The Procrastinator / Art Object by Yomi Ajani
weekend project in November 2019

The Procrastinator is a machine that relentlessly sharpens every pencil you feed it to the point of destruction.
Originating from mechanisms of procrastination and the small, unnecessary habits we fall into when trying to distract ourselves from working, The Procrastinator explores the ambivalent prinicple of sharpening pencils. In order to create value in form of a sharp and usable pencil, you have to shave off more and more of the wood, slowly destroying it in the process until it ultimately is not usable anymore. The sharpener, driven by a motor and gravity, pointlessly sharpens the already sharp pencil, turning one after the other into a giant pile of pencilshavings.

This can also be understood as a methaphor for the fact that we don’t have time to procrastinate ourselfs anymore - a machine has to do it for us.

Director + Editor Klara Plainer
DOP Yomi Ajani