Ardeth. Vol. 8: Burn-out. On planetary exhaustion and alternative public infrastructures

Exhausted. Bodies feel exhausted, from the scales of the individual and social body, to that of the planet. Even in the midst of one of the most severe crises experienced globally in recent history, the demands for productivity, relentlessness and attentiveness are not diminishing. Instead, those pressures intensify, while forms of extraction are pervasive. The contemporary moment should not be taken as an exception. Instead it should be understood as part of a structural condition and a symptom of the ongoing exploitative structures that are exhausting bodies, bringing them to a systemic burn-out. If burn-out is a state in which bodies, procedures, processes stop working, it could perhaps be considered as a generative point of departure to rethink the role of institutions and infrastructures towards nonexploitative structures and relations.