Work is objective: structured, procedural, and reproductive. Play is experimental: unstructured, free forming, and exploratory. Each of these activities take place in their own space that is generated by the means of working or playing. With computers, both work and play can happen. The classic divide of the home was that it was used by responsible adults for crunching numbers and word processing, whereas kids play games and do digital painting. As computer operations have become more smoothly multimedia in layout, speed, and online tools, the machines that run digital media, blur labor and leisure. The actions of work and play become a threadwork of inputs and outlets feeding one another as modes of doing that can shift instantly. This relationship of altered states of work and play with digital media and computer software is best exemplified through the satirical work of comedy duo Tim (Heidecker) and Eric (Wareheim), on the TV series Tim and Eric Awesome Show: Great Job! (Awesome Show) (2006-2010).


On such sketch is Celery Man, starring actor Paul Rudd (SE 5 EP 10). Since its original airing on  Cartoon Network’s, Adult Swim, Celeryman became a viral video clip that gained notoriety as meme due Paul Rudd’s dancing, and outlandish dialogue with a computer OS. The clip begins with Rudd playing himself as the character Paul, walking loudly across metal bridge in some kind of virtual environment, sort of resembling the Cerebro chamber in X-Men. Paul sits at desk and fires up a computer. The machine greets him with an AI named “Paul’s Computer.” A program called the Cinco Identity Generator 2.5 automatically starts up. Paul then uses with voice commands to load a sequence called “Celery Man.” On the computer screen, video content of Paul dancing in different styles, outfits, and sound bites is plays in a window. The variety of dances and looks is multiplied across several windows that populate screen space, producing another kind of visual performance altogether. Bordering somewhere between a primitive front end and a futuristic backend processing, Celery Man and Paul’s PC operating system ​(OS) depicts a blurring of play and work done through computing. This sketch is particularly attention grabbing today, due to the increasing usage of generative AI for photo and video production and how the interaction with computer programs enables work to be more leisurely and whose novel productivity is harder to evaluate. Is Paul’s activity driven by amusement and curiosity work or play?

There are a lot of mysterious elements to unpack in Celery Man. First, as viewers, we don’t know exactly where Paul is. He is wearing business casual attire with a cup of coffee, and acts ready to get down to real work. The sound of his footsteps is creating an industrial effect. The chair and table are steel and black leather are designed for business purposes. The workspace has no signs of distracting décor or other supplies. The place in this scene has all the trappings of a hi-tech place that could not exist in the home except on a Virtual Reality headset. And such a technological apparatus would only be possible with well-funded corporation.


Paul’s workday begins by hitting the space bar of the keyboard once, indicating this PC belongs to him. At certain intervals Paul just sits and watches, sipping coffee, waiting to see what results appear on the screen. Although he is prompting the computer to make changes, he is also a spectator, waiting to see what kind of video clip unfolds next. The origin of the media show is also an unknown element. On the surface, we know that the Tim and Eric filmed Paul Rudd doing dances for us to see and the character to watch. In this fictious scene however, we cannot assume that it is the case that Paul is viewing imagery of himself recorded with a camera. We must assume that the Identity Generator program has generated dancing models that have are modeled to look like Paul.


This is especially apparent with the introduction of the flamboyant dancer named “Tayne.” Tayne who looks and sounds like Paul is a character in his own right when he introduces himself, to which Paul replies, “Now Tayne, I can get into.” This aspect of computer-generated self-image communicates how much Paul (people) like to see themselves fed back to them. Paul is very infatuated with his own image, dressed in alternative looks running at optimal speeds and resolution, and occurring simultaneously as a multimedia display inside multiple playing windows. Are these images even based on real video recordings or is this vision of generative AI a sci-fi version of a more perfect generative model than we currently have?


Another question is if should Paul is doing work or slacking off? In the arts and entertainment where Tim and Eric work in, there is a certain level of imagination and experimentation baked into their work. Indeed, all movies and television require some degree of play to be successfully received be an audience. In the case of consumer and professional usage, the addition of a computer to creative workflows, makes the machine itself is a toy. Tim and Eric and their production team certainly use digital tools to distort or break pictures, sound, graphics, animation, and sequences into engaging affect. Celery Man is almost like a love letter to the artistry and experimental nature digital media provides for film and video production. We cannot help but be playful and silly with the output of computers due to their speed and multi-media capability.



But as much as we can do work on a computer, we can also use them to access entertaining articles, tv, movies, and games. These searches for other content can also be happening at the same time we are working. We might listen to a podcast or have video streaming playing in the background or to the side of work driven programming. As to what the purpose is of Paul’s work is, the answer is benign. He is building automated audiovisual sequences that seem frivolous and intuitive as he responds to the processed results in real-time. He watches the screen like a show never-before-seen, and even contains NSFW generation of Tayne. The character Tayne himself may be a shortened pun for entering pleasurable viewing, as in Enter-Tayne. There is no indication of recording happening but Paul’s PC can create sequences that it “has been working on.” Finally, when Paul receives a call notification from his wife about an emergency, humorously he ignores the call to focus on the work he is doing which appears to be only self-gratifying.


As a creative, I can relate to the indistinguishable simultaneity of modes of work and play that happen when using computers. The multimedia capability of computers not only makes both making and consuming media possible, but also makes separate activities a singular process. For human beings, computers are multimedia devices due to the volume of audio and visual elements it can play. Yet the interface of the screen makes a computer video centered medium. As computers are automated to perform without human input, the video screen devolves into the traditional screen watching of television. Viewers can sit back, drink and snack, and wait for the next visual operation to arrive. The future of digital media is a stream of local and global media objects whose origin is synthesized and generated by a task assisting model whose outward interface is a companion to play with. Communications between the user and computer are indivisibly playful and work-driven as a collaboration. With Celery Man it is Paul’s physical mind and perception interacting with an electronic image of his body. And just like the indistinguishable separation of work and play, can Paul make a distinction between himself and his generated identities? The computer after all is an extension of himself.