Datum der Aufzeichnung: 11.04.2014

Ort: TQW / Studios

Im Rahmen von: IDLENESS. A lazy concept of a lecture series (Curated by Krassimira Kruschkova)

Selbstdisziplinlosigkeit oder: Von der Kunst, das Nächstbeste vorzuziehen

Idleness is difficult. Perhaps, however, freedom awaits me less in the rejection of work than in the relaxing of the self-discipline demanded by the post-Fordist working day. Our luxurious suffering under »overwork«, which in comparison to the situation in the cheap-labour countries appears almost cynical, does not after all come from the actions themselves, but from the necessity of internalizing work discipline: nobody apart from me myself can compel me to do what one has to do to be successful. And the fear of not managing that sufficiently accompanies me into my sleep. So how do I rid myself of this self-discipline? And can contemporary art help me in this if artists have become the involuntary model for the post-Fordist »work performers«?

would you lay with me (in a field of stone)*

In a society that defines itself principally through profit, performance and success it can easily happen that one loses oneself and becomes superfluous. This is why like-minded people are needed, someone like Getrude Stein, who once said, It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around doing nothing, really doing nothing. In her search for allies, Barbara Kraus also encounters John Cage and Ilija Trojanow, who prove to be quarrelsome companions when it concerns understanding moments of standstill and refusal as a subversive act against dehumanised, immeasurably voracious turbocapitalism. What is to be done when everything has already been said anyway and words no longer have any weight and no necessity?

*Songtitel American III:

Solitary Man, Johnny Cash

Kai van Eikels is currently visiting professor for dance and theatre studies at the Free University of Berlin. The focus of his research is on dynamic collective forms, art and work, and the politics of participation. Theory blog: http://kunstdeskollektiven.wordpress.com

Barbara Kraus creates performances and texts concerned with the question of artistic design possibilities for a sustainable, lifesupporting future. In her life-art performance dream and walk about, in five months in 2012 she crossed the whole Alpine arc from Vienna to the Cote d’Azur on foot. www.barbarakraus.at