There are two definitions of the word 'rest'; a type of break and what remains. These versions of the noun are tied. When I think of relaxation I think of excess or surplus, and these seemingly opposed definitions bounce off each other. I started thinking––trying to pin down 'rest.' Does rest = not work? Here already I begin to spin out, thinking about what is restful and unrestful work, and whether how we classify work depends on class and cultural expectations. This is how difference is bound dialectically. By dialectically, I mean that we define things not by their opposite, but that the opposition of states is integral to their nature. Some things we don't call work, because they are informal or unregulated, certainly are, like can collecting or sex work. We say 'sex work' now–I think–because calling it work instead of prostitution or something else, attempts to include this labor within the protective norms of culture and law. In Germany it is normal to leave your used cans and bottles everywhere in the city. Those without proper employment are tacitly expected to (want to) collect them in exchange for small change. A friend pointed out how strangely coercive this re-inclusion into productive society is. Those people thought of as the rest of us, expected to pick up the leftovers––the rest of it. In Soil Thornton's "The Rest" at Simian, the cans are all found flattened in the street; totally transformed by a vehicular smashing that makes them worthless in this petty exchange economy. They are the rest of the rest of the cans, unredeemable; although they are now entered into a rarer and more speculative process of valuation, art work. What makes them eligible for inclusion in Thornton's collection, stored inside vitrines or boxes, excludes them from another type of value. It seems, what is thought of as the rest of something has shifting criteria or is a matter of perspective.
In both old English and German the word rest has something to do etymologically with sleep or death. Early uses in Norse and Gothic meant how far one could travel before having to stop. Later, it most essentially comes to mean a break, or in music a silence. It seems we have to go far to think of an exclusively restful state of calm. Being 'zen' in western popular lingo once described someone who is generally peaceful and well tempered. Is stillness really such a foreign concept? This idea of rest being a break, also functions in 'the rest.' The difference between noise and music, or labor and rest, is like the inside and outside of who and what is thought of as valuable–the whole, the rest. Idiomatically 'rest' is something sought after but also earned; a hard day's work, a good night's rest. It is a good wish for others; 'rest well,' and at the end 'rest in peace,' the terminal cessation from suffering or maybe just the end of productivity. Also 'no rest for the wicked,' a punishment and moral condemnation, to be forever without rest. Rest feels elusive.
When can we rest from this labor; of liberation, of art, of enjoyment? Say nothing of those who are robbed of rest by war, who are excluded by malice; or never rest from speaking about it. Is rest utopic? How can we exist outside this striving; how can we come inside and be included? "We," why do I tend to think so much of inclusivity when I think of rest. Why do I speak as if outside? Are you the whole or the rest? Natural or excess? Is it dialectics again, thinking of the rest that everyone deserves makes me think of the rest who are left out. But then again what is the inside––norms (social, familial, economic)––is being included actually desirable? To think of 'rest' and 'the rest' as essentially departures from a norm seems too essential. Maybe the dichotomy of rest and struggle is not so exact, but something manufactured by all this organization of jobs and governments and media, and the othering of the rest is a by-product too. It is all happening at once, the hard work and the good rest, and there are very terrible things going on at the same time as you are experiencing something very beautiful, like a flower. Maybe that is pedantic, maybe it is true. If there is no escape from this dialectic there is also still a place for good rest in it, and good work that works to make rest for others.
Graham Hamilton
