Auto Italia, London, 06 April 2013 — 12 May 2013
Alex Andrews, Hannah Black, Harry Burke, James Bridle, Jessica Bland, Joanna Figiel, Mark Fisher, Larne Gogarty, Alex Hern, Dougald Hine, Dave King, Ed Manley, Metahaven, Novara Media, Jay Owens, Michael Oswell, David Rudnick, Jay Springett, Kerstin Stakemeier, Kieran Startup, Stevphen Shukaitis, Alex Vasudevan, Ben Vickers, Georgina Voss, Josefine Wikström and Will Wiles
Launch Microsite      →
Immaterial Labour Isn’t Working, 2013. Courtesy of the artists.

Immaterial Labour Isn’t Working is a series of talks, workshops, texts and online contributions from key voices – artists, activists, technologists and writers – examining how digital technology is changing our political selves.

Everything has changed. A technological revolution and an economic crisis have combined to reshape our world. Today, we live, work and play online, and yet we are often still stuck in ways of thinking that belong to an offline world.

Over 40 years information technology has transformed our working patterns. Today, our productive capabilities are harnessed in all our waking hours as the boundaries between production and consumption transform into a pixelated blur. The way we produce, disseminate and consume culture is now almost totally mediated by the online space; but more than this, there’s also an increasingly fluid relation between “creative industries” and the working practices being imposed upon other workers. The aesthetic and technical structures of online space are becoming the prism through which we visualise and conceptualise our everyday lives, yet technological developments in the workplace are being structured for the benefit of our employers rather than us workers.

How does living online affect our mental health? Are we working too much? Is the boundary between work and play too porous? How does political organising happen when we never meet our colleagues? What does culture look like when the tools to make and broadcast exist on every laptop?

Accompanying the programme of events is the launch of Metahaven’s new book with Deterritorial Support Group (DSG): VOID MYSTIQUE DNA (ISBN 978-0-9576316-0-1). Visitors are able to browse this unique “split-EP” monografesto, and even pick up a copy of this profoundly limited-edition book free of charge. Commissioned by Auto Italia, this collaboration sees the first joint project by two of the most exciting design think tanks working today.

The first project to be presented at Auto Italia’s new King’s Cross space, ILIW13 will be physically situated within this area of industrial and social transformation, occupying an uncertain landscape now claimed as site of cultural production.

Immaterial Labour Isn’t Working is a project by Auto Italia in collaboration with Huw Lemmey. Contributors include: Alex Andrews, Hannah Black, Jessica Bland, James Bridle, Joanna Figiel & Stevphen Shukaitis (Metropolitan Factory), Mark Fisher, Larne Gogarty, Alex Hern, Dougald Hine, Dave King (Luddites 200), Ed Manley, Metahaven, Novara Media, Michael Oswell, Jay Owens, David Rudnick, Jay Springett, Kerstin Stakemeier, Kieran Startup Alex Vasudevan, Ben Vickers, Georgina Voss, Josefine Wikström and Will Wiles.

Week 1: ILIW: Metahaven in Conversation with Harry Burke + e-book Launch
20 Apr 2013, 18:00 — 19:00

Harry Burke joins Metahaven to discuss their new book Can Jokes Bring Down Governments? Memes, Design and Politics.

Week 1: ILIW: Open Access Publishing
20 Apr 2013, 14:00 — 16:00

Writers Alex Hern, Alex Vasudevan and Georgina Voss discuss contemporary trends in culture and intellectual property.

Week 1: ILIW: New Luddism
21 Apr 2013, 18:00 — 20:00

Jessica Bland, Dougald Hine, Ludites200, Jay Springett and Huw Lemmy debate if it is possible to truly ‘switch off’.

Week 2: ILIW: The Shape of the Contemporary Workplace
27 Apr 2013, 14:00 — 16:00

To kick off Week 2 Joanna Figiel and Stevphen Shukaitis explore Fordist work structures and contemporary equivalents.

Week 3: ILIW: SolFed Workplace Organising Workshop
04 May 2013, 12:00 — 13:00

Join this workshop by members of the Solidarity Federation which is a practical introduction to collective organising in the workplace.

Week 3: ILIW: The Digital, The Immaterial & The Workers’ Inquiry
04 May 2013, 14:00 — 16:00

James Butler and Aaron Peters of Novara Media discuss automation, utopia and what is immaterial about immaterial labour.

Week 3: ILIW: Post-Fordism and Mental Health
04 May 2013, 18:00 — 20:00

Hannah Black, Mark Fisher, Huw Lemmey and Ramona question the separation between work and leisure and how it effects mental health.

Week 3: ILIW: The Hole in the Network Where the Humans Shine Through
05 May 2013, 18:00 — 20:00

Join Security Engineer Eleanor Saitta in questioning our participation in the surveillance state.

Week 4: ILIW: (In)visibility and Labour
11 May 2013, 18:00 — 20:00

James Bridle, Will Wiles and Ben Vickers explores visibility, labour and technology.

Week 4: ILIW: The Aesthetics of Immaterial Labour
12 May 2013, 14:00 — LATE

Larne Abse Gogarty, Kerstin Stakemeier and Josefine Wikstrom discusses the concept of ‘immaterial labour’ and its aesthetics.

Week 4: ILIW: Big Data, Social Networks, Data Selves
12 May 2013, 18:00 — 20:00

Alex Andrews, Jay Owens, Ed Manley and Alex Andrews examine the effect of social media on human interaction.

Frieze

Post-Internet Feature 'Beginnings + Ends'

Rhizome

A Network for a Space: Auto Italia South East Moves Into King’s Cross