Taylorism, The Spectacle and You — An Ethnography of Agency Life in Paris
In The Society of the Spectacle, Debord writes that “the same modernization that removed time from the voyage also removed from it the reality of space,” ultimately leaving tourism as “nothing more than the leisure of going to see what has become banal.”
This is somewhere in the back of my mind as I arrive at the agency in Debord’s home of Paris, a short train ride from St. Pancras, the home of London’s Havas village. Immediately one is struck with a spectacle of ‘Parisness’ that is easily distinguishable from British tendencies to conservatism; any visitor is confronted by a photography exhibition in the agency lobby whose major themes include cigarettes and nudity.
In terms of working practices, one of the key differences appears to be in collaboration. Even with small tasks, a fairly comprehensive background to the project tends to be provided. At first, this can seem confusing and even frustrating to someone used to a more fragmented, quasi-Taylorised means of production.
However, once the urge to distill communications down to their minimum viable quantity has been overcome, it’s interesting to see how a more holistic view of operations can develop, and novel solutions can be reached.
It makes sense that, with most specialist roles today developing so quickly, it’s hard to keep informed with what each individual is capable of offering. This can, at times, mean that someone’s ability to help is overlooked or that plans have to be re-made, as a result of problems arising from a lack of technical insight at early stages. In these cases, it’s easy to see how we might be advantaged by having this kind of discussion at every stage, ultimately saving time overall.
Perhaps this habit of thorough knowledge sharing is linked, somewhere, to another jarring cultural contrast — the presence of conviviality, leading to the experience of acknowledging and being acknowledged by strangers in elevators.
While attempting to introduce this latter behaviour elsewhere would be a cruel and unusual practice, I think it is definitely worth thinking about how we can transform our teamwork paradigms in order to develop such an approach that might take advantage of our collective intelligence to help us produce innovative work with less roadblocks.
So, while there may be some truth to Debord’s bold statement, there are certainly some artefacts worth bringing home after travelling such a distance that has not yet completely collapsed.
