by Vivi Serelli Lee Wen
thesis supervisor Randy Chan
Wage Slavery and the Dehumanisation of Man
In a society driven by progress, the individual’s autonomy may be overshadowed by the demands of a system geared for economic development. The pervasiveness of this phenomenon, prevalent in Singapore’s Central Busines District, has created a condition akin to ‘wage slavery’, characterised by the gradual erosion of wellbeing and an insidious numbness to one’s own condition. The ubiquitous nature of corporate architecture has fostered a culture of conformity and compliance, forcing the individual into becoming a mere product of society. This thesis exposes the underlying systems contributing to the dehumanisation of the worker. The worker navigates the work environment to find relief, a pseudo control that falls short of genuine autonomy. Their attempt to break free from the cycle of self-denial and conformity involves forms of controlled self-destruction to unleash their primal self. However, their efforts are retaliated by corporate powers through accelerated advancements of technology and machine learning,
BEING
mimicking the way of the worker and adapting their attempts into means of automated surveillance. The power dynamic between the worker and corporate power for relief and surveillance disguises the exponential growth of a dehumanising machine - a factory to harvest energy and productivity in order to drive profits. The machine traps the worker, oblivious, in an endless cycle of work and rejuvenation to produce a highly efficient and productive system. The worker’s entrapment results in an artificially crafted lifestyle, suppressing the greatness of the human mind, and purely following instructions. The result of this is the loss of creativity and the system’s eventual diminishing productivity. This evolution offers a glimpse into the Orwellian future of the systems we gladly become part of today.
SUPERVISOR’S COMMENTS This student’s thesis is a social commentary of projected future capitalist exploitation of workplace and politics. The speculative future is where corporate powers through architectural surveillance. This student has cleverly created a module that latches onto the route lines as a ‘dependency on worker’. The architecture here is a type of ‘hyperobject’ that morphs and expands on the idea of creating these routes of escape. It further explores through manipulation of routes interlocking and connecting at points which they create a certain dynamic to show this slavery, an alternate reality - a spectacle machine of the CBD.
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MASTERS OF ARCHITECTURE