ETC. Magazine #3 2024 / Selling Out

The third issue of ETC. magazine dedicates its pages to the grind, the hustle, the hard workers and the hardly working. Under the title Selling Out, it deals with our current conditions of wage labour, precarious forms of employment, self-actualisation through work and the ever-present struggle to get that bread. Is living for work a neoliberal delusion or a triumph of capitalism? Can we truly reclaim our time and if so, where do we begin? How does our state of constant emergency manifest itself and who profits? Can art address these issues or does it perpetuate the cycle of exploitation? Is exhaustion the new normal and have we accepted self-medicating as a coping mechanism? Are we burning out or quiet quitting? Is unemployment a mode of rebellion and is there relief in boredom? Does creating a personal brand liberate or enslave – and is TikTok the new corpo? Is freelancing really “free” or should we rethink the word? Is there such a thing as having too many jobs? And why did Kim Kardashian say “It seems like nobody wants to work these days”? For this issue, we’re testing theories behind modes of working and not-working, asking whether being chronically overworked and underpaid is a point of no return or a call to action and whether selling out means beating the system or becoming its agent.

PRESENTED ARTISTS