CAC LinkUp | Creative Practices During the Quarantine

The process of virtualization seems to be advancing at warp speed in 2020. Along with the various telecommuting software applications that are now ubiquitous, have come memes spreading on social media platforms that mock the inefficiency and distractions of working from home. Behind these funny messages is a glimpse of a future in which work and leisure seamlessly blend together. For many artists and freelancers, this situation is hardly new. With complete control over their time and schedule and lacking the imposed discipline of an office, they need a strong inner drive to maintain their pace of productivity. However, as deadlines vanish and projects and events are removed one after another from calendar, the quiet passage of time alone at home wears down this inner drive. Yet, this moment may also offer an opportunity for artists to recapture sleeps once stolen by technology and capitalism, as Jonathan Cray argues in his book 24/7. As an intermittence for dreaming, it is the beginning of creations guided by a noetic force as well as an important step to challenge automatism in the technical milieu.

This Sunday, CAC in collaboration with BIE will hold a discussion about creativity under quarantine. We have invited Raphaël Bastide, the participating artist of CAC’s online exhibition We=Link: Ten Uneasy Pieces, musician felicita and curator Iris Long to join the conversation and talk about their creative practices and inspirations under the quarantine conditions.