Screen Matters – The Screen as a Place of Work
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Während wir die Oberfläche unseres Bildschirms antippen, während wir scrollen, suchen und schauen; während wir uns in individualisierten Informationsblasen bewegen, die von algorithmischen Infrastrukturen aufgebaut wurden, während wir digitale Dienste in Anspruch nehmen, die von körperlosen Stimmen angeboten werden, oder während wir Datenspuren hinterlassen, die von Technologieunternehmen für unterschiedliche Zwecke ausgewertet und archiviert werden, müssen wir uns fragen: Wann wird unsere Bildschirmzeit zu einer Form von „Schattenarbeit“? Wie werden soziale Interaktionen durch die unsichtbaren Muster, die digitalen Netzwerken zugrunde liegen, kommodifiziert? Und wer erbringt diese neuen Dienstleistungen, die im Hintergrund unserer Bildschirme entstehen?
Das Online-Symposium „Screen Matters – The Screen as a Place of Work“ widmet sich den unterschiedlichen Screens, die uns umgeben, sowie den Arbeitsweisen, die auf und hinter ihren Oberflächen zu finden sind. Als grundlegende Infrastruktur dieses Symposiums ist der Bildschirm nicht nur Produktions-, Präsentations- und Kommunikationsraum, sondern auch Gegenstand theoretischer und künstlerischer Untersuchungen. „Screen Matters“ untersucht spielerisch die Möglichkeiten eines vorab aufgezeichneten, virtuellen Symposiums und experimentiert dabei mit verschiedenen Formen der audiovisuellen, künstlerischen Forschung. Durch das Verweben von essayistischen Vorträgen, Interviews und Videoarbeiten von Künstler*innen, Denker*innen und Schriftsteller*innen, entsteht ein internationales Gespräch, das die wirtschaftlichen und sozio-politischen Verflechtungen des Bildschirms thematisiert. Gemeinsam mit unseren Gästen werden wir die Arten und Weisen diskutieren, wie Nutzer*innen und Arbeiter*innen durch „Bildschirmarbeit“ körperlich sowie kognitiv erschöpft werden, und gleichzeitig nach Möglichkeiten suchen, sich diesen oft unsichtbaren Formen der kapitalistischen Ausbeutung zu widersetzen.Das Online-Symposium wurde in englischer Sprache abgehalten. Die hier verfügbare audiovisuelle Moderation führt durch das Programm und bildet als eine Art „Membran“ eine verbindende Schnittstelle zwischen den einzelnen Videoarbeiten, Künstler*innengesprächen, Interviews und dem Publikum von „Screen Matters“.
Wie lassen sich die vielfältigen Verflechtungen zwischen Technologie und Körpertechniken beschreiben? Und inwiefern beeinflussen digitale Technologien unsere körperliche Wahrnehmung?
Um diese Fragen zu diskutieren, haben wir die italienische Philosophin und Medientheoretikerin Anna Caterina Dalmasso zu einem Online-Interview eingeladen – das Video ist hier zu sehen.
Anna Caterina Dalmasso ist Assistenzprofessorin für Film- und Medienwissenschaft an der Universität Mailand und assoziiertes Mitglied des Centre Prospéro an der Universität Saint-Louis in Brüssel. Sie ist Mitherausgeberin mehrerer Sammelbände und Fachzeitschriften zu Themen wie Screen Studies, Filmphilosophie sowie dem Verhältnis von Körper und Bildschirmdispositiv.
Ihre Forschung verbindet visuelle Kultur, Film- und Medienwissenschaften mit Phänomenologie und Ästhetik – mit einem besonderen Fokus auf Post-Kino und immersive Medien.
Programm
Das Online-Symposium wurde in englischer Sprache abgehalten.
■ LAURE PROUVOST: MONOLOG
FR 2009, 09:14 min.
Laure Prouvost is a french video, installation and performance artist based in Antwerp. In “Monolog” Prouvost directs the attention to the physical space of the screening room as well as the institutional regulations and behavioural codes imposed upon the audience in cinematic and cultural contexts. In this she parodies her position as a director, and questions our role as an audience.
■ NEWKRYTA, OBHOLZER: MODERATION I
AT 2022, 10:37 min.
Welcome to the symposium “Screen Matters - The Screen as a Place of Work”. The hosts of tonight's evening, Olena Newkryta and Simona Obholzer, are introducing themselves as well as The Golden Pixel Cooperative and the guests of the symposium. This is the first part of an audio-visual moderation that will guide you through the evening. Functioning as a kind of “membrane”, the moderation will create a linking interface between the individual video works, artist talks, interviews, and you, the visitors of “Screen Matters”.
■ NEWKRYTA, OBHOLZER: MODERATION II
AT 2022, 07:46 min.
Since this symposium, like so many things since the outbreak of the Covid 19 pandemic, takes place in the digital realm, we would like to start “Screen Matters” by addressing the increasing technologisation and digitalisation of social interactions. How are social interactions being commodified within digital networks? And how is this commodification impacting the ways we interact with each other?
■ LAUREN LEE MCCARTHY: ARTIST TALK
USA 2022, 15:24 min
Lauren Lee McCarthy is an LA-based artist with a background in computer science. In her works she examines social relationships in the midst of surveillance, automation, and algorithmic living. Interested in the ways how algorithms and technologies format social relations, Lauren creates performative situations and interventions that invite viewers to interact or to engage in a conversation. By inserting performative glitches and by hacking the functioning of software systems, her works not only leverage their underlying mechanisms, but also create genuine spaces of social exchange.
■ NEWKRYTA, OBHOLZER, SANTOS: MODERATION III WITH INPUT BY DOROTHY R. SANTOS
AT / USA 2022, 16:20 min.
With the shift of social interactions into digital spheres, new forms of digital labour also emerge that encompass different types of affective care work. These services are mostly performed by a multitude of freelancers on various online platforms. Interested in the personal experience of those workers, the artist Elisa Giardina Papa conducted chat interviews with workers from all around the world. In order to discuss her video work “Technologies of Care” within a broader context, we have invited the Filipino American writer, artist, and educator Dorothy R. Santos to give us her thoughts on this work from the perspective of her own research. Dorothys research interests include feminist media histories, critical medical anthropology, computational media, technology, race, and ethics.
■ ELISA GIARDINA PAPA: TECHNOLOGIES OF CARE
IT 2016, 11:01 min. (commissioned by Rhizome.org)
Elisa Giardina Papa is an Italian video and installation artist. Her work investigates gender, sexuality, and labour in relation to neoliberal capitalism and the borders of the Global South. “Technologies of Care” documents new ways in which service and affective labour are being outsourced via internet platforms. The video series visualises the invisible workforce of online caregivers, thereby exploring topics such as empathy, precarity, and immaterial labour. “Technologies of Care” consists of seven parts. You are about to see three of them: Worker 1, Researcher and Nail Wraps Designer (Brazil); Worker 2, Social Media Fan (Greece); Worker 5, ASMR artist (USA)
■ NEWKRYTA, OBHOLZER : INTERVIEW WITH ANNA CATERINA DALMASSO
AT 2022, 44:51 min.
How can the manifold interrelations of technology and bodily techniques be described? And in which ways do digital technologies influence our bodily perceptions? In order to discuss those questions, we have invited the Italian philosopher and media theorist Anna Caterina Dalmasso for an online interview. Anna is assistant professor in Film and Media Studies at University of Milan and an associate fellow of the Center Prospéro at Saint-Louis University in Brussels. She has co-edited several collective books and journal issues on screen studies, the philosophy of cinema, and the relationship between the human body and the dispositive of the frame. By combining visual culture, film and media studies with phenomenology and aesthetics, her research focuses on post-cinema and immersive media.
■ NEWKRYTA, OBHOLZER: BREAK
AT 2022, 05:32 min.
■ NEWKRYTA, OBHOLZER: MODERATION IV
AT 2022, 05:46 min.
In the last part of the interview Anna Caterina has addressed the dissolution of the frame in virtual environments and how the body itself becomes a kind of virtual frame, as it marks the edges of visual and physical perception. In regard to the video work “All work And No Play” that will follow next, we will briefly introduce the phenomenon of the "magic circle" and show how it pushes the boundaries of our perception.
■ AXEL STOCKBURGER: ALL WORK AND NO PLAY
AT 2022, 12:38 min.
Within the frame of our screens, information that used to be spatially or institutionally separated from each other is now simultaneously accessible. The boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred between the windows and tabs of our screens, especially when it comes to separating work and leisure. In his video contribution Axel Stockburger asks: Where does work end? Where does the game start? Axel is a Vienna based artist, theorist and educator whose research focuses mainly on game studies and the novel spatial paradigms emerging from computer and video games.
■ NEWKRYTA, OBHOLZER: MODERATION V
AT 2022, 03:27 min.
However, not only are the boundaries between work and play increasingly dissolving - but also those between work and sleep, as Anna Witt's video “A Cool Million” will show. Anna's artistic practice is situated between video and video-performance as well as performative interventions in public space. In her works, which are often preceded by longer collaborations and shared processes, Anna creates situations and encounters that reflect upon interpersonal relationships and political power structures.
■ ANNA WITT: A COOL MILLION
USA / AT 2022, 30:54 min.
Continuing her artistic research on work and working conditions, Anna has produced a video contribution which is based on video footage uploaded by digital service workers on various social media platforms. By collaging these shared experiences that depict the struggles and attempts to earn money online, Anna re-creates a kind of virtual community of workers - one that exists within the frame of the screen.
■ BURRINGTON, NEWKRYTA, OBHOLZER: MODERATION VI WITH INPUT BY INGRID BURRINGTON
AT / USA 2022, 14:04 min.
Is there a possibility of not being productive on the internet? A possibility of wasting time? Of not producing capital? Those are some of the questions we have asked Ingrid Burrington, a New York based writer and artist. In her writings and research Ingrid seeks to demystify technologies as well as to articulate the underlying politics and power dynamics of networked systems and the life within an increasingly networked society. For the symposium we have invited her to create a brief response on the video work “For Internet Use Only” by Franco and Eva Mattes which will follow next.
■ EVA AND FRANCO MATTES: FOR INTERNET USE ONLY
USA 2021, 33:20 min.
Eva & Franco Mattes are an artist duo living in New York. They create audiovisual and installative works that respond to and dissect the contemporary networked condition, thereby approaching the ethics and politics of online life with a darkly humorous edge. “For Internet Use Only” is the documentation of desktop performance from 2016. In this piece the audience inevitably become voyeurs watching the artists carrying out their mundane daily routines between the different windows of their screen, where the borders between leisure and work, between boredom and hyperproductivity blur.
■ NEWKRYTA, OBHOLZER: MODERATION VII
AT 2022, 01:04 min.
Thank you for attending “Screen Matters - The Screen As A Place Of Work”. We hope you have enjoyed the programme. After this last video a graphical evaluation of the daily “Screen Matters Questionnaire” will be shared with you.