It’s not the drama or horror of The Handmaid’s Tale we have to look out for, but a ‘no change’ message on a broken cashpoint or a children’s ‘self-checkout’ toy
“Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.” It might have chilling echoes of the iron-wrought words on the gates of Auschwitz, but this phrase is written in cheery cursive on a wall of Scunthorpe library. “Tory-run North Lincolnshire council think this is art,” grumbled blogger Danni Phillips, who shared a photo of the mural on Twitter. “Orwell is turning in his grave.”
Actually, the quote is from Stephen Hawking, from a 2010 interview – but writ large without context and passed off as art, it’s another unsettling reminder of the “boring dystopia” in which we find ourselves. The term was coined by the late academic and cultural theorist Mark Fisher in 2015, to refer to the bland, mildly coercive signs that abound in late-stage capitalist society, which foster a vague sense of isolation or unease.
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