Inactive Effort
03/27/20
by Christy LeMaster
It is easy to see these quarantine times in terms of passivity; many of us are feeling restricted, worried, isolated. I find myself returning to a sports metaphor that zoomed past me in the blur of constant news consumption that I have been battling these past days. Someone said that staying home feels like we are playing defense and hiding out; but actually this is us playing offense. I feel quietly hostile towards sports metaphors most times, but this phrase has stuck with me. We are playing offense, not just to the virus but to harmful mythologies about individuality and competition that hurt us. By staying home, we are prioritizing the survival of all people over the economic hardship caused by social distancing. The fastest organizing for the crisis—the efforts to re-purpose medical supplies and the campaigns to fund lost worker’s wages—have come from the ground up.
A grand concert of adapting is under way; a disruption this big to the normal shakes loose our most calcified logics. Our personal economies of care are shifting. Family units are re-organizing space, labor, and relationships. The stakes of the shutdown are laying bare the failures of hyper-capitalism. The breathtaking speed with which the economy tanked and the scandalizing incompetence of the federal government to respond to the virus make a striking case for economic safety nets such as universal basic income and socialized healthcare. Widespread isolation breeds an emotional immediacy between us. From singing to each other from our porches to broadcasting dance parties, we are coming up with new ways to show affection without physical proximity and grasping for new pragmatic ways to hold together. Fridays on Quarantine Times will celebrate artists who are working within this grand disruption. First up will be Diddle Knabb, author of Fem Rag Lit Mag, with a piece focusing on co-parenting in the time of coronavirus. Social distancing has given her an opportunity to deconstruct societal notions on what a family should look like and blend her family unit into an unconventional new model fit for the end times.
Christy LeMaster, Domestic Winter Portrait No.1, February 2011 Experiments in the movement of objects and the weight of winter
As we gear up for Diddle and the other Friday artists to come, here is a video I made several years ago, during another, less substantial late-winter isolation. It was too icy to leave the house and I was feeling the full weight of balancing my gig-based career for money and the big and busy collaboration that was fueling my happiness. I was frustrated and throwing the furniture around a little helped me breathe easier. Here’s to the comforts you can find for yourself in the coming days. I am hoping QT can be among them.
Christy LeMaster is the Quarantine Times Friday editor. Each week, Christy selects a Chicagoan to share a commissioned creative response to the pandemic.
Christy LeMaster is a Chicago-based moving-image programmer, educator, and producer interested in collectivity and collaborative processes. She founded Chicago microcinema The Nightingale and co-programmed an itinerant experimental doc series Run of Life. She worked as Assistant Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago organizing exhibitions and programs for the Commons, the museum’s site for art and civic engagement. She has been a movie critic on WBEZ and an editor of CINE-FILE.info and her writing has been published by INCITE, Brooklyn Rail, and Green Lantern Press. She currently teaches media theory at Columbia College Chicago.
