PP.v01

Preliminar project proposal

My work and research at the Piet Zwart Institute by large concerns it self with various forms of digital and precarious labuor and its bordering areas such as user-generated content, the notion of the crowd, professionalism and ameratureism. 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 equiality 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 vantagepoint for my research within these fields. I look at how the pratice of design is changing, ranging from the 'coming of ameatures', the freedom of freelancers, to larger professional design agencies.

In my graduation project I wish to engage further with my research on online platforms offering design on a crowd-sourced basis (see description below). Troughout my first year of study I've established a strong foundation within this subject, and I wish commence on another level picking up a core strand of work, which I left 'unfinished' around the beginning of trimester two. Elaboration follows after description.

Workers of the Web or The Rise of the Global Day-Labuorer

Squadhelp.com - Helping you to tap into the collective wisdom of thousinds of experts across the globe. The best part is that all these experts compete against each other for your project like a contest by actully 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)

The quote broadly, yet precisely, encircles my interest in the growing online platforms offering design on a crowd-sourced basis.

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 the structure of the platform, 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 to 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-laboyrers 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.

As practical approach to the topic I wanted directly to interfere with a design crowd-sourcing-platform. 99designs.com being in the choosing because of its magnitude and elaborateness as the currently most popular platform in its field.

A browser-based script was specifically written, to automatically enter and infiltrate the platform on my behalf. The so-called automation-script enters the most popular contests available on 99designs and submits it's own proposals, thereby competing with and against the crowd of designers.

The catch is, that instead of offering a solution for the contest-holder, the script submits propaganda-posters with worker-union-like slogans such as: 'PEERS UNITE', 'WE ARE ONE' and 'COMRADES OF THE SCREEN - JOIN FORCES'. It proposes a utopic, old-school, vision, for the crowd to join forces, unify and stand together against the 'oppressors'.

The utopic is central, since it confronts and provokes the platform and the users of it directly, with a sense of humor without being pretentious, and yet containing some sort of seriousness.

Several attempts was made to block my 'designer'-account and the propaganda-posters was reported both by contest-holders and users, with reactions such as: “please stop this!” or so-called 'likes' from other participating designers.

LVL 2 Some of the elements which I find very interesting in the pratical approach of the abovestanding work are the notions of; direct human engagement, 'infiltration' and the biasing or creation of opinion within the largely unquestioned system itself. With this work I barely 'open up the box', yet I manage to create strong reations. In my master-project I would like to lift the lid completely off, or at least give it a try using various tools and approaches. As until sofar, the project has been rather limited in its communication and the only channel of distribution has been within the walls of the PZI. I want to unfold this, purposing engagement of users, examining and testing out multiple ways of participation, collaboration, sharing, opinionating biasing, etc.

Specifically this could be:

Active involvement in excisting internal forums of the descussed web-platforms (99designs.com has a rather elaborate forum) Creating off-site platform/forum for gathering on the topic the platform could host specific visual and graphical tools for produciton of 'propaganda' a possibilty to automatically post the created material to an array of target-websites more more more more

Addressing 'tools for production', which potentially could be a central theme in my project. Within this I have a chance to get back to the original design-pratice of mine, yet within an interesting context.