Naadira Patel

This is Futile

2019

Video | 06:40min

Hope This Finds You Well

2020

Video | 05:58min

The Future of Work

2020

Video | 09:28min

Artist Response

"Uh hello, am I audible? "

Hello fellow energy diviner! We have a special for you, limited stocks, sign up for free now! Are you ready for the future of work? What does the future of work look like? We were promised digital dreams and digital solutions to analogue problems, like the weather, and bad politics. What does a human future look like in an era of hypersurveillance and constant upgrades? Would it be radical to go offline? EVERYDAY NEUTRALS IN ORGANIC COTTONS. Shop the neutral edit now. How radical is your self-care, if you don’t post about it? Lemon water in the morning, algorithmic capitalism all day long. You have an abandoned cart. Sorry for the delayed response. NEW CONTENT AVAILABLE. Unlock value in the metaverse! Is your gut happy?

Sorry for the delayed response is a collection of three video pieces made between 2019 and 2020 that collects and navigates the debris of everyday online communication. The videos in themselves become collections of digital noise, bot-like, monotonous and without connection to the bodies who write or speak the content that is designed to pull, draw and distract our attention. These voices from the other side are blended with my own as I try to navigate the burnout that ensues from our new blended forms of learning and working.

bio

Naadira Patel is an artist, graphic designer and Arts and Architecture Lecturer. She currently leads studiostudioworkwork, a multidisciplinary art, research and design studio.

She has an MA in Cultural Analysis (2015) from the University of Amsterdam’s School for Cultural Analysis, and a BA Fine Arts (2010) from the Wits School of Arts. Naadira currently co-teaches in the Unit18: Hyperreal Prototypes program at the GSA at UJ.

Her interests lie in studying new technologies that shape, manipulate or augment our experiences of and our existence within the world; emerging forms of surveillance capitalism; and exploring new landscapes of work, precarious labour, and productivity.