Time Spent
Rob Daniel Hutt |
2023 |
United Kingdom |
12:28 mins |
Time Spent, by Rob Daniel Hutt, takes the present cost of living crisis, deepened by over a decade of Tory austerity, as its dramatic cue in a story of exploitation and bio-politics. In high-concept thriller package it delivers some interesting ideas about class, race and power.
The crux of the story centres on the dilemma our protagonist faces when job-searching. Instead of a typical gig, he finds a bio-engineering company that will exchange years of his life for the money he would earn over those years. The analogue to class and exploitation is clear here: lives do have monetary value, reduced to units that circulate and create capital. The impossible decision that Nathan faces is one that we each day wake up to and take for granted. But this isn’t a question of personal choice but of a system that degrades us.
Time Spent also brings into relief the encroaching world of bio-politics. In a similar sense, bio-politics can be seen as an extension of the capitalistic reduction of humans to monetary units. Biopolitics, however, harvests data and information at the same time as using these for pre-emptive measures of societal control. The rise of technology has created a world a newer horizons, but at what cost?
Packaged in an accessible thriller blockbuster genre, Time Spent shows us the cost of our labour in a techno-capitalist society.