Office aesthetics. Labor in the contemporary workplace
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School of Arts, Design and Architecture |
Master's thesis
Ask about the availability of the thesis by sending email to the Aalto University Learning Centre oppimiskeskus@aalto.fi
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P1 OPINNÄYTTEET D 2019 Jalili Villarroel
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Language
en
Pages
109
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Abstract
Office Aesthetics is a study about contemporary labor and working spaces, and its visual representations. I use the term “office aesthetics” to describe the visual homogeneity of the architecture, interior and industrial design, furnishings and supplies found in many offices around the globe. This thesis introduces this term and presents, briefly, the history of the office, an analysis of the main concepts that organize the contemporary workplace (gender, race, class, and sexual orientation), and a reflection on my own experiences working in such spaces. The text then delves into a more specific study of contemporary office spaces that I believe best reflect some of the main problematics of work and labor today, and touches upon topics such as post-work utopias, Universal Basic Income, care and immaterial labor, and refusal of work. This analysis is made with the use of photographs from architecture books that depict the newest trends of office design, and my main goal is to demonstrate how the people who work in these spaces are influenced by the ideologies behind these new designs. How people working in open plan offices are controlled and surveilled, and impelled to work longer hours; how office spaces become (or remain) gendered; or how workspaces transcend the office building and encroach into the private sphere, are just some of the examples that are reviewed here. The last part of this thesis contains a few examples of artworks that are reflections on office work, and which greatly influenced my approach to the topic. I also introduce the curatorial project that I organized as a side program for this thesis, for which I invited three artists to reflect on their own experiences working in an office. On the conclusions, I explain why I believe it is important to be critical of the centrality work holds in our society. Here I try to contest the duality of work and life wherein immaterial and female labor are overlooked, and which has erased some of the most pleasurable aspects of labor. Finally, I establish why I believe work is often boring, meaningless, and exhausting, and what could be some possible alternatives to this.Description
Supervisor
Ryynanen, MaxThesis advisor
Rajanti, TainaTenhunen, Lotta