A Decade of Rest
speculative TV episode, diagetic prototyping
Vienna, 2024
How could it look like, if Austria prioritized well-being over profit?
PROJECT BY
WRITING & DIRECTION
CAST
CAMERA & SOUND
PROP DESIGN
Angela Ying Neubauer
Angela Ying Neubauer, Oliver Schluschanek, Valerie Hagmann, Horst Lenes
Benjamin Posselt, Leo Mühlfeld
Angela Ying Neubauer, Selma Mühlbauer
Initiated at Design Investigations, University of Applied Arts Vienna
A Decade of Rest centers around a speculative version of Austria, an alternative present and future, where, following the social and economic halt of the Covid 19 pandemic, priorities of the people and state are radically shifted. Now putting care work and the climate crisis into the centre of focus, a so-called “decade of rest” is kicked-off. While certain practices and industries are “put to rest”, a shift towards new ways gives others - humans just as the landscape - a break.
Airing some time after this deciding change of path, the slow-paced TV series “Conversations on the Shift” features people reflecting on the changes within their life and work over the past years.
Acting as a provocation to the relationship we currently have with our present and future, the project discusses topics like how and why we work, or the economics of rest. As an antithesis to the ever-accelerating, loud and dystopian future depictions making us feel powerless about shaping our world for the better, it’s illustrating one that is slow and subtle, contributing to push more positive, utopian futures into the spotlight.
The times are urgent - let us slow down.
- Dr. Bayo Akomolafe