Public protest against work

Performance,  The Federal Building, Seattle, Washington,

 April 29, 1996.

directed by Greg Lundgren

Jobs Suck, Robots Are Alright And Everyone Is An Artist — The Beginnings of AFWFA

The youthful, optimistic vision of Artists For a Work Free America is gaining wide appeal and controversy throughout the nation, as it places before the American people a new model of life and industry, basd upon the simple concept of less work and more play. After AFWFA’s first public protest in Seattle, the interest and questions surrounding the doctrine of a work free future has generated tempered debates and intellectual curiousity, voicing both complete enthusiasm and strong opposition. While the lines are being drawn, supporters rush to join AFWFA’s fight and pessimists voice their concerns, one thing is for certain — a national debate is emerging before our eyes. By no means a new idea in our post-industrial world, AFWFA has presented a bold and ambitious ideology in an attempt to rekindle the questions of mankind’s place in a modern society. The relationship between humans, machines and work will force us to re-examine our role as workers and and the role of technology in society. AFWFA and the issues surounding robotic and work-displacing technologies stand to be a hot, passionate and very controversial topic for the nineties and beyond. 

AFWFA believes that humans are ill-suited for work as defined by the twentieth century, and views the advent of computer and robotic technologies as the means by which we may be liberated from job repetition, boredom and stress. It is a long road before we reach our goal as a fully automated society, yet we believe it to be both a natural evolution and reasonable pursuit. More importantly, it is our ambition to raise public awareness to the perversities of the modern working world and offer an alternative modeled after quality of life, not based upon corporate consumption, mass-media manipulation and voluntary slavery. The technology necessary to create an automated workplace has already been created. We stand as a catalyst to activate this technology and encourage technological advancement to create machines that work for people instead of working with people. 

AFWFA stands to remind the American people that we do hold the power to choose, the aility to change and the capacity to dream. The current state of our technological evolution demands our attention and our guidance. Just as the horse was displaced by the combustible engine, so will humans by digital and robotic technologies. We recognize this natural evolution and encourage this exchange of work duties for a future based upon the pursuit of knowledge, beauty and pleasure. Please join us as we celebrate technology and remind society that at our core, we are all artists.