Michael Pigott, “The Image of Sleep,” Performance Research 21 (1), 2016: 94-100
"Sleep also presents a stubborn reminder
of our temporal, cyclical, physical, organic
nature. We are no longer labouring, consuming
machines when we sleep, yet it is also an
occasion to ‘recharge’ for another day’s labouring
and consumption." p.94
"The number and range of
personal devices, social networks and cultural
texts that call out to be engaged with offer less
of an increase in leisure possibilities than an
increase in external claims on our time." p.94
On the one hand, the 'go-getter' who forgoes sleep in order to work harder and longer, is praised. On the other hand, we are told to get adequate and sufficient sleep in order to be productive beings for capitalism.
"To sleep is to be particularly
vulnerable to deception, a passive and prone
condition wherein we are subject to being both
physically and psychologically manipulated
and exploited." p.96
Jean-Luc Nancy - sleep equalizes us because everyone must sleep, and in sleep we forget ourselves p.97 "The transition from sleep to
wakefulness is a process of recognition of the
difference of oneself from the rest of the world,
a remembering of who one is and what one’s
place in that world is." p.97
"In sleep we relinquish our
control, and as Nancy would have it, our self.
It is in this respect profoundly anti-capitalist.
It is an escape from ideology, even if the
surrounds and structures within which we allow ourselves to be taken by sleep are profoundly
influenced by the class and ideological position
in which we find ourselves." p.98-99
“The image of the sleeping body, in its brute simplicity, in its unwavering uselessness, constitutes a vital affront to the instrumentalisation of the body within contemporary capitalist culture and the intensively commodified, rationalised everyday of the twenty-first century.” (Pigott, 2016: 100)
"Sleep also presents a stubborn reminder
of our temporal, cyclical, physical, organic
nature. We are no longer labouring, consuming
machines when we sleep, yet it is also an
occasion to ‘recharge’ for another day’s labouring
and consumption." p.94
"The number and range of
personal devices, social networks and cultural
texts that call out to be engaged with offer less
of an increase in leisure possibilities than an
increase in external claims on our time." p.94
On the one hand, the 'go-getter' who forgoes sleep in order to work harder and longer, is praised. On the other hand, we are told to get adequate and sufficient sleep in order to be productive beings for capitalism.
"To sleep is to be particularly
vulnerable to deception, a passive and prone
condition wherein we are subject to being both
physically and psychologically manipulated
and exploited." p.96
Jean-Luc Nancy - sleep equalizes us because everyone must sleep, and in sleep we forget ourselves p.97 "The transition from sleep to
wakefulness is a process of recognition of the
difference of oneself from the rest of the world,
a remembering of who one is and what one’s
place in that world is." p.97
"In sleep we relinquish our
control, and as Nancy would have it, our self.
It is in this respect profoundly anti-capitalist.
It is an escape from ideology, even if the
surrounds and structures within which we allow ourselves to be taken by sleep are profoundly
influenced by the class and ideological position
in which we find ourselves." p.98-99
“The image of the sleeping body, in its brute simplicity, in its unwavering uselessness, constitutes a vital affront to the instrumentalisation of the body within contemporary capitalist culture and the intensively commodified, rationalised everyday of the twenty-first century.” (Pigott, 2016: 100)
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