Jumping Through Hoops

I was reading the American unfinished novel The Palid King(David Foster Wallas, 2011) which describes the monotone, absurd and ineffective bureaucratic processes at the IRS (Internal Revenue Service). The story, which has two main voices and seems to be autobiographical, describes the bureaucracy as a parallel world that happens next to us, but that we don’t usually see. It feels a bit tedious to read, because it describes the processes of bureaucracy in unbearable long paragraphs creating a very slow narrative speed and leading readers on long-winded, intricate paths. The book brought to mind, my own experience of bureaucratic processes as well as memories of my mother who worked as a secretary in different public offices for most of her life.

This artwork aims to respond to those sometimes unbearable bureaucratic processes that we are all forced to go through in order to become part of this society. Some of them have been simplified to acceptable levels and don’t require more than a little bit of time, effort and knowledge; but there are others that can be extremely tedious and that nothing else but filters to control how society, per instance its individuals, develop.