So Many Diamonds, So Little Time

Monireh Askari
Production: Elnaz Salehi, Saeid Askari
Web development: Luke Murphy

‘So Many Diamonds, So Little Time’ sets its basis on experiences and conditions of cognitive (immaterial) workers; in particular concerning virtuality, overwhelming amounts of information, and fast-forward modes of working. As we do research, we look through virtual content. The more we dig, the more we get exposed to unending distracting information and data. As we work, we catch, archive, store, and use all possible data on any given subject. Throughout this process our bodies exhaust; our muscles and our brains, even the content we work with exhausts.

On the other hand, land is a living body itself. It undergoes processes of exhaustion through architecture, agriculture, and mining. Among them, agricultural work can be one of the most individual processes; we can dig, plant, and harvest all on our own – as we individually develop our projects.

This work draws an analogy between agricultural processes and the performance of a cognitive worker; between processes of digging, planting, and harvesting, and their parallels in developing a ‘project’: searching, forming ideas, and making something out of the research process. Through looking for instances of comfort and exhaustion in the context of body, land, and content, this project thinks about alternative possibilities for the exhausting conditions that a cognitive worker deals with. This project illustrates a designed apparatus for performing the three phases of production in agricultural and cognitive work. And on the website of Fictioning Comfort, it reenacts a cognitive worker’s virtual workspace containing a series of comforting ideas and suggestions in this regard.

*In addition, in light of the current global lock down due to covid-19 crisis, these questions are renderd even more appropriate. The conditions and opportunities of physical working is limited, and reasonable income measures ceasese to be maintained. Do these lead to a substantial global transition to virtual form of living/working? Is now the time we may observe or experience this in the near future?

With thanks to Alireza Mohseni for thinking along the technical details of the work online; Farzad Zaminpoor for his help during searching for plowing mechanisms; Rambod Vala, Amir Haqani and Dr. Majid Yoosefi Looyeh.

With warmest appreciations to friends in Fictioning Comfort.