Is fulfilment a concept?
Is striving, in itself, attainment of the social ideal?
How should we situate the self when we create cultural uniformity by performing normality?
I am looking at striving within society, particularly considering the command of neoliberalism and sites of social reproduction and how this maintains a tiered system of dissatisfaction where striving in itself becomes attainment of the socially productive ideal. Striving is the social norm.
I picture these sites of social reproduction as conveyor belts of people, of normal, of striving, which in reality materialise as preparatory phases, a continuum of not being ready yet.
I attempt to re-insert human idiosyncrasy into this, to establish an embodied reading of this production line – the social organization, the normal I have just discussed – and negate the elusory perfect. I look at intrinsic elements of human-ness (corporeal, sentient, conscious- and with this the performativity that comes with (self-)awareness and self-representation).
This draws a circle, bringing us back to my observations of sites of social reproduction through a recognition of the metaphorisation of the body in the economy (the capital pulse). This convergence of bodily data, economic data, and what I casually refer to as embodied data, grounds my intangible ideas, using bodily functions as a tool to disrupt the order through encouraging and necessitating human-ness, life. Evoking a distinct relationship with one’s life that to me is an introspective rebellion, diverging from the institutional rhythm. Instead, I trust the organic as my guide.
1. It is an enquiry about fulfilment.
2. It aims to sensitise the cultural framing of normal,
establishing an affective methodology.
3. It is self-prioritisation.
