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Subject: Re: As the Recycling the Future team descends on the Hybrid WorkSpace...
From: pit <pit@icf.de>
Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 23:41:05 METDST

* * * * *


Tom Sherman sends some very interesting notes here,
expanding on the notion of work from 'remote', so
i don't know if i get him right here:

>but the economic sector that is really kicking
>ass is the information and knowledge sector. I&K.
>The I&K phenomena is basically an endless
>description of how we can better manage the resource,
>manufacturing and service industries. And looking ahead,
>how we can manage the leisure and tourism and finally
>outer space industries.
well, ironically it is first the stock market which takes
off theses days which makes some people rich and other
people poor. i cannot take part in this kind of optimism
which is build on the dow jones. it doesn't tell much the
REAL COSTS of the expansion of the 'information and
knowledge sector'. (in this context of new economies its
recommend to check the lectures of Saskia Sassen and
Susan George on
http://www.mediaweb-tv.com/english/dx/index.html
if you have the means to access it)

>We now generate texts on how to manage our resources
>(how to raise fatter chickens on less feed); how to be
>more efficient in manufacturing products (how to raise
>fatter chickens on less feed); and how to provide services
>that people want and need (how to serve tastier
>chickens at lower costs).
this story is the same one can hear from the local boss,
who forced to reorganise his business, tells you about
flexibilisaiton, decentralisation, downgrading, outsourcing
and teleworkin in the intranet. the story behind the service
sector is that it does in fact reintroduce butlers, servants
and other kinds of new slaves, to give the financial sector
a human face. the ones who make the money in fact, need a
highly effiant network of command and control.

>The I&K sector is the 'how to' sector of the economy.
it is in fact a strategical sector, people around the world
are paralized by the speed of growth which information makes
possible, which is unbound from matter and energy. the question
is how much metastability gets build up with it and how much
(human, ecological etc) costs just get exported. as Tom Sherman
describes here doesn't differ very much from what we know as
cynical Cyberlibertariansm. (see the somewhat alarming
Interview with of David Hudson with Louis Rossetto,
p1: http://www.factory.org/nettime/archive-1996/0582.html
p2: http://www.factory.org/nettime/archive-1996/0584.html
p3: http://www.factory.org/nettime/archive-1996/0587.html )

>The I&K (information-knowledge) explosion is a great time to
>be an artist, or a consultant or any other form of scribe
>(decipherer, describer, ..cyber describer) because I&K
>workers make a living deciphering and describing things...
>they make texts, not tables and chairs or sculpture or
>paintings. Images, sounds, ideas, concepts--and strings
>of same.

even if this sounds compelling it is missing the
practise of contemporary artists in the nineties which are
montaging elements of 'dematerialised art', the concept art
of the 60ies, with other elements. Especially within the media,
the more interesting works, for my opinion, explore the context
of new media, crossing the borders of the net etc.
(see http://www.irational.org or several net&traveling projects)

> The Hybrid WorkSpace is a virtual employment zone.
>VEZ. A VEZ, it's an 'office' or an information 'market-place',
>or a simply wonderful place where unemployed or underemployed
>people find the work they really want to do.
nicly said. we will put into our favorite workspace quote
repository. but does the information work really mix up leisure
and work, does it really realise the marxist utopia of a
non-alienated work? is it really self-sufficiant,
auto-referential, and independent from an existing outside,
'the context'? what kind of economy takes place here? what gets
exchanged, who is gaining, who is losing? even if Tom Sherman's
assumptions are flattering, they can not "explain the hidden
machines.. the notion of work without the dirtyness, and the
idea that this is somehow a *workplace* ... I describe it as
a progressive office from the mid-80s.. suggesting that the
brainpower is what is important! the discussion, the talking,
the arguments, all just to decide how to rearrange the
furniture [from a workspace member]" if its just a zone to
manifacture consensus i doubt that we produce any 'content
with content', especially on a dislocated place like a
news-group. (ok, relativly dislocated, its a local newsgroup)

But Tom continues to remotly describe from rural Nova Skotia
what's going on over here. And he finds remarkably fine
phrases which reminds us that imagination did not die yet.
the simulation of work, without any kind of a productive output,
a work which works for itself, a stage which performs as a
factory, workin for the sake of work, the autonomy of
auto-reference, the luxury of beeing integrated in the
production of common uselessnes.. VEZ kills TAZ.

but let's repeat his words:

>It's a work-zone where pure work, relatively uncompromised
>work can be found or invented or taken up or on. It's not
>like a school, where societal roles are worn like business
>suits until they fit more or less and are modelled down a
>fashion ramp right into the world. No, the Hybrid WorkSpace
>is a more difficult, mysterious, ill-defined zone.

so far ok, its of course a zone of vagueness and ambiguity.
the hybridity which comes out of the decision to the fate
in ones own hands, takes the risk of certain dramatic effects.
The Hybris within Hybridity leads to an own kind of own
presumtous work ethic. Everthing is possible if you work
hard enough. (Machbarkeitswahn). So it's good to not build
to much on the principle of success and career, because it
disturbes our sensitive gift economy. there are other kind
of prices to pay.

>and generating images and voices and generating a local,
>virtual explosion of description, a kit for making a
>text-bomb. And by text I mean virtual chickens and cows
>and hairstyles and closeups of the horrors of the
>unemployed, homeless and murdered, not sculpture and
>paintings or office furniture.
it is not at all only the workteam which is able to getting
all the work done. only if visitors in the workspace in Kassel
and on the net getting active, at least potentially, the process
can become as dynamic as you say. and it seems, that too
much media, too much architecture, too much colour and tools
are not at all leading to more 'productivity' in a healthy
sense.

>it strikes me that this is a 'make work' project.
as we said further, this is one of our interests. unemployment
should not be seen as a stigma but as a chance. the 'machine
which produces the wish' is still something we have symathies
for. what has to be discussed further is the notion of work.
we cannot continue to reproduce a protestantic-capitalistic
work ethic which is based on labour, guilt and gain etc.
Between Max Weber and Bob Black should be enough space to
'recycle the future of work'...

but we have to take the risk to be responsible in way for
what we are saying here. there is no art context which works
as a buffer for 'crazy thoughts', if on the other hand one
dreams about effectivity of a political- esthetical practise..
so i am extremly careful in getting to near to certain
prefabriocated positions, for example the Chomskyist or
Cyberlibertarian position. Both put us any farther.
Neither the frivolous complains about the loss of morality,
a problematic solidarity of the global intellectual with the
invisible excluded exposed during the documenta
lecture series, nor the romantic and nearly cynical notion
of the luxury of having nothing, JP Barlow showed in his
eloquent reply on Bandwidth and Content.

>You know, thegovernment pays people to apply themselves
>in socially constructive ways to solve the problem of
>social volatility and instability. You know it used to be
>just youth rolling around, drinking and drugging
>and fucking and 'wasting their lives'.
like: youth means to much 'human capital', let the
'immigrants' take the position? and is there an invisible
'old boys club' deciding this, against 'humanity' like
some are trying to exlain us?

>Shit, they aren't describing anything, accept how to party.
and build masses, 1.2 million at the love parade..

>We need hard problems to solve, difficult employment,
>virtual employment zones (VEZ's) where resources are provided,
>some travel permitted, networking tools at our fingertips...
>but there's nothing else, except an inappropriate setting,
>a big art fair (Documenta) and a stream of leisure-class
>tourists, perhaps impervious to 'real work'.
i almost agree.. but it sounds too good... it is obvious that
one feels that the concept of documenta, as the 'olympic
games of art'.

>The Hybrid WorkSpace is such an extremely difficult,
>virtual employment zone. It's a junction where intriguing
>connections will have to be made, or the leisure class and
>their propensity for boredom will prevail.
... it's not the only place where this counts, and i wouldn't
blame the masses for their good will to see some 'world class
art'. it is not the time for opposing culture against
consumerism. the territory which gets defended by Cathrine
David needs some new strategies to survive. If it
ends in an arrogance of 'culturalism' against the mass
consumer we fall way back behind what for example cutural
studies achieved. the break of solidarity should happen
whereever a certain kind of 'investment' takes place, were
we get included into a circulatory system which
let us only the subliminal window of 'art' to not get
alienated. this time is hopefully over.. and to document
this this is a success of this expo, and the invitation
of the workspace project, as a prove of the existance
of a tolerance zone...


>I'm hoping they, the government, will set up a virtual
>employment zone for people like me. You know, a real,
>physical place where I can meet people and trade things
>that I get off on and find my voice again. I know ways
>to party too. I'm knee-deep in my own kind of human waste.
>Give me a chance and I'll throw some shit at the tourists.
>Hybrid WorkSpace my ass!

thanks, and keep on workin...