Nothing Left But Deep Sleep

Nothing Left But Deep Sleep is a collaborative performative sound project reflecting on exhaustion, overproduction, and the condition of the contemporary cultural worker within capitalist economies.

Developed together with the Danish artist Anders Visti during the online residency project TRAVERSE — a collaboration between Hangar and Billede Kunst Center — the work emerged from shared discussions surrounding fatigue, productivity, and the pressures imposed on artistic labour.

The project approaches the lullaby as both a gesture of care and a performative response to exhaustion. Traditional lullabies were rewritten with new verses reflecting on the figure of the “exhausted producer” through two sound pieces: Sleep Like a Rock and Nothing Left But Deep Sleep.

Rather than functioning as autonomous musical works, the lullabies operate as intimate and accessible interventions addressing emotional fatigue, overwork, and the desire for withdrawal and rest.

Forms

Telephone intervention: a Spanish landline giving public access to the two recorded lullabies through a simple phone call

Lullabies and sound pieces: Sleep Like a Rock and Nothing Left But Deep Sleep, combining traditional lullaby structures with newly written verses on labour and exhaustion and a meditation website by Anders Visti.

Printed score: a downloadable musical score written by Anders Visti

Newspaper classified advertisement: a public announcement distributing the telephone number as an accessible service

Performative talk: combining the advertisement, a functioning telephone, and public activation of the work

Digital collages: two visual works developed alongside the sound intervention

Together, these forms construct a minimal and intimate infrastructure of rest, care, and emotional withdrawal.

Context

The project was conceived within the online residency TRAVERSE, a collaboration between Hangar and Billede Kunst Center exploring artistic production, collaboration, and digital exchange.

Within the broader framework of The Laboratory of Doing Nothing, the project extends the research into sleep, exhaustion, care, and non-productivity through sound, public accessibility, and performative service structures.