Go away go away go away
Maren Ada Küpper
When researching a place like the Antarctic Continent the questions organically arise, how and when to get there and if it will be possible and happening at all. So far, I know of three ways to go to Antarctica: First, as a tourist on a cruise ship. Second, as a scientist or artist in a funded program. Third, as a seasonal worker. However, as our research went on, the question that became more prominent than thinking about the feasibility of Antarctic visit was a moral one: If presented with the opportunity, should we go to Antarctica at all?
Looking into the history of Antarctic expedition, we were not so eager to follow into the footsteps of imperial discovery done by the heroic men of the early 20th century. What were their intentions? Mapping the last “blank spot” on the globe, searching for resources that could be exploited, bringing glory to their homeland by being the first to put up a flag on a remote location. Not really such desirable goals after all. As effects of the climate crisis such as wild fires, floods and erosion become more and more noticeable each year another counter argument against visiting Antarctica is of course the ecological footprint we would leave behind. On the backdrop of these thoughts, I slowly become aware of a different perspective: That not going to the Antarctic is not just nothing, not just a negation but rather could be something – an active choice to not go to a place where my mere presence would be complicit in the destruction of the very landscape, I would be eager to see.
Jenny Odell writes in her book How to Do Nothing. Resisting the Attention Economy (2019) how “doing nothing” creates the space and the capacity to do the things that matter. Odell talks about “doing nothing” not in the sense of not doing anything anymore. (Odell, p. 50) Rather, she advocates for a conscious use of time by actively deciding where to put one’s attention. Neoliberal work structures and the ever-attention pulling news feeds of social media represent to her forces (and corporations) that feed off people’s attention. And for many reasons it can be hard to withdraw that attention or to even realize how one directs their time, focus and capacities. “Doing nothing” is therefore meant as doing those things, that actively resist the label of productivity. For Odell, this means spending time in nature and connecting to the land she lives on. It also means to use that time that is no longer occupied by attention-seeking social media or self-optimization projects, to fight for social and ecological justice.
With my work life having taken place almost entirely in the freelance art scene, I sympathize with Odell’s concern about doing things that escape the label of productivity. Working as a freelancer I am most of the time confronted with the fact that I could always work more. A friend, who’s career situation is similar to mine, recently told me that he has made a rule for himself, to dedicate two hours a day to work on his career. He was telling me this, while we were on vacation. In his mind, he said, those two hours were linked with the idea and the feeling of “doing enough”. What feels productive is subjective and changes with time. The place I want to head to as I bring this text to a close is this one: If not going to Antarctica is an active choice, it means that something else can happen in the time and with the energy that would be necessary to go there. This decision holds the space to engage with our desire to see and feel the Antarctic continent, the ice, and to strengthen another desire: the desire to not go there, to stay where it is warm, to continue the engagement with Antarctica from where we are right now.
go away go away go away is a vers in Katha Pollitt’s poem To an Antarctic Traveller, published in the cycle “Antarctic Traveller”, New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1982.
Odell, Jenny: Nichts tun. Die Kunst, sich der Aufmerksamkeitsökonomie zu entziehen, Original bei Melville House, Brooklyn, NY 2019, Übersetzung bei C.H.Beck, München 2021.
October 2024