One year into the Covid-19 pandemic, an impatient public--lit up by the blue glow of screens--preps itself for a collective amnesia. Many people started 2020 nervously counting infection curves and rising death rates. Now, after a year of ghoulish statistics dictating what should be considered essential--or grievable--they wait for vaccination rates to climb and make way for a post-Covid era. The pandemic has acted like a contrast dye, lighting up the inequities in institutions, lifestyles, and societies, revealing diseases like a scrutinizing, invasive MRI. Shops with empty shelves in anticipation of lockdowns lit up, while the perfunctory reclassification of who and what is essential--as well as the increasingly heavy burdens on the shoulders of caregivers--remain glowing. For the "remote working class," which includes students, artists, former office workers, and essential workers during downtime, there is another dimension to the shared experience: the dual flatness of streaming services and webcam-based interaction.
Aesthetic Flattening