Another everyday
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_____________________ p r o l o g u e _______________________
In May, @newsfromfuturo launched a research with @RESUMIDO.podcast in order to understand how Brazilians are dealing with isolation.
We created and shared with our audiences an online questionnaire with quantitative and qualitative questions, which was answered by 840 people throughout the months of May and June. The study sample concentrated mainly in the Southeast and South regions of Brazil, with the state of São Paulo having the largest share of responders (34%), followed by Rio de Janeiro (27%), Rio Grande do Sul (11%) and Minas Gerais (5%).
To access the full results of the research, click here.
Over here, I’ll be highlighting some learnings that emphasize the behavioral transformation in course, and how such transformation is responsible for boosting many other transformations, ones that are capable of shaping other versions of the everyday.
I shall remark that, by everyday, I mean “cotidiano”, a Portuguese word that derives from Latin (“quotidianus”) and is defined precisely by the definitions of time and day. It’s a word that evokes daily rhythms, the time-space relationship that organizes our daily life and, above all, our social existence. If many of us used to live a pre-established routine, today it’s possible that we’re living some other kind.
Facing the impossibility to add more hours to the day, the notion of “gaining time” approaches the way through which we manage our minutes within our days’ organization. For example, it’s worth mentioning the regime of remote work as a temporal transformation — though it is still restricted to a small portion of the population. There’s no longer the need to spend time commuting in traffic through different and often countless means of transportation. Less rigid, what was once an “out of home”-oriented routine, propelled by the building of a global citizen — a nomad -, gains walls, edges, ultimate borders — and is transposed to the indoors. As evidence of such conversion in the way of living, I highlight the experiences perceived as positive and that weren’t a part of the everyday life of our “old normal”.
Even in such a hard time, there are new habits that could be considered positive. I chose to pinpoint such habits not to build an optimistic perspective, but to naturalize them, that is, their ability to be more easily incorporated, becoming, effectively, new habits.
Temporal autonomy
The number one in our list of positive transformations is the increase in time spent with family, something mentioned by 41% of the people we interviewed. Yes, we now share more time with our relatives than with our work colleagues. Another key topic in the routine transformation for 35% of responders was the decrease in time “wasted” in traffic, a routine marked by many hours of the day spent in different types of transportations. On the other hand, having more time to “waste” cooking was also mentioned as something positive by 23% of responders. More pragmatically, conquering temporal autonomy is a highlight for 35% of people who chose “managing my own time” as a positive outcome of the isolation regime.
As I said earlier, the “invisible” transformation of our relationship with space-time has a more or less direct influence in countless other dimensions: the formation of spaces, affections, interactions and consumer transactions. All of which are capable of shaping habits of a new kind of routine and, beyond that, a new imaginary of what life could be, could’ve been and can be.
Once this symbolic horizon expands, it can no longer retract. In many ways, we end up testing, erring, liking, questioning, suffering, hating. The transformation of habits already consists of some new kind(s) of routine(s).
Under this temporal relationship shift, “we have more time in this life than we did in the life we used to live”, above all, to be alone, to face the best of solitude and the worst of loneliness.
Expressions that materialize the existence of time: having time to “pass the time”, to “reflect”, to “expand personal observations”, or yet, to “connect with oneself” — time as part of the journey of “self-knowledge”. Those are processes empowered by this new relationship with space and time.
Consumption in metamorphosis
Debord, in the 50s, or, if you prefer, Bauman, in the 2000s, among many other thinkers, brilliantly described how daily life is marked by consumption. This hypothesis was confirmed in our research: for 91% of responders, the way in which they spend money has changed. Besides, in this sample, around 62% reply they are able to save more money than they could’ve before the pandemic — though the contrary was true for 13%. Such answers connect the relationship of the new every day with the transformation of our relationship with consumption.
The most essential consumption transaction, food, is the priority for 89% of our repliers, leaving fashion (and its dispensable nature) in the bottom of their spending priorities. On the other hand, it’s in the “virtual world” that “consumerism” reveals itself. Most of our interviewees, around 57%, are more connected. For 61%, social media channels are their main priority when online. Such fact collaborates to the consolidation of the “new entertainment”: the live streaming (aka, “lives”).
From Monday to Monday, 24/7, live streaming videos cut through everyone’s routine and quickly established a new practical experience to feed our most basic, animalistic, social and sensorial need: the need to be in the presence of other people. That alone explains why, for 65% of our responders, being away from family and friends is the worst thing about this period of social restriction and isolation.
Down the same path, it was during quarantine that TikTok, a social platform originally from China, consolidated itself as one of the main global social media outlets, shaking the “status quo” and the American domination of this scenario. TikTok offers a temporal, dynamic, creative and funny distraction — an irrefutable invite for those who are in quarantine, being accepted by over 2 billion users already. A “boom” of growth, cultural power and, of course, lots of data from a share of the world population. It’s not a coincidence that Trump has voiced his dissatisfaction with TikTok, announcing that he might ban the platform in the US.
Between pre and post-pandemic, old and new normal, the interval between before and after, we’re already embodying a new temporal experience, one that, without subtlety, reorganizes our daily “truths”, our way of living.
Such changes challenge the pre-established: in the home office scenario, for instance, there’s more punctuality than delays. We reorganized the streets, now empty, filling them with motorcycles and bicycles, freer to circulate with no rules, even on the wrong side of the road. The ritual of greeting, no longer done with our hands, is now done with elbows and feet, forming another example of the disruptive changes already incorporated in the new normality. A sparkling yet bittersweet process, as it is with any kind of change.
On that note, I’d like to revisit an exercise proposed by the sociologist Bruno Latour, an exercise of imaginary conception, questioning and barrier gestures. Facing the daily duty of re-learning in order to establish a new sculpture of every day, it is necessary to shine a light into our own imagination, experimentation, the re-creation of routines and ways of doing. It’s necessary to bring forth those we judge best: those that can bring a little more of joy, or at least take away a bit of the anguish.
concepts } } } } } } } } } } } } } } } } } }} } } } } }
{01} Everyday
The word cotidiano, or quotidiano, means, in Portuguese, that of which is habitual to the human being, what’s present in the day-to-day experience. Cotidiano also indicates the time in which a human being’s experience occurs; it can also refer to the space-time relationship in which such experience takes place.
{02} Semio-inflation
Corresponding to the high in connectivity and all forms of digital consumption, I chose author and theorist Franco Berardi’s concept of semio-inflation, which deals with the monetization of the semiotic field (symbolic, relating to signs, codes and language).
“Inflation that occurs in the field of information, of comprehension, of meaning and of affections. It’s when you need more signs, words and information in order to buy less meaning.”
“Asphyxia: finance capitalism and the insurrection of language”, (p. 76)
Released by the Brazilian publishing company Ubu.
Franco Berardi.
{03} Psychovirus
Another concept by Franco Berardi, it connects the virus with the psychosphere, that is, the effect of fear, anxiety and insecurity, the deprivation of desire, all of which encompass this period of distancing. A virus that spreads through hyperconnectivity, through information, promoting a “biological, cultural and linguistic” mutation.
Horizon / \ / \ / \ / \ / \/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \
The Desire to Slay — An interdisciplinary work that explores the critique of the semio-capitalist machine, creating a project that dives into the origin of “lacrar” (a Brazilian verb that means literally “to seal”, but, given the context, could be seen as an equivalent to the expression “to slay”). To its author, the linguistic allegory refers to a device typical of these times. Facing the impossibility to act on other instances, the confronting is done through the semiotic machine, more precisely, through argumentation and language.
An elegant, syncopated sound, gathering the best of Brazilian contemporary music. “That’s what slaying is about. The strength of slaying is in the battle against all. It’s a metaphysical rebellion, one that is diffuse and complex.”
Pimp My Carroça — The work of Pimp My Carroça (which could be freely translated to “Pimp My Cart”) developed with waste pickers is a renowned Brazilian initiative, one that is globally awarded due to the work they’ve created with this population segment. Since the pandemic began, I started donating to the project and was positively impressed with their effort to share data and information regarding their actions. Check it out and, if you feel like it, donate to it as well.
Essential workers — Having in mind the potential around informal workers, as well as their financial and creative mobility, together with Chazz’s São Paulo team we launched a study about self-employed workers, the workforce that grows the fastest in Brazil. To download the study you just need to sign up here.
Joy Buolamwini on the cover of Fast Company — If you don’t know who Joy is, you need to. I imagine you’ve heard already that IBM, Microsoft and Amazon decided to stop their programs on facial development for a year. Behind this decision, there’s Joy’s work and research called “Gender Shades”, which, since 2018, has proved the ethnic bias behind these globally used systems.
How to build a more humane world with Artificial Intelligence? A study done with over 50 research sources found over 144 social problems related to Artificial Intelligence. An urgent and necessary project developed by zero42 and Nama.
The first season of MIT Technology Review’s new podcast, led by the team’s editor-in-chief, Jennifer Strong. Straight to the point, the podcast premiered with a four-part series about facial recognition.
See you soon, take care!
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