Neoteny Institute for the End of Work

Call center, videos and plants

Stéphane Degoutin and Gwenola Wagon

2017

The video installation Neoteny Institute for the End of Work projects us into a near or distant future, in which vegetation has spontaneously invaded the vestiges of the tertiary society. Each workstation computer screen displays images of what office life was like at the beginning of the 21st century.

The offices of an abandoned call center are devoured by a jungle of tropical plants. At each workstation, a computer screen, still on, is showing a loop of videos promoting the Neoteny Institute : amateur films retrieved from the Internet, showing the most blatant symptoms of the degradation of work at the beginning of the 21st century, or films promoting leisure activities that help to lengthen man's infancy.

Neoteny is a characteristic of certain species, such as humans, domestic animals or the axolotl, which retain juvenile characteristics much later than the other animals. Born prematurely into the world, they continue to play and learn for much of their lives. The neotenic man is a great preemie.

We will see overworked employees, confined to absurd tasks, playing childish games. In order not to go crazy behind their machines, they go back to childhood. Others, to make up for the emptiness and to avoid a burn-out, follow picturesque psychological support sessions, take part in seminars or survival courses. If they are fired from their stupid jobs, they let their emotions explode, put their nerves on their work tool and destroy their machines, in a distant reminder of the Luddites. Apart from these fleeting joys, everyday life consists of sudoku victories in secret from their boss, organizing office chair races in the corridors, hurdle jumping in call centres, improvized strip-teases, pallet fights, cinder block sculptures on building sites, abandonment to the arms of robots... The office is transformed into the ultimate amusement park, for the last humans who still have a job.

Find out more on the project page