Toronto: An Interference Project: Wait

This project has as its starting point one wait too many for a streetcar that never comes, and a fairytale about rats. In this story, mean scientists perform pervasive scientific studies on the rats. The endearing rodents are randomly fed treats in an experiment to see how they would behave in the absence of a predictable pattern of controlled rewards. The rats quickly habituate themselves to the random stimulus by doing nothing but waiting; they become “bodies-bored.” Our idea is to stage possible different endings, the way it only happens in children’s stories and po-mo cinema. In this spirit, we pose the following questions around the perceived interconnection between waiting for a streetcar and boredom: How can boredom be (incorporeally) transformed into a positive affect via random encounters among bodies in transit? What does standing at a bus stop suggest to the body that waits, and what are the mechanisms (social, technological, emotional etc.) that ‘convince’ us to do nothing but wait? Can an interference with these daily micro-(non-)events engender an ‘ethics of boredom’?

Proposition 1:
Nothing is boring in itself
Apparently, the feeling of being bored only started plaguing us at the advent of modernity, when it emerged via an anomalous use of the verb ‘to bore’ in the middle of the eighteenth century. During the 19th century, boredom was taken up as a tale of disenchantment where the experience of boredom was considered such that something outside the human subject (a certain place, for instance) could be in itself ‘boring.’ Similarly, for scientists such as those in our tale, the mechanical repetition and random alternation of increasingly similar patterns of work and leisure, or the giving of treats, seems to have engendered our own body-boredom, along with various articulations of impatience and inattention. What this discourse ignores, however, is that we should go beyond the subject and instead look at the composition of space-time in which affects are distributed i.e. what precedes perceptions and emotion. In order to say ‘I am bored,’ there has to be a specific composition of affects that pre-exist the (bored) individual but are perceived as ‘boredom’ through habituated reactions. Thus, interference can take place prior to the individual’s perception of being bored – that is, at the level of affective composition.

Proposition 2:
Habit does not necessarily result in boredom
How can we understand habit? If habit is a repetition that never comes twice (from the banal to the complex, things take place in time, that is, durationally) – then a dulled receptivity to this sense of indeterminacy may link habit and boredom. Interference in this link can increase receptivity and facilitates a reconfiguration of the meaning of waiting.
Wait, this is an interference
A project of interference is one that strikes (ferir ‘to strike’) rather than interrupts. Interfere and boredom etymologically reference each other, sharing the cognate borian ‘to bore,’ meaning both to cut and to make a hole. A cut, a slicing, or the making of holes inevitably precedes any interruption of already existing fluxes and e/motions.
The rat-like wait of Toronto’s commuters for never-coming (or always-coming) streetcars is a good starting point for interference, cutting into our habituated re/actions in public spaces while we wait for the random treat. Why can we not be just like those experimenting scientists and re-pattern habits, strike at the single desire for a treat and intensify, multiply it, even derail it (the desire, not the street car)? Although it may seem unimaginable, there are more flows to cut into than broken streetcars at the TTC depot: flows of bodies in transit, flows of stories, information, memories, flows of monologues that can turn into conversations…

Proposed interferences:

a. Relational performativity at bus shelters. Examples may include: DIY shadow puppet shows, film projections, live projections of bus shelter actions in other parts of the city, making a shelter into a salon or living room, folders available with readings stuck on the inside of the shelter (poetry, snippets of dialogue, excerpts, jokes etc.), crafting i.e. knitting, sewing, quilting with materials made available inside the shelters, etc. 
b. Viral treats: engendering new habits can take place through the creation of unforeseen connections. This “autonomous rodent experiment” rejects treats as a medium and instead focuses on creating the opportunity for everyone to assemble-experiment with arrangements of ingredients and creatively mix them ourselves. A call for artists will provide a semi-improvisational interference, turning the body-bored waiting at the bus shelter into a foraging ground. Viruses are important elements in any serious experiment with rodents – let’s spread virally to other sites (e.g. by giving things to leave at other stops, inviting those who are interested to forget the tram, call a friend to come play with us, invoke situations where we can continue to interact while waiting on other days, etc.) and hopefully to other experiments! 
c. Anomalous pacts: Much of our body-bored habits deriving from contemporary economic conditions have to do with an increasing difficulty to live according to stable patterns of work/unemployment and leisure. This creates an unsettling relationship/conflict between our desires and the conditions of our lives: some (good) European scientists call this condition “precarity,” and many European rats invade the streets on May 1st to alleviate their boredom. In connection with World Mayday 2009 (www.euromayday.org) we will link our project with this cosmic and material (worker’s rights) celebration by calling for artivistic bus shelter actions that help develop a taste for anti-precarity ingredients.

Ethics of boredom

Ultimately, we are aware that, as is the case with scientific progress, we will not be able to provide an incontestable answer to our research questions. Even less, will we be able to provide the ultimate fair-traded, ethical recipe for boredom-interference. However, what we do hope to provide is a sketch, a set of granny’s secret tricks to always be able to assemble your own treats from what is available, turning a time of wait and boredom into one of creative encounter…

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