Beyond Body and Mind: Severance (2022) and Late Capitalism’s Wet Dream of an Ideal Laborer
Start Date
15-4-2023 6:00 PM
End Date
15-4-2023 6:45 PM
Description
Apple TV+'s show Severance proposes a split consciousness as late capitalism’s latest wet dream to fuel infinite growth and erase "labor" from the consciousness of the laboring body and mind. In Severance, the highly qualified staff of the Lumon industries volunteer to undergo a medical procedure like the commissurotomy of the brain. This, as is expected of this surgical procedure, results in them having split consciousness. Though these workers retain the same body and mind, their consciousness is segregated as "innie" and "outie" with each self "unconscious" of the other. With this split consciousness, the worker never leaves the factory and the "outie" never enters it. The "outie" is a perfect consumer absolutely alienated from labor. This paper reads Severance as a critical project that investigates the pathologies of late capitalism’s work cultures invested in finding the ideal worker for its purposes. A split consciousness that was once seen as a disease is, in this show, seen as an opportunity to forge the most efficient human machine that retains human intelligence and brain functionality.
Beyond Body and Mind: Severance (2022) and Late Capitalism’s Wet Dream of an Ideal Laborer
Apple TV+'s show Severance proposes a split consciousness as late capitalism’s latest wet dream to fuel infinite growth and erase "labor" from the consciousness of the laboring body and mind. In Severance, the highly qualified staff of the Lumon industries volunteer to undergo a medical procedure like the commissurotomy of the brain. This, as is expected of this surgical procedure, results in them having split consciousness. Though these workers retain the same body and mind, their consciousness is segregated as "innie" and "outie" with each self "unconscious" of the other. With this split consciousness, the worker never leaves the factory and the "outie" never enters it. The "outie" is a perfect consumer absolutely alienated from labor. This paper reads Severance as a critical project that investigates the pathologies of late capitalism’s work cultures invested in finding the ideal worker for its purposes. A split consciousness that was once seen as a disease is, in this show, seen as an opportunity to forge the most efficient human machine that retains human intelligence and brain functionality.