We’d Rather Be Offline
As the world we live in shifts from a raging pandemic to a post-vaccine new normal, Clusterduck collective is about to take some time off.
This has plenty to do with the creative industry and its mechanisms, something to do with us as a collective, and some touching points with the restrictions and limitations that Covid-19 and some other unfortunate events brought into our lives, but most of all, it has to do with the fact that we are tired.
We are tired of ceaselessly producing assets for a cultural industry that claims to be interested in people and social issues, but tragically ends up floundering behind the rhythms of social media & funds scheduling.
We are tired of being exploited by a creative industry whose manipulation and misuse of human communication goes beyond any moral and physical limit.
We are tired of witnessing, as the main result of this pandemic, the diffusion of a permanent state of online availability, and the end of the Internet as an unregulated space.
We are tired of hearing digital voices in our heads invading and destroying our common spaces and relationships.
We are tired of being ill, in any form or shape illness can take. We are tired of living unhealthy lives and suffering the consequences.
While we are deeply thankful for the many opportunities that we received over the past years, and want to explicitly thank all the great people and institutions we had a chance to collaborate with, we also want to invite all friends and comrades we found along our way to search for new ways to increase our autonomy from the logics of capital. Permanent self-exploitation and the constant struggle over funding opportunities and corporate sponsorships don’t look like a promising path to a better world. The times call for collective healing, for new rituals of hope and solidarity, for reflection and contemplation as preparation for incisive collective action.
In short, we feel we need some time off to cure ourself and dive back into the context-aware beauty of our physical selves. Hugging trees, licking humans, that kind of hippy shit. That’s why, starting from June 28th, we won’t be available for new projects and you’ll probably experience very slow feedback on our side if you write to us.
If you have a project open with us and we forgot to mail you this update, we’re sorry, feel free to reach out as soon as possible and we’ll make amends.
We also do hope that you will find a way to get some time off as well, swimming in the sea, looking for mushrooms in the forest, or just simply staring at your ceiling, learning again to take things slowly.
So that maybe in September, when doing things and being online may become bearable again, we will meet again and have fun, possibly IRL, possibly without a deadline, possibly with a renovated sense of why we enjoy to build things together, and why this is, more than ever before, vital to our survival as human and non human beings.
Remember that, no matter what, the Net is vast, and infinite.
