Elisa Giardina Papa: Notes on Post-Work

Most of the academic and political discourse on post-work has focused on the relationship between automation and free time. That is, it has posited that automation has the emancipatory potential to free us all from work: to reduce necessary working hours or at least to devote ourselves to more intellectually rewarding jobs (immaterial labour). What is not fully convincing about this approach is that it is grounded in a hierarchical separation between machines and humans. What is missing is the acknowledgment of the human infrastructure that sustains automation and artificial intelligence. The invisible, precarious, alienated, low-paid and offshored workforce that automation requires in order to function properly. These workers and their tasks are the focus of this talk.

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AUTOMATE ALL THE THINGS!

aksioma.org/automate.all.the.things

Conference

Curated by Domenico Quaranta

Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana

and the Academy of Fine Arts and Design of the University of Ljubljana

January 14 - 15, 2020