Eintritt in ein Lebewesen. Von der sozialen Skulptur zum Plattform-Kapitalismus / Journey Into a Living Being: From Social Sculpture to Platform Capitalism (2020) [German/English]
Filed under catalogue | Tags: · art, capitalism, data, internet, platform, privacy, social media, surveillance
“In 1977, Joseph Beuys presented his installation Honey Machine at the Workplace at documenta 6, in which tubes ran into the exhibition rooms, through which honey was pumped. The work symbolized Beuys’ idea of the expanded concept of art and of social sculpture. “Everyone is an artist” is his famous motto –not because everyone can paint, dance or make music, but because we all contribute through our productivity to a collective creativity that can be weighed as real capital and societal potential, to which Beuys ascribed the formula “art = capital.” Honey as the “spiritual nutrition of the cosmos” (Beuys) is the embodiment of this collective creativity.
These days, we deliver our creative “honey” voluntarily to internet companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok or Amazon. Computers and smartphones, online speakers and fitness wristbands upload a large portion of our data to these companies’ servers. Even rental bikes and e-scooters collect our location data. Our every click, every Like, every photo posted and every online comment is fuel for the companies of “surveillance capitalism” (Shoshana Zuboff). They use our data to sell advertising, predict our behavior, optimize their algorithms and AI, and to keep competing companies out of the market as much as possible.
The exhibition Journey Into a Living Being takes its name from a lecture Beuys gave on social sculpture at documenta. It traces the conceptual trajectory to the present, in which the internet and social media are replete with offers of creative services, but where only few reap the financial rewards. It brings together artworks spanning forty years with the aim of deciphering what has come to pass between the development of social sculpture and the rise of platform capitalism and the gig economy, and how this process is reflected in art.”
Edited by Tilman Baumgärtel
Publisher Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin, 2020
ISBN 9783000652608, 3000652604
111 pages
Exhibition (18.5-16.8.2020)
WorldCat
PDF (6 MB)
Comment (0)Sebastian Olma: In Defence of Serendipity: For a Radical Politics of Innovation (2016)
Filed under book | Tags: · infrastructure, innovation, philosophy, platform, serendipity, technology
“In Defence of Serendipity is a lively and buccaneering work of investigative philosophy, treating the origins of “serendipity, accident and sagacity”, both as riddles and philosophical concepts that can be put to a future political use.
Taking in Aristotle, LSD, Tony Blair and techno-mysticism, Olma challenges the prevailing faith in the benevolence of digital technology and the illegitimate equation of innovation and entrepreneurship, arguing instead that we must take responsibility for the care of society’s digital infrastructure, and prevent its degeneration into an apparatus of marketing and finance. For although there is nothing wrong with marketing and finance per se, if they alone lead technological development, free of any discretionary political interference, the freedom to be exploited will be as much a part of the future as our ability to intervene freely in our lives, will be a thing of the past.”
Preface by Mark Fisher
Publisher Repeater Books, London, 2016
ISBN 1910924342, 9781910924341
237 pages
via WL
Reviews: Max Dovey (Imperica, 2017), Robert Hewison (Cultural Trends, 2016), Serendipitor (2016).
Comment (0)Silvio Lorusso: Entreprecariat: Everyone Is an Entrepreneur Nobody Is Safe (2018–) [IT, EN]
Filed under book | Tags: · capitalism, design, entrepreneurship, labour, platform, precariat, precarity, work
“Entrepreneur or precarious worker? These are the terms of a cognitive dissonance that turns everyone’s life into a shaky project in perennial start-up phase. Silvio Lorusso guides us through the entreprecariat, a world where change is natural and healthy, whatever it may bring. A world populated by motivational posters, productivity tools, mobile offices and self-help techniques. A world in which a mix of entrepreneurial ideology and widespread precarity is what regulates professional social media, online marketplaces for self-employment and crowdfunding platforms for personal needs. The result? A life in permanent beta, with sometimes tragic implications.”
Italian edition
With a foreword by Geert Lovink and an afterword by Raffaele Alberto Ventura
Publisher Krisis Publishing, Brescia, 2018
ISBN 9788894402902, 8894402908
223 pages
English edition
Translated by Isobel Butters
Publisher Onomatopee, Eindhoven, 2019
Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 License
ISBN 9789493148161, 9493148165
257 pages
Interviews with author: Walter Marocchi (2019), Floor van Luijk (Metropolis M, 2020).
Reviews: Marco Petroni (Artribune, 2019), Tiziano Bonini (cheFare, 2019), Sandro Moiso (Carmilla, 2019), Giulio Gonella (Volume, 2020), Alessandro Ludovico (Neural, 2020).
Commentary: Nicola Bozzi (Digimag, 2017, EN).
Author
Publisher (IT)
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WorldCat (EN)
Entreprecariat – Siamo tutti imprenditori. Nessuno è al sicuro (Italian, 2018, 9 MB)
Entreprecariat: Everyone Is an Entrepreneur Nobody Is Safe (English, trans. Isobel Butters, 2019, 7 MB, added on 2020-5-12)