Grande Finale - The Manifesto

We have had a very productive meeting today where we met to summarise our developments of our project and how our ideas have now accumulated into one final intervention.

This is our Manifesto;

As we have developed our initial idea, we now wish to create a complete autonomous space free from any conditions or agenda of work. We want to create an area in which ourselves and our friends can enter free from any constraints of work in an aim to explore the possibilities of real leisure (that being complete freedom from work).

Given the contemporary nature of work, as we have shown in our blog, we have found it difficult to create something that is regarded completely as 'real leisure' in our everyday. Therefore, we are going to invite our friends to join us in what is to be 'advertised' as a space in which they are completely free, (we use the word advertise with precaution, as we don't want to be seen as selling this to people). In this space we will all be completely free to do as we please, all we ask is that people join us and stay in this space.

As this space is completely free from the conditions of work, we will be providing no external sources of leisure. We are going to ask that those that join us also do not bring any external sources of leisure into the space. The reason why we ask this is, is because we want this space to be completely free from all modes/productions/results of personal or external work. This space is to be completely free from anything that can be associated with work time in any sense or thought of the term work. This is a complete hedonistic space in which people can enjoy true leisure away from work. No phones, no books, no nothing, we wish to remove all 'leisure machines'. Just themselves (yes, clothes are allowed. We know that they are a mode of production and work by someone else, but inviting ourselves and our friends into a completely autonomous zone for leisure naked is not really part of our intervention - that's just a normal Saturday night).

In this busy period of exams and essays, why wouldn't people want to be in a completely autonomous space of leisure, entirely free from any demands of work completely?

What we wish to achieve by doing this:

• We want to see whether we and others can actually enjoy leisure time without the machines of leisure associated with work.
• We want to see if they can forget about the notion of work entirely whilst in a space of leisure.
• We want to see if when we are placed in a space without any external sources of entertainment if we actually regard this time as leisure at all.
• We want to see whether this time spent in the space is enjoyable or not, and whether it starts to feel like work.
• We want to see if it starts to feel like work, exactly how long people will be willing to stay in this space.

We believe, as a development of the interventions and our work/leisure diaries, that even without the external influences of work, by not providing people with the means of leisure and by asking them to restrict themselves to our space whilst doing so, that our intervention will begin to feel like the space is in fact a space of work. By having completely nothing in the space they are free from work itself, but will the act of having nothing to do begin to revert back to a feeling that they should be doing something? And by being asked to nothing will this space of 'real leisure' begin to feel like work?

The idea of creating a space for leisure time is a means in which we can visualise our leisure time. By dedicating a completely autonomous space to this, we will be able to determine the true effects the intervention shall have. We shall be filming the intervention, and interview ourselves and those who have entered the space. We hope to capture peoples reactions to work and leisure time in the interviews, and assess that even in a space of 'autonomous real leisure' whether or not they felt they had escaped the notion of work, or whether it had begun to feel like work itself.

We will be creating a 'sign in/sign out' sheet, so that when the space begins to feel too much like work for ourselves and our friends and we begin to feel the need of a 'break', they can sign in and out of the space. The reason as to why we are doing this is a result of the success of the 'Wages for Facebook' intervention. We thought the use of the payslip was really effective and powerful in visualising the work components of our leisure time. By using the sign in sheets, we are bringing the traditional trainings of work towards our leisure time, and by doing this we aim to highlight that even when in a completely free leisure space even that it starts to feel like work, thus highlighting whether there us such a thing as leisure away from work. Additionally, the idea that people need a 'break' is effective in itself, as a break is something we associate with work not leisure.

Therefore even in a space completely free from the demands of work, a space dedicated to leisure time, will it itself start to feel like work? If so, is there really such a thing as 'real leisure'?

Yours faithfully,

Cam, Maxi, Miles, Nadia and Natalie. xox.