Thanks Diana!

Thanks Monika!

* * *

Transcribed from a lecture presented at The New School on October 9,  2009, sociologist Andrew Ross weighs the gains of a digital paradigm  in terms of labor.  On the one hand, active, digitally-networked  societies offer information-rich public goods that can bolster  creativity and politically progressive organizing.  However, the
virtue of ‘openness’ uncritically extolled by technolibertarians must  be considered against its sacrificial costs—the loss of rights for  creative producers who are tempted by the prospect of aesthetic  recognition, the outsourcing of labor to unsustainable workplace  conditions, the corporate monetization of social participation on the  web, and the transference of labor from manufacturers to consumers  that help create a paradigm of perennial work without rest. Ross’  insight considers a range of perspectives that implicate a vertically  and horizontally stratified megalopolis such as New York City.

Read the lecture here:

http://wherewearenow.org/vol1/change/on-the-digital-labor-question/

Reposted from e-flux via CCS Bard…

A series of talks…

Wyoming Evenings: What is the Good of Work? (1/4)

What is the good of work? How and why did the sixties and seventies vision of a future defined by leisure change into the reality of an exhausting life of increasingly purposeless work? What are the implications of the shift from a Fordist model of production to a post-Fordist one? Why is work valorized in contemporary society? What happened to the radical potential of labor? What can we learn by examining its various critiques, from those expressed in the Middle Ages and up through the strategies employed by the Situationists and others? Unemployment is becoming a reality for an increasing number of people. How might we think of unemployment as an artistic and philosophical category?

These questions will be examined during four events at the Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building in the East Village. Each event will involve two guests–one artist and one cultural producer of another kind. Marysia Lewandowska and Peter Fleming will be the guests at the first event on October 17, 2009.

Marysia Lewandowska is a Polish-born, London-based artist and a Professor at Konstfack Stockholm. Her past and current projects reflect the ways in which institutions determine the exchange of values between art and its publics. She is currently developing Women’s Audio Archive as part of her residency at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard) in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

Peter Fleming is professor of Work, Organization and Society at the Queen Mary College (University of London). One of his areas of research concerns the cultural politics of work organizations and the modes of ideological control that operate to enlist the participation of labor.

Events to follow in this series:

December 5th, 2009. 4pm
Marion von Osten and Tom McCarthy

January 30th, 2010. 4pm
Liam Gillick and Gianni Vattimo

March 13th, 2010. 4pm
Carles Guerra and Michael Hardt

For more information: http://www.bard.edu/ccs/exhibitions/sites/exhibition.php?g=680534&type=1

Thank you, Catherine!

A recent flurry of great blog suggestions have arrived from Monika, Abby, and electronic news lists at large. Rather than post each separately (the ongoing plight of overwork is driving me nuts!), I am summarizing the links here. All can be found at http://delicious.com/notimetolose, as well…

“The Long Work Hours Culture”
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=405651&encCode=917617571BC14249875JTBS737226611

Julia Bryan-Wilson, Art Workers. Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era, October 2009
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10899.php

The Vera List Centre for Art and Politics
Panel Discussion & Art Installation: Changing Labor Value
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
http://www.veralistcenter.org/237

But, oh my… the one from Abby on Family360 sounds especailly wacky!! I think I will post it separately… asap.  :Shudder!:

Thanks for sending this along, Monika!

BlackBerrys ‘adding 15 hours’ to working week
Alan Jones, Press Association
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 23 August 2009 19.23 BST
Reposted from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/aug/23/blackberry-work-life-balance

Staff with mobile technology such as BlackBerrys work an extra 15 hours a week as they constantly check emails even when out of the office, new research found today. A survey of more than 600 employees revealed many were turning into workaholics because of the ability to receive and send messages and work online even when they were at home. The employment law firm Peninsula said the working week was being extended to about 55 hours for many people and urged employers to make sure their staff were not breaching working time regulations. PA

• This article was amended on Tuesday 25 August 2009. We said the working day was being extended to about 55 hours for many people; we meant the working week. This has been corrected.

Reposted from: euro|topics 18/09/2009

La Vanguardia - Spain
Working life a source of insecurity
After several employees at telephone company France Télécom took their own lives in the last few months the daily La Vanguardia favours intervention by the French government aimed at making the process of privatising the company more humane: “The case of France Télécom certainly gives pause for reflection. No one denies that we are living in a competitive society, nor that the effort or ability to adapt to new challenges is vital for professional and entrepreneurial advance. But nor would anyone in their right mind deny that a revision of the labour policy at France Télécom is necessary. … Working life, which used to provide security nowadays generates insecurity. Therefore it is crucial to find a balance between the demands of a competitive society and public health. Cases like that of France Télécom should not be repeated.”

If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.
– Herodotus (484 BC – 430 BC), The Histories of Herodotus

Reposted from: euro|topics: A year of crisis (15/09/2009)

Ta Nea – Greece
Privatisation wave partially responsible for suicides
In the last 18 months 23 employees of the privatised telephone company France Télécom have committed suicide. Just last week an employee threw herself to her death after a meeting with her boss. The left-wing daily Ta Nea asks why: “This phenomenon isn’t limited to one company or one country. Data compiled by the US statistics office show that the number of suicides in the workplace in the US has risen by 28 percent [over the previous year]. It would be closing our eyes not to seek the causes of the latest suicide at France Télécom in the government’s desire to transform a traditional state enterprise into a profit-making multinational company at all costs. But even if we did close our eyes we couldn’t help seeing the ongoing trend towards privatisation in Europe, even though it is clear that the liberalisation of the financial markets is what brought the economic crisis down upon our heads.”

A project by artist, Chris Barr… check it out!

http://www.interruptions.org/