“Bataille distinguishes between two types of play, strong and weak. In a society in which utility has become the dominant principle only weak play is deemed acceptable…Strong play, by contrast, cannot be reconciled with the principle of work and production. It puts life itself at risk.” Byung-Chul Han, The Disappearance of Rituals.

FULL-TIME is an installation and performance in three acts, responding to the Hall of Immortals and Hall of Murals at IMSS. It examines the relationship between bodies and labor, drawing from records of OSHA fatalities and a worker’s compensation taxonomy enumerating the category codes of sixty-two discrete body parts.

In a society of production the individual becomes an instrument of capital. Our physical and mental labors often constitute senseless acts, divorced from immanent human meaning, in service of an abstract and disembodied logic that presents itself as inevitable. Our bodies erode from these repetitive motions, become defined by the acts they perform, the value these acts yield. Even outside the sphere of work we orient our actions, values, and leisure activities through a lens of logic and utility. What is sovereignty outside the mandate of value?

Across video, sound, interactive technology, and physical performance, FULL-TIME explores the brittle bio- and psychopolitics governing life and labor today. Deliberately misapplying numerous stochastic algorithms and artificial intelligence models to original footage and bureaucratic datasets, FULL-TIME charts the collapses underway and the unknown states that might follow.

FULL-TIME was created as part of Li and Usher’s ongoing audiovisual collaboration Post Consumer Material.

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X. A. Li is an artist and computer scientist based in Chicago. Using video, sound, text, and software, she creates installations and performances excavating contemporary systems of power by applying dominant technologies in atypical ways. She has exhibited, performed, and given talks across the United States and internationally, including recent presentations at the Chicago Humanities Festival, Experimental Sound Studio, Public Space One, The Wrong Biennale, CURRENTS New Media Festival, Elastic Arts Foundation, the Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago, Woman Made Gallery, Mana Contemporary, and the Stamps Gallery at the University of Michigan. She holds an M.S. from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where her research focused on generative artificial intelligence, and a B.A. from the University of Chicago.

estlin usher is a sound artist and composer based out of Chicago, IL, USA, working with field recording, abstract synthesis, electro-acoustic techniques, and complex sample manipulation to create immersive and evocative listening environments. estlin’s work explores the sound of objects in the world, found sound, extant media, and how they relate to history, politics, and concepts beyond the traditional notion of music, sound, and noise.

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Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/full-time-performance-by-post-consumer-material-tickets-961908683767

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Tags: Estlin Usher, FULL-TIME, International Museum of Surgical Science, Post Consumer Material, Post Consumer Material "FULL-TIME", X. A. Li