Daily one-hour of Doing Nothing Online performance
One Hour of Doing Nothing, daily.
It changes nothing, fixes nothing, proves nothing.
The work consists of a daily one-hour livestream in which I sit silently in front of the camera and do nothing.
There is no point.
It resolves nothing.
It responds to nothing.
No result. No conclusion. No resolution.
An act that cancels itself in the doing.
Still, I show up.
And I’ll be back tomorrow.
Credit: Roberta Segata
Artist statement:
My body of work explores the human condition through persistence and the instability of meaning.
As an interdisciplinary artist, I often begin from personal questions, habits, memories, and systems of counting or documentation, developing long-term processes that unfold through durational actions and visual outcomes.
My practice is shaped by self-imposed structures and excessive continuation. Through duration and accumulation, actions gradually detach from their original function, often confronting their own impossibility or futility, extending beyond purpose or reason.
Quantification becomes a way of structuring absurdity, while continuation itself emerges as a central condition of the work.
Rather than offering conclusions or fixed meanings, the works maintain contradiction and unresolved tension, allowing gestures to remain suspended without clear resolution, justification, or end. They simply continue.
For over a decade, I have worked full-time as an independent artist without a fixed base or stable income, intentionally rejecting roles and “bullshit jobs” that would compromise the freedom, time, and independence on which my practice depends.
Performance statement:
Title: Daily one-hour of Doing Nothing
Starting date: 23/03/2020
Duration: 1hr/day
Status: ongoing
Days missed: 0
Daily live videos: @ely.daou
Daily screenshots: @elydaou
