Elisa Giardina Papa: Notes on Post-Work
Channel: Aksioma
Date: 04/02/2020

Elisa Giardina Papa: Notes on Post-Work: Free Time and the Human Infrastructures that Sustain Automation and Artificial Intelligence

Artist talk by Elisa Giardina Papa at Moderna galerija.
Ljubljana, 15 January 2020

Realised in the framework of the symposium "AUTOMATE ALL THE THINGS!" within the "Hyperemployment - Post-work, Online Labour and Automation".
A year-long programme co-curated by Domenico Quaranta & Janez Janša.

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.