Below is the full excerpt written by me for the Preface from the publication, ‘A Condition We Cannot Escape.’
Capitalism has encroached into every facet of our lives. Our ecologies are collapsing. Wealth and power are held at the hands of a few. Wages are stagnant. Social safety nets are non-existent. The idea of community has been destroyed.
We. Must. Be. Productive. Every minute must be monetised. If it is not commercially viable it must be sacrificed. We’re all burnt out. And apparently we’ve all got to worry about AI taking over?! Give us a fucking break.
It feels as if we’re stuck in a condition that we cannot escape. Doesn’t it?
What you are about to read is a document of five conversations between myself and my friends; all of whom are engaged in different kinds of labour within the creative industry. It is a record of the frantic discussions we’re all engaged in. All the time. About everything that is happening. All at once. Together, these dialogues construct a portrait of each of us in relation to the state of things in the world we currently inhabit.
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While constructing the visual form of these dialogues, it became important to preserve the idiosyncratic qualities of each conversation.
Conversations are messy, layered and contradictory. Often, we interrupt ourselves and each other with new trains of thought. We may leave several points unfinished, only to later go back to them. Many parallel conversations may take place within the wider conversation. And a conversation that took place at another time may leak into one that you’re currently having.
The spatial organisation of text on each page is therefore informed by diagrammatic compositions that mirror the dynamic cadence of the ongoing, unresolved nature of thoughts shared through dialogue.
Repetitive systems, immediacy and smoothness are qualities that have been deemed desirable due to Graphic Design’s designated role as a tool for commodification under capitalism. In which case, friction and ‘aesthetic discomfort can also be a position of liberation,’ (Krishnamurthy, 2021). Visualising conversations that are largely critiquing the state of creative labour under capitalism, it seemed congruous to introduce such friction. Friction that preserves complexity and allows you to pause, engage and take your time with conversations that are difficult to have.
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Inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s, The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction (2019), I originally conceived this book as a carrier bag:
‘The shape of a book might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold things. They bear meanings… In a particular, powerful relation to one another and to us.
Conflict, competition, stress, struggle, etc., within a narrative conceived as a carrier bag, may be seen as necessary elements of a whole, which itself cannot be characterised either as conflict or as harmony, since it’s purpose is neither resolution nor stasis but continuing process,’ (ibid., p. 34-35).
Le Guin disputes the importance of murderous tools in our histories such as the spear, the swords and the arrows in favour of the carrier bag. She retells a story of our history as early humans; as gatherers before hunters (ibid.). While it emphasises a less violent story of our histories, unfortunately, even this imagination does not go untainted within our present condition. As what tool is more abundant today than the plastic carrier bag? The ones that fill up our oceans and landfills. Well. Let’s keep that to one side for now.
Unlike the singular trajectories that spears and arrows represent, the carrier bag symbolises a variety of things, all tangled with one another, all existing at the same time. Rejecting the linear, slick, streamlined ways in which we conceive time, history and the stories we tell, a carrier bag narrative doesn’t aim to tell stories of heroes in a series of conflicts, victories and neat conclusions. Instead, it leaves room for the messy simultaneous contradictions we find ourselves faced with in our realities, our day to day experiences and our conversations.
As it does for Le Guin, the carrier bag approach is an attempt to ground myself in our shared existence, ‘in human culture in a way I never felt grounded before,’ (ibid.: p. 30). The process of understanding the state of our realities needs to be grounded in collective understanding. And that requires us to relinquish simple narratives, satisfying conclusions and solutions in favour of a multiplicity of trajectories and possibilities.
Through conversation, I construct an entangled – admittedly limited – carrier bag to record the chaotic condition we find ourselves in. This is a continuous process that may not necessarily neatly tie up every loose end. It is an excerpt of a permanently ongoing discussion of what is and what could be.
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Finally, I want to acknowledge that my project is not trying to identify and solve everything that is wrong with capitalism. It would be incredibly stupid for any one individual to claim the ability to do so. I don’t believe that every endeavour must follow a specific path that leads to a tidy resolution. Foreseeing a resolution assumes that every question has a correct answer. It assumes that a singular and conclusive solution is always desirable. What is even worse is to engage only with questions where the path to resolution can be preemptively laid out. What happens then to issues that cannot be immediately solved? Do we simply place them in a plastic carrier bag? One that can be tied up, binned and quickly relegated to an obsolescent matter of the past.
The point is, I feel compelled to gather these conversations because I have the opportunity to learn how people think, feel and cope with the world.
‘The difficulty in imagining a direction for change results from a virtually complete colonisation of the imaginary on the part of commercial culture… But perhaps another reason is because it is still early days’, (Arvidsson, 2019: p. 2).
When everything has been subsumed by the throes capitalism, including our feelings of hope and our ability to imagine alternative ways of being, it can be valuable to meaningfully engage with each other as we figure out what is actually going on.
As we stand at the precipice of a future that is quickly approaching us, sifting through the clutter of the present may be able to reveal potential threads that lead to some of the many possibilities and eventualities. And perhaps we might want to ask ourselves if any of the eventualities that are most likely to emerge are in any way desirable to us.
References:
Arvidsson, A. (2019) Changemakers. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Krishnamurthy, P. (2021) On Bumpiness, In Letters. [Recorded Lecture].
Le Guin, U. K. [1988] (2019) The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. Ignota Books.