajah