Read/Write

Preliminary project proposal My work and research at the Piet Zwart Institute by large concerns it self with various forms of digital and precarious labor and its bordering areas such as user-generated content, the notion of the crowd, professionalism and amateurism. It takes into consideration the rapid expansion of computational and 'web'-access across the globe, often looked upon as the liberation of the individual and the equilibrium of humankind. Questioning this utopia I seek to look upon this relatively new technology not only as a tool enhancing freedom and equality but also as a tool of oppression and exploitation, depending on how it is wielded. With a bachelor degree in graphic and interactive design, I find the vantage point for my research within these fields. I look at how the practice of design is changing, ranging from the 'coming of armatures', the freedom of freelancers, to larger professional design agencies. Within my first year of study I've engaged intensely in researching online platforms offering design on a crowd-sourced basis. Following indented paragraphs coherently describes my observations and critique on this specific topic. (feel free to skim) Squadhelp.com - Helping you to tap into the collective wisdom of thousands of experts across the globe. The best part is that all these experts compete against each other for your project like a contest by actually doing the work for you. So it's more of a game where experts play to win, rather than boring work, sparking creativity you could never imagine. (promo-video, Squadhelp.com)

Often critically referred to as 'logo-mills', the majority of this type of platforms provide a system for individuals or companies to offer design-related jobs. Presented as an 'open contest' the job is released to a crowd of platform users signed up as designers. Contest awards ranges widely (usually from 100$ to 500$) depending on the characteristics and scale of the job. The submitted designs enters the collected pool of proposals, in most cases publicly visible. Each proposals is rated by the contest-holder, mostly using stars, hearts or other 'like'-symbols, though s/he also has the option to write comments, rendering it simplistically clear for the designers to consider adjustments in their submitted proposal.

Encouraged by this structure, individual designers enter fierce competition against each other. Inspiration edges towards plagiarism, creating a sour, hostile environment. This is all to the productive benefit of the contest-holder since thousands proposals are being generated freely, of which the preferred five-star proposals, constantly are being refined by the eager crowd, at the expense of the battered individual squashed beneath the ever higher reaching mass. As a winner eventually is chosen, the payout (deducted substantial transaction and commission fees) leaves the lucky one victorious; s/he has conquered the glorified bounty, s/he has won the race. Accompanying the almost symbolic monetary award is most often a virtual trophy adorning the profile of the winner: a PNG-medal, a 'LVL UP', an extra ten points in PhotoShop-skills. Wrapped these the dazzling cloaks of gamification the platforms promises the individual designer a star-like status, creative exposure and expansion of the vital network. The excitement of winning seems to overshadow the fact, that the salary per-hour-ratio is diminishing. Especially taken into consideration that hardly every competition you enter is won by you. All the losers, the actual crowd, is left unpaid, yet they frantically cling on, in hope to win the logo-lottery. The posing, hard-trying, day-laborers are all inspected, the ones who manages to stand out (or stand upon the others) are picked out, used, worn down, and thrown back into the willing crowd, where the next strong individual is ready to replace and replenish the 'cliental' needs.

The core themes in my research within this field, revolves around the illusion of promised freedom, the empowerment or on the other hand the total exploitation of the individual, and the fine line in-between. The post-industrial worker finds himself in flux between various environments and types of activities - on one hand offering refreshing change, on the other the pitfall of flexpolation - a term coined by 'flexibility' and 'exploitation'. Further complicating the issue is the question of resistance. Is it possible to unite the crowd, when the crowd is no longer locally centralized but in fact individuals spread across the globe? Can you find a common stand, when interests and individual circumstances do not have anything in common? In platforms such as Squadhelp.com, 99designs.com, DesignCrowd.com amongst other the crowd has been efficiently dispersed. Passively each peer awaits the next existential battle, all aspiring to take home the promised prize.

In my graduction project I intend to keep focus on emerging forms of digital labor. As of now I've addressed the design-field, but I wish to broaden this perspective to other areas. This might bring new observations and opinions forth leading to an awesome project!!! Currently I have no specific approach or particular field of work that I want to explore, but I have multiple options and I wish to pursuit before converging upon a specific direction. Some of these directions are bullet-pointed out beneath.

SEO (search engine optimization) Keyword-fiction deception and cloaking clicking 'up' sites

Click-ranking (extends bullet from above) You-Tube Hitters (bitcoin Get)

'Database-aggregators' Fill in Scan Scrape

Captcha Captcha-bending

Modes of work – click vs thinking or both? ….......

What characterizes this kinds of jobs While the outcome of all the jobs intends to reach a more or less specific group of persons, the path trough which it reaches the human-being is all tunneled trough a database. Any YouTube video will rise in the database-hierarchy for each 'view' it receives. The more views, the more chance for exposure and breakthrough. Thus the job for the person who is paid to give 'views' is of a rather simple character – s/he merely becomes a database-manipulator jobbing to promote certain database objects without any emotional or relational bonds attached. The database-aggregator who's objective is to fill in new entries in the database, expands the options and potential for analysis by each entry. Yet s/he is not capable of performing any analysis since s/he cannot access the database (of course not always the case), but only contribute to the pool. The products of the SEO-worker implemented in a clients website, does not get consumed by any person directly, rather it's intended to reach the spider of the search engine which, hopefully will rank it higher. Deceivingly the point is to promote the website 'behind the facade', a form of very indirect promotion, which then leaves the meaning of the workers outcome quite questionable.

What is interesting (and critical) about this type of work is the I/O-simplicity that it consists of. In many cases the job is much more suited in an automated computational process rather than a human. Yet within the system certain things require 'human-authentication' to be performed, the YouTube-viewer needs to be human despise the level of disinterest s/he expresses. The fiction-writing of the SEO-worker seams pointless, since only the algorithm will get to it, and as a broader question; do these kinds of jobs contribute with anything productive?

LINKS AND REFS.:

http://florianschmidt.co/full_articles/ (met at the transmediale) http://socialcloud.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/workshops/CrowdWork/ http://opensource.com/life/10/10/does-market-need-freedom-or-it-modern-sharecropping http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/technocapitalism/voluntary http://mondediplo.com/openpage/abracadabra-you-re-a-part-timer http://baggrund.com/crowdsourcing-er-udnyttelsens-skalkeskjul/ Deleuze/Focault Postscript on societies of control: http://libcom.org/library/postscript-on-the-societies-of-control-gilles-deleuze http://libcom.org/library/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david-graeber the panopticon: http://cartome.org/foucault.htm Crowdsourcing volunteers: http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/2012/10/14/wanted-skilled-volunteers-to-change-the-world/ Catchafire Their keywords are: experiences, efficiency and optimization.

Bio-politics: the murmuring of the artistic multitude (book) http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/2011/09/18/book-review-the-murmuring-of-the-artistic-multitude-global-art-memory-and-post-fordism/

This logic gravitates ideologically around terms such as creativity, flexibility, authenticity, an open project oriented spirit, a focus on ideas (knowledge), communication and the dynamic of psychic and social relations. Also, the condition of contemporary labour increasingly resembles the precariousness and dependability of ‘the life of the artist,’ as well as the diffusion of ‘work-time’ and ‘free-time’ (see image above). Furthermore, it is not necessarily the quality of the particular result (the work), but the personal character and ‘learned’ skills of the producer that renders the value of the (potential) outcome. Hence, according to Virno, the necessity of an extensive and invasive biopolitics (21).

HOT100 What is also shared by the artists and the immaterial workers of the new economy, is the combination of both over-supply and lack of demand, which obviously generates a dynamic of a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude on the side of the investors and employers, and a necessity to comply on the side of the ‘worker,’ albeit an often cynical compliance. For example, one of the lecturers present advised us not to use the term ‘artist’ when describing ourselves to potential investors, but rather to use a term like ‘branding strategists.’

Thus I came face to face with the tendencies Gielen discusses, the de-differentiation of specialized subsystems, the integration and diffusion of art, business models, design, governmental PR, technology, media and so on.

he problem is no longer how to shield a formalist art from the vulgar culture industry but how to find a niche were the necessary complicity of art, media, economy and culture can be exploited. For it creates the opportunity for an art that is finally freed from its elitist guild, theorized for example in Sartre’s What is Literature?.