Reclaiming Idleness

Reclaiming Idleness explores the dialogue between physical and digital built environments to question the fortification of a polarised post-information society. Personal data from mobile applications are tools to predict behaviours with personalised user interfaces. These interfaces are designed to define an individual’s exposure to information by predicting whether the content would be enjoyable to the user. This project unravels how algorithms have interfered with our idleness. In the 20th century, to do nothing meant you did not conform to societies economies; a true act of anarchy. Today, nothingness no longer exists. What we deemed to be idle is the most expensive data asset in the world. This project is an audio visual film that represents this technology as an educational piece by merging both our reality and digital footprint into a forensic world to question the premise of how idleness can be used as a tool for political agency.

Anabel Garcia-Kurland (UK/ES)
Anabel is a London-based architect, artist and music producer who focuses on the dialogue between physical and digital spatial practice. Co-founder of Passionfruit Studios, her research embodies the use of VR, sound design, creative coding and multi-disciplinary tools to explore her interests in aestheticising the intangible political impacts from digital ecologies. Her projects have explored efficient heat-reuse in Arctic data centres, horology farming, digital archiving of skin and biopolitics in filtered data. She has been featured as a rising artist in Sir Jony Ive’s curation of “Optimistic, Singular and new” and in I-D magazines “Global Design show”. She has tutored for Store projects and is currently a technical tutor for the RCA environmental architecture programs. Her most recent work with artist Helene Kazan will be featured at the Vera list Centre in New York, alongside her contributions with the Het Nieuwe Instituut ‘Lithium’ exhibition in Rotterdam.