The Cowan Paradox
2024
Made with support from Stichting Stokroos & Stroomversneller
Software development by Ibo Ibelings
3D animation support by Sjoerd Mol
The Cowan Paradox, named after historian Ruth Schwartz Cowan, describes how time spent on housework had not decreased between 1870 and 1970, despite innovations in the household—the Industrial Revolution in the Home, as Cowan puts it. Cowan published her findings in the ’70s, but her paradox still continues to hold. More recent research shows that in 1900 the average adult spent twenty-six hours a week on domestic work, while by 2005 that had only reduced to twenty-four hours a week. This means that the household gadgets and convenience products that found their way into our homes in the late 20th century, and presumably those beyond then, also did not make for less domestic work. In what ways then did these innovations change our lives?
This video installation uses a number of self scanners—an innovation that dubiously presents itself as automation—to look at a number of innovations that had a hand in shifting the home from a place of production to one of consumption and changing domestic labour.