8 / 8 / 8
(8 Hours Work, 8 Hours Rest, 8 Hours Play:
A Capitalist Phantasm in Three Parts)
Part One: WORK
Schoolhouse Studios, Coburg
Rising 2022
Created by Marcus McKenzie & Harriet Gillies
At close of play and the end of days, optimisation never ends.
The world of Comic Sans reply-alls is taken offline in this experimental marathon performance by artists Harriet Gillies and Marcus McKenzie.
Clock-in with an expert team of life coach gurus, microdosing tech-bros, multi-level marketing scammers, and an intern paid entirely in exposure for this ridiculous capitalist phantasm. As the performance spills from a CAPTCHA-esque maze of queues and QR codes and into an absurd corporate seminar, bodies will rise en masse to break free from cubicles and bring to life the Casual Friday horrors of human production lines and relentless consumption.
8/8/8: WORK is the first in a series of three performance works examining the industrialised split of our lives into neat, equal slivers of work, rest and play.
Co-Creators: Harriet Gillies and Marcus McKenzie
The perfect work/life balance exists.
8 hours rest, 8 hours play, 8 hours of absurd corporate hell.
Created and performed by: Eugene Choi, Mish Grigor, Rebecca Jensen, Lilian Steiner, Peter Paltos, Marcus McKenzie & Harriet Gillies
Producer: Thom Smyth / Unfunded Empathy
Director: Lynsey Peisinger
Dramaturg: Lara Thoms / Aphids
Production Design: Romanie Harper
Lighting Design: Additive Lighting
Composer/Musician: Nina Buchanan
Parafictional Trust Engineer: Derrick Duan
Digital Associate: Xanthe Dobbie
Production Manager: Nick Glen
Stage Manager: Olivia Walker
Assistant Stage Manager: Daniel Story
“Associates” (performance ensemble): Arben Dzika, Ava Campbell, Brooke Arblaster, Jade Prasad, Derrick Duan, Dominic Weintraub, Ellen Davis, Emma McManus, Flick, and Gabriella Imrichova
Photos: Amelia J Dowd & Eugene Hyland
Interns / Performers: Zack Lewin and Grace McPherson
Office Sustenance and Catering: Long Prawn
This project was commissioned through RISING’s A Call to Artists initiative, a program supported by Creative Victoria, City of Melbourne and Besen Family Foundation. It is supported by the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body, and received development support through the GreenHouse National Artists Residency program, delivered by HotHouse Theatre in partnership with Albury City and Murray Arts; Melbourne Fringe and the Besen Family Foundation; and Vitalstatistix through Adhocracy, their national artists' lab. For this project Marcus & Harriet were mentored by Lara Thoms & APHIDS through their Supermassive program. Special thanks Captains Of Industry for the office space.