Who stole our free time? Małgorzata Halber, Katarzyna Wyszkowska, and Piotr Mlącki in conversation with Mint Magazine at the 23rd SURVIVAL Art Review.
To whom do we give our time when we try to relax—to meditation apps, streaming services, social media, or perhaps to our own watches measuring physical activity? In a world full of stimuli, constant information noise, and digital habits, does free time still exist, or has it been taken away from us entirely? These are the questions explored by Małgorzata Halber, who in her essay on free time published in Mint writes:
“Many would agree with the statement ‘my time does not belong to me.’ It belongs to my employer, my family, public opinion. Society. If I am a woman, I am expected to sacrifice myself. If I am a man—to fight. To develop, to care, to earn, to perform all those productive, inspiring verbs.”
Katarzyna Wyszkowska, a visual artist living in Kraków and creating complex installations that often address new technologies and their impact on humans, speaks, among other things, about how social media are becoming dead platforms, where our time mainly serves to feed algorithms—and how even meditation today is an activity shaped by apps.
But is it possible to reclaim free time? Mint Magazine sought answers to this question during a conversation held in Wrocław as part of the SURVIVAL Art Review.
