9 to 5

From Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, I will make work about work.

I will try not to be late. I will try not to work extra hours. I will take lunch breaks, cigarette breaks, toilet breaks. Every morning, I will stumble out of bed, tumble to the kitchen, pour myself a cup of ambition ...

In a situation where weird similarities between artistic modes of production and post-fordist working conditions make artists role-models for dealing with the challenges of immaterial and/or precarious labour, I want to use the secure environment of the art school to reflect on the theme of work.

I will consider former jobs where the seemingly anachronistic 9 to 5-model was very much a reality for me. Was my job as a sales assistant at a card shop actually a happening commissioned by Birthdays Limited? Has the 1960s desire for a blurring of art and life (formulated e.g. by Allan Kaprow) been fulfilled in the often precarious working conditions of workers in the so-called creative industries? Is there an escape from art? Can I go on strike?


Daniel Ladnar, Swansea, January 14th - January 18th 2007


9 to 5 was presented as an installation at the MA Contemporary Dialogues Show Entrance and Exit, Swansea, June 2008, and as a lecture performance at Showroom Aberystwyth in June 2008, at emergency 08, greenroom, Manchester, September 2008, and at Supper Club, The Basement, Brighton, March 2010.