Beyond the Screen: Séjour Home Office

An Introduction, Home Office

The term home office is an idea in its own right; a spatial reality within a limited context where it continually twists and turns itself for different purposes. This capricious and interchangeable space in a way is resistance, that may as well bring to one’s senses the shackles of the modern world, where expected polarizing ideas are foundations to its economy. Live or work, leisure or productivity, family or company, artist or accountant, weekend or weekday, and the list goes on. Here, in this antagonism which society might initially seek to divide the abstracts, we believe idea as simple as the home office is, in turn, a somewhat response to the blessing of the in-betweens, where each individual has a fair share of their authentic life. To begin with, we are grateful to rediscover the situation where we could have both; an executive meeting in shorts, a coffee break that takes a bit too long, or home cooking that may convince a client.

The truck driver is at home on the highway, but he does not have his shelter there; the working woman is at home in the spinning mill, but does not have her dwelling place there; the chief engineer is at home in the power station, but he does not dwell there. These buildings house man. He inhabits them and yet does not dwell in them, when to dwell means merely that we take shelter in them…” (Heidegger, 1971)[2]

 

Heidegger explains that building, dwelling, and thinking belong altogether within the same domain, and that might also include the labour. Yet, the labour often exiled the sense and the meaning of dwelling, which makes most modern space merely the embodiment of singular labour takes place within it; the relationship which seems inseparable, especially in today’s context. To the contrary, many will consider it taboo to bring the works home too. As tough the antipathy to share the strives and struggle on the dining table. As tough the awkwardness to connect the business with the familial. Among the concerns of this ‘traditional’ modernity, there is another recurrent motive for domestic alienation. To say the least, it is not wrong to say that household from which the traces of its daily resources have almost totally obscured, might seek only the face value, the function, and hardly the intimacy of their everyday.

The home office is not a new thing, though this could also be the timeliest takeaway from the year of stripping the global economy down to the minimal. In the home office, the spatial frees the dweller, disengages them from the urge to lag or progress too much, or to some extent, detours their consumption drives back to the domestic necessities. What makes a place a home office in terms of forms or types is none of our interests. The expanded roles of the space, the mixed-up memories invested within, and the constellation of things distributed all over it are the ones that count. When we first discussed the issue, we approached each other to reveal valuable aspects in our daily practice. We came to terms to finally use this exchange to celebrate the infra-ordinaries of our home office, the place we dwell in the most. The home office is here and there (or both), but the reason is always to stay in the present. Welcome, and make yourself at the home office.