Harriet Costello

Who cares? A radio tale turned Gasworks into a live broadcast studio in collaboration with renowned experimental radio station Resonance FM. A programme of newly commissioned and existing performances, sound works, and discussions took up the subject of affective labour, summarised by philosopher Michael Hardt as a term that ‘grasp[s] simultaneously the corporeal and intellectual aspects of the new forms of production, recognizing that such labor engages at once with rational intelligence and with the passions or feeling.’ 

Affective labour is commonly understood as invisible. Who cares? A radio tale lay open this assertion by using the intangible medium of radio and enabling the audience to see the hidden mechanisms. Either present in the gallery or listening from anywhere in the world, attendees and listeners were invited to engage with questions including: What are the implications of having to manage emotions in the workplace? What kind of emotional work is expected in capitalist economies? What does care and labour demand from its workers?  

The project consisted of two live broadcast sessions, in which a multiplicity of international artists respond to the theme of affective labour using a variety of performative, discursive and participatory formats.  

The first session was hosted by academic Temi Odumosu and included Claudia Pagès’ live performance of sound with spoken word, based on her expanded novella  ‘Her Hair’, in which she portrays the body as a harvester and a producer of immaterial objects and queer matter; Céline Berger’s recordings of conversations and noises from her time spent on a wind farm in the Baltic Sea, as the only woman in an unusually harsh working environment; and Jon Wozencroft’s sound seminar, a trance-like journey with an immersive mix of records.   

The second session included the Women of Colour Index Reading Group, followed by Patricia Domínguez with Terezie Štindlová & Radim Lisa’s multilingual sound sketch of a Chilean ‘bird man’ who works to resist the advances of industry. And, lastly, artist Rosalie Schweiker investigated who gets bonuses and why. 

International collaborators include: Céline Berger, Patricia Domínguez with Terezie Štindlová & Radim Lisa, Eva Fàbregas, Temi Odumosu, Claudia Pagès, Elisa Giardina Papa, Rosalie Schweiker with Sophie Chapman & Kerri Jefferis, Salomé Voegelin, Women of Colour Index Reading Group and Jon Wozencroft.