“The contemporary compulsion to produce robs things of their endurance ...
it intentionally erodes duration in order to increase production, to force
more consumption. Lingering, however, presupposes things that endure.
If things are merely used up and consumed, there can be no lingering.
And the same compulsion of production destabilizes life by undermining
what is enduring in life. Thus, despite the fact that life expectancy
is increasing, production is destroying life’s endurance.”
— Byung-Chul Han
To really map productivity it is important to know that the idea
of constant production or consumption is capitalist in nature.
The more we produce, the more value is generated and that benfits
capitalist forces to continue extracting value and goods.
Our compulsion to always be "on" and keep producing comes from
the need to satisfy these forces and in the process leads to
loss of endurance and lingering in life.
Stephanie Choi looks to Jonathan Crary, who maps the demonisation
of sleep throughout Western thought; “ within capitalism, the sleep
is the realm of human experience that cannot be monetized towards
production or consumption. Sleep, then, can be seen as a form of
resistance to 24/7 capitalism — our era in which globalisation
necessitates continual access to both our attention and our working day”
In this project, I map my productivity through this lens and broaden my own
understanding of what I consider productive in my life as part of everyday.
The moments of linger and sleep became central to this plotting as all
time not spent actively working is not not productive.