Lyy Raitala

This video installation delves into the dynamics between leisure and labor portraying a fictional corporate space as a stage where both performers and automated machines partake in a synchronized performance. The workers are entering a trance-like state, aking to hibernation, while the tireless machines continue their tasks. The work ‘Recess’ explores the notion of invisible labor and the way we are being seen and observed in the everyday environment where the work takes place. The video presents a clinical, neutral, and recognizable setting where resting workers break the usual behavioral codes of the workplace. By showcasing the space through the perspective of a robot vacuum, the installation makes public the ways labor occupies both our mental and physical spaces, highlighting the automated routines that define how we humans function. The work is embracing boredom and rest while questioning our compulsion to define ourselves through productivity and action.