faule ARBEIT

faule ARBEIT I-III 2006-08
An immaterial space for ideas

«Faule ARBEIT» is the work of the future: it has been disassociated from the pursuit of capital and is
founded on the free right to self-determination. An activity that is truly desired presupposes renewed
emancipation every day.

Being idle, recuperation, doing nothing. In German, the etymological origin of the word «Faulheit»,
meaning idleness, derives from the rotting of fruit, vegetables and meat and refers to a state of over-
ripeness. When hops and malt ferment, they produce beer. That is how I like to see being idle, as a
process of fermentation, during which a state is redefined. The ancient Greeks called this state
leisure.

Faule ARBEIT is further development of theories by Fridhjof Bergmann and Götz Werner.
Bergmann´s vision divides working time into three parts: the customary type of gainful employment,
work for society, and self-elected activity. Werner´s vision ensures that every citizen is provided with
a basic income to survive on, meaning that only self-elected activities are still carried out.

It was because of productive idleness that people began to develop ideas that save time, effort and
expense. Because they were idle, they domesticated wild animals and developed computers.
Idleness is a motor that triggers new ideas to improve the quality of life. The shortage of gainful
employment today is one outcome of productive idleness.

Faule ARBEIT is not a concrete product, work of art or object, but a vision that came to me during
the semester during which I was completing my diploma. It is work to further the development of
mankind.

The first part was in my diploma examination. It demonstrated an absurd machine that printed
cushions with the word ARBEIT (work): places to work.

I showed the second part, the «faule ARBEIT» (idle work), at the diploma exhibition of
painting and sculpture at the College of Art in Berlin Weißensee. Here, I slipped into the
role of a sales representative and recommended two different types of work-places to the
visitors:
1. The antiquated, pre-industrial place to work
2. The work-place of the future: faule ARBEIT
The two-part installation extended over two rooms: in the first there was a big mechanical
hammer that required physical drudgery; in the back room, there was a heap of cushions -
the new places to work -, on which one could loll about in order to think at length. Visitors
could try out both parts and so find out which type of work suited them better.

The third part took place on 1st May 2008 in the streets of Berlin: this year, it was not only
Labour Day on 1st May, but also Ascension Day, the day on which fathers in Germany tour
the area with their hand wagons. On this special Labour Day, I strolled through the city with
my hand cart packed full of work-places and asked the passers-by on the streets whether
they would be willing to accept a place to work from me.
_Patrick Timm

Cornelia Gellrich reports on «slumber art» in the Berliner Zeitung, 7th February 2007:

«Lolling about idly on cushions and pondering all manner of things - surely that has always
been the purpose of human endeavour? Machines and computers were invented for that
reason, and animals and other people were domesticated. The work of the unlucky devils
benefits the leisure of more fortunate folk. The latter have no need to buy and cook their own
food, for example, as long as the former work as cooks and waiters.

Those who are clever attempt to derive the greatest possible added value from their own
work, which appears to be money - but emerges as leisure when examined more closely.
The more you earn, the more domestic help you can employ, and when you are on holiday
a hotel can take the place of the camping site.

For example, Patrick Timm - who is working towards a diploma in sculpture at the College
of Art Berlin-Weißensee - has utilised his own creative efforts to develop a machine that will
make life very much easier for him and indeed for the entire world in future: this is a rather
large and apparently relatively complicated monster. The individual parts of the machine,
which measures around two metres in height and three metres in width, could have been
collected from the bulky refuse tip. Right on top there is a wheelchair, in front of which we
see ruined shoes and crutches with wires attached.

An artist´s assistant feeds the machine with cushions, throwing them onto a kind of conveyor
belt made of fabric at the front, while the artist himself - with the aid of the wheelchair, the
shoes and some fiddly motor activity involving his arms, hands, feet and legs �� stops the
cushion, presses a stencil onto it, triggers spray cans, releases the cushion again, blows it dry
using hair dryers and ventilators, and finally causes it to plop out of the machine at the back.
The outcome of this somewhat elaborate process, therefore, is a heap of white cushions
embellished with the word «Arbeit» in blue lettering.

This delightful invention is called «Faule Arbeit», for there are various types of work: first of
all, for example, there is gainful employment, which is often seen as the only true form of
work nowadays, although in Greek antiquity it represented no more than the sad lot of the
lower classes. Then, there is house work, which neither costs money nor acquires it - unless
of course it is translated into a form of gainful employment realised for third parties. Artistic
activity, being creative and inventive, is also a form of work - although unfortunately it is
disappointingly rare for it to develop into gainful employment.

And so Timm refers to the finding of ideas as «faule Arbeit» (idle work). He does not see the
two concepts as a contradiction, because the apple that is rotting is certainly developing in a
way - it is only leaving behind the phase in which can be used, and the process that leads to
its alteration is not outwardly visible. In the same way, it is impossible to see from Patrick
Timm´s head, when it is reclining idly among the cushions, that he is busy conceiving his
next project.

So each of these cushions is a place to work created by the artist. And it can be acquired for
five euros.
But the problematic side to this creative, idle activity is that it will never be possible for
everyone to pursue it. While Patrick Timm is pondering cosily among his cushions, two other
people have to work the machine to produce the cushions. The intellectual activity of one
person is enabled by the hard physical effort of the others. That is why he included the
wheelchair and the crutches.

And so what do we do about all this? The best thing is still to be idle, not to move at all if
possible, because more possibilities for the evasion of human labour could perhaps unfold
while we are doing so.

Originally, Patrick Timm did not wish to present his machine in the foyer of the College of
Art Weißensee, but at the Employment Office in Berlin Mitte. The idea of exhibiting diploma
works by young artists met with enthusiasm there, but not in the case of this particular piece.
Timm was informed that unfortunately, they were obliged to refuse his work, as the image of
the employment office was bad enough already.

This is understandable in a way, of course - if the machine
entitled «Faule Arbeit» carried out its work-cushion-production in the
employment office, some people might come to the utterly
unreasonable conclusion that the employees at the agency - rather than processing
applications - were just lolling around idly in the cushions.»

Imprint
Photos: Jörg Broksch (video stills), Heike Overberg, Patrick Timm | Translation: Lucinda Rennison
(English), Alta Lingua / Anna Chalissowa (Russian) | Graphic design: Patrick Timm | Thanks to: Jörg
Broksch, Hanno Gundert, Raimund Binder, Marina Goiny (Alta Lingua),
Gudrun Donath |