ReWork: The Futures of Hybrid Work

The recent COVID-19 pandemic, and the attendant lockdown, have demonstrated the potential benefits and possibilities of remote work practices, as well as the glaring deficiencies such practices bring. Zoom fatigue, resulting from high cognitive loads and intense amounts of eye contact, is just the tip of an uncomfortable iceberg where the problem of embodied presence remains a stubborn limitation. Remote and hybrid work will certainly be part of the future of most work practices, but what should these future work practices look like? Should we merely attempt to fix what we already have or can we be bolder and speculate different kinds of workplace futures? We seek a vision of the future that integrates hybrid work experiences with grace and decency. This project will focus on the following research question: what are the possible futures of embodied presence in hybrid and remote work conditions?