Behind ZøvnZaun
Society expects us to take control over ourselves and our lives, while sleep requires us to let go of control. The expected life expectancy in the Nordic countries is approximately 83 years. This means that we will spend an average of 27.5 years of our lives asleep, a state in which we are unproductive and disconnected from the our world in order to access our inner world. This is something that stands in contrast to today's society, where a lot is about having control and taking control of one's own existence. Could this then contribute to making it more difficult to sleep? Sleeping can actually be seen as a silent protest against the capitalist social order, as researcher Mathias Danbolt writes about in the essay Jonathan Crary's thoughts in 24/7: For Crary, sleep is one of the few areas that capitalist forces have been unable to fully instrumentalize and externally control. The body's need for rest and respite is an antidote to the aim of constant consumption.
As a political figure, the sleeper is paradoxical, as his or her resistance to capitalist demand for constant presence happens through a suspension of the conscious activity that defines most conceptions of political subjectivity. In this connection, we are interested in taking a critical look at how sleep is not just something that you as an individual control. But how one is involved in a complex social structure, which controls our sleep patterns to a far greater extent than we think. In this way, the audience can get a more nuanced relationship with the idea of sleep, both the individual and collective aspects. Technological advances have probably affected sleep in a negative way.
Today, you can e.g. be available on social media around the clock. This especially applies to younger people who, according to sleep researcher Ingvild West Saxvig, have social jet lag when they lie up at night writing to their friends and enemies. One can also criticize the 8-22 daily rhythm as an outdated normative approach to waking and sleeping. Several queer theoretical researchers refer to how other circadian rhythms are a reaction to a dominant and stigmatizing social model. More and more people work/socialize at night and sleep during the day.