#467 Quiet Quitting

Quiet Quitting is an individualised work-to-rule tactic that implies working only the bare minimum required and solely engaging in work-related activities within defined work hours. The phrase doesn’t mean literally quitting but rather prioritising well-being over organisational goals. It became popular in 2022 in the United States, mainly through the social video platform TikTok. Even if Quiet Quitting isn’t a political movement, it can still be viewed as discontent with capitalist, neoliberal demands to maximise personal efforts to secure career advancement and economic benefits at the cost of social community, solidarity and environmental sustainability.

This work is done by pushing small pebbles found outside my studio through the wet filler with a scrape.

This work is part of a small series I call Resistance. They recall different work-related ways of protesting against difficult working conditions. But they also reflect a more general discontent with capitalist ideology and a refusal to be a productive member of the consumerist society.

In Swedish, there is an expression of throwing pebbles into the machine [kasta grus i maskineriet], which means sabotaging something by being difficult or introducing complications. We are all pushed along by the relentless machinery of capitalism, but by not complying with every command and pressing our heels in the dirt, we can at least produce some discernible traces. Ultimately, it might slow it down or create a possibility for change.

Res Ipsa is a compilation of works made by an act shaping the filler once it is prepared inside the frame. The works thus function as a recording device and give a statement of the event taking place while the filler was still wet.

Res Ipsa is Latin for "the thing itself" and is part of the juridical term "Res ipsa loquitur" (the thing speaks for itself), used when an injury or accident in itself clearly shows who is responsible, such as an instrument left inside a body after surgery.