Beyond the Call of Duty

2021

interactive 3D web collage

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Over the past year, the webcam has opened up intimate domestic spaces, blurring work-life boundaries beyond recognition. The camera’s view portrays a perspective that upholds the illusion of professionalism despite the everyday realities that lie just outside – or intrusively enter – the frame. In her latest work, Beyond the Call of Duty, Santa France explores the banality of, and our obsessive attachment to, maintaining professionalism. In this 3D space, keeping one’s small window tidy and presentable becomes essential, while the wider surroundings pile up with clutter, the leftovers of unhealthy coping mechanisms, and failed attempts at productivity. These desperate efforts to hide incompetence turns into a hectic game of repetitively pushing aside demeaning objects: tools for procrastination and cutting corners, self-care products, scraps of confidential information, and embarrassing evidence of abandoned practices of self-discipline.

Created for transmediale festival 2021, online exhibition “Almanac for Refusal”

Web development by João Abel Almeida