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SIL
ENT
Editors
Magdalena Taube The Hidden Labor
Krystian Woznicki
Artists
in AI-Capitalism
WO
Benjamin Heisenberg
Diego de la Vega Coffee Co-op
eeefff
Giorgi Gago Gagoshidze
Into the Black Box
Melanie Gilligan
metroZones
NoCyberValley
RKS
oddviz
Peng!
Petero Kalulé/AM Kanngieser
Shinseungback Kimyonghun
Tekla Aslanishvili
University of the Phoenix
Mi2Contents Silent Works or: The Hidden Labor in AI-Capitalism An Introduction · 5 Benjamin Heisenberg · 7 Diego de la Vega Coffee Co-op · 10 eeefff · 13 Giorgi Gago Gagoshidze · 15 Into the Black Box · 17 Melanie Gilligan · 19 metroZones · 21 NoCyberValley · 23 oddviz · 26 Peng! · 28 Petero Kalulé/AM Kanngieser · 30 Shinseungback Kimyonghun · 32 Tekla Aslanishvili · 34 University of the Phoenix · 36 Imprint · 38
Silent Works friendly’ privatization and ‘market-
transformative’ disruption.
or: The Hidden Meanwhile, AI-capitalism
impacts an increasing number of
Labor in AI- fields (logistics, manufacturing,
services, etc.) and, last but not
Capitalism least, the design, valorization, and
perception of labor.
Before artificial intelligence (AI)
was invented as a technology, At first glance, the most urgent
capitalism in the West was problem is that under AI-
driven by what could be called a capitalism labor seems – across
fantasy of AI. This means that classes and contexts – to be
the most important economic gradually becoming extinct, although
processes – from decision making labor is in fact undergoing deep
to production – were gradually transformations. Thus, at the end of
delegated to some higher, the day the task is to deconstruct
magically autonomous intelligence, the extinction narrative and
imagined as, for instance, an explore how it conceals the large-
“invisible hand” steering the scale restructuring of labor. In
“self-regulating market.” In the other words, rather than buying
neoliberal age, this fantasy of AI into the narrative of labor as a
has paved the way for the rise of fading reality, it is necessary to
actual AI technology. Ultimately, look at labor as a buried reality
something was born at the very that needs to be excavated from
intersection of AI as a fantasy of beneath dominant discourses and
capitalism and AI as a technology power structures.
of capital – and that something
could be called AI-driven It is at this juncture that the
capitalism, in short: AI-capitalism. SILENT WORKS exhibition
launches its intervention. It brings
Today, this far-reaching together fourteen positions that
commingling of capitalist fantasy explore the imperceptibilization
and capitalist technology is of labor processes as the basis
underlying processes of ‘market- for coding, controlling, and
5conditioning social reality. This laborers in social reproduction
inquiry into the politics of making and infrastructure, are being
labor im/perceptible sheds light romanticized as ‘heroes’ and thus
on the ongoing restructuring of pressured to sacrifice themselves
work, and enables a recasting of for the system; factories and
what labor means in the context other sites of production make
of media and art. workers continue robota – e.g.,
on assembly lines where they are
Most of the contributions to the required to stand directly next to
exhibition were conceived in a each other, while compelled to
time when, following the example obey social distancing rules during
of China, extensive Covid-19 breaks. Meanwhile, AI-savvy tech
containment measures were also companies such as Amazon have
introduced in the West and the emerged as major profiteers from
world at large. In this critical the crisis, celebrating a historic
period it was no longer possible expansion of their ostensibly
to uphold the aforementioned fully automated businesses and
extinction narrative. After all, even an equally historic rise in profits.
if governments were quick to All this is based on the hard and
foreground AI-driven systems as precarious labor of their workers,
key to protecting societies (tracing who are nonetheless denied higher
apps, etc.), crisis management pay, stronger rights, and better
has predominantly been about (social and health) security.
supporting economic life and,
ultimately, saving capitalism. In Responding to these revelatory
other words, from the outset the contradictions, some of the
primary objective has been to contributions to the exhibition
maintain the population as a fit address the underlying social,
and healthy pool of workers. political, and economic issues in
quite a direct fashion, while others
Revealing the system’s far- express their commentary through
reaching reliance on labor, office poetic layers. On the following
workers are being turned into pages, each contribution is
home office workers; health
and care workers, as well as
6described with a focus on its links
to the overall theme of the hidden
Benjamin
labor in AI-capitalism. Heisenberg
Complementary to this collection
of texts presenting the fourteen Benjamin Heisenberg’s
positions, the second publication contribution to the SILENT
published in conjunction with WORKS exhibition is based
the SILENT WORKS exhibition on the Alfred Hitchcock film
– entitled “Invisible Hand(s)” – “The Birds” (1963). Hitchcock’s
contains interviews we conducted reworking of London’s bombing
between March and June 2020 during the Second World War as a
with the researchers and activists critique of capitalism through the
Dario Azzellini, Christine lens of war and the construction
Braunersreuther, Niccolò of new war machines anticipates
Cuppini, Kerstin Guhlemann, the trajectory from cold war
Tom Holert, Angela Mitropoulos, paranoia to the digital sublime
and Katja Schwaller. Intended of ‘global mass surveillance.’
as a companion volume to the Heisenberg’s work focuses on a
SILENT WORKS exhibition and segment in which this critique
the accompanying publication comes to a head – a segment that
of the same name that you are is discussed in media theory as the
reading now, “Invisible Hand(s)” “impossible image.”
enables a historical as well as
socio-political contextualization of This image shows the people
the contributions to the exhibition of the small coastal town of
within the framework of the Bodega Bay from a bird’s eye
Covid-19 pandemic. view. The people are running
around like startled ants trying
Magdalena Taube and Krystian to save their world in the
Woznicki, Berlin, October 2020 face of an unpredictable and
unfathomable threat: birds. In
a complicated copying process,
Hitchcock assembled this
image from real footage and a
7rendered matte painting. The labor. As important as artificial
filmed streets populated with intelligence is in generating
people complement the painted digital spaces and textures, a
image of the fictional Bodega large number of work processes
Bay. The birds that are copied are in fact more or less secretly
into the composition destroy delegated to contractors in India
it unrelentingly. Heisenberg’s and China. In halls the size of a
adaptation “Birds Clone Stamp” football field, a huge number of
continues the collage-like image editors manually create 3D
production process of the original.processes, character animations,
and other CGI effects. Thus, as in
After dividing it into its individual
images, Heisenberg edits the the past, the human being is both
sequence by hand, in Photoshop, the creative beginning and the
using the Clone Stamp tool. necessary final link of an artistic-
Seemingly randomly copied image industrial process. Historically, this
parts ‘destroy’ the image, instead has been automation’s “last mile.”
of the birds doing so. In the age of AI this last mile is
being pushed ever further again,
Through further processing, the recalibrating what is perceived as
image artificially assembled by labor, what labor eventually will
humans seems to be quasi directed be, and what it could be.
against itself, thus alluding to
an out-of-control intelligence The restructuring of labor taking
inherent in the image, as we place in this context is addressed
already find today in AI-driven in Heisenberg’s work even more
image production. At the same poignantly at the level of looking.
time, this work refers back to the To reiterate, in the bird’s eye
classic single image processing view the camera eye seems to
in the age of celluloid. Here, rest far above the city suspended
too, there is a parallel to the in chaos, allowing ‘the viewer’
cinematic present determined to observe the processes as if
by CGI effects. Contrary to represented through the eye of a
expectations, a large part of the god-like surveillance camera that
effects in the fictional realm automatically records whenever
are also dependent on human motion is detected. Standing still
8in the sky, Hitchcock’s “impossible In short, in addressing the
image” is de facto impossible labor of looking in AI-capitalism,
because at the time of its making Heisenberg’s work challenges
cranes were not high enough and the widespread assumption that
helicopters were not still enough man is no longer key to the
to actually enable the realization inner workings of the capitalist
of such a shot. Thus, it is a shot world, which is ostensibly run by
without both a camera capable of the high-tech version of Adam
capturing it and a camera operator Smith’s “invisible hand.” Instead,
behind it. In this way it anticipates his work challenges the visitor
the drone as an image machine, to think how we as laborers can
and hence the omnipresence of reposition ourselves in the face of
AI-driven aerial monitoring today. an invisible hand that needs us to
develop its power.
Heisenberg’s work – in
decomposing and recomposing Benjamin Heisenberg lives in
this moment and in scattering Lucerne as director, author and
the image into a myriad of visual artist. After receiving his
‘outsourced’ pieces of work degree in sculpture, Heisenberg
– raises the questions: Who is studied film making at the HFF
working when monitoring staff in Munich, graduating with the
looks through the surveillance screenplay for his feature film
camera? Is a person or an AI- Schläfer. Heisenberg’s films
based machine ‘looking’? Does the have been invited to the Cannes
human see through the eyes of the International Film Festival and the
machine or does the machine see Berlinale Film Festival, and have
through the eyes of the human? won the Bavarian Film Prize in the
Even more to the point: Who Best Newcomer Director category
watches from under the clouds and the first Austrian Film Prize
after all humans have evacuated in 2011. Together with Christoph
the control room? Who valorizes Hochhäusler and Sebastian Kutli,
the invisible hand and its very he founded the film magazine
power? Revolver in 1998; he is still its co-
editor today.
9Diego de la Vega Awesome has had an enormous
impact on the restaurant industry
Coffee Co-op and megamarket chains in cities
like Chicago and Los Angeles.
This impact tends to be clouded
January 16, 2020 – 7:56 p.m.: by claims that it is ‘merely’ a food
“The content of the work that distribution network facilitating
we’re developing for the SILENT food deliveries in large cities.
WORKS exhibition will address Under this mantle, Awesome’s
the conflicting perspectives predatory practices have created
of workers, activists, and huge amounts of wealth by
communities regarding the case of centralizing food processing into
the opening of Awesome in NYC. shopping centers repurposed as
Based on our group’s organizing enormous food courts. Unable
of sustainable alternatives to to pay for its overpriced services
contemporary capitalism, we’ll (rent, points of sale, security, and
connect our experiences with memberships), nearly 45% of
systematically invisibilized labor restaurateurs have gone out of
struggles inside the Awesome business.
empire.”
Moreover, the Safety Employment
After Awesome’s expansion into Agency (SEA) has registered
New York City was announced below-standard working
at the beginning of this year, conditions in Awesome’s food
officials representing parts processing, including high
of Brooklyn, such as their temperatures, poor ventilation, and
representative congressperson X., a lack of protection equipment
expressed concern that Awesome for workers who have schedules
would receive tax breaks while of 10+ hours under an algorithm-
critical infrastructure, such as regulated pace of labor that
the New York City Subway, was demands the production of up to
deteriorating, and the city’s public 20 orders per hour.
school and health care systems
were underfunded.
10Against this backdrop, it was not public infrastructure Awesome
a big surprise that Awesome’s is turning its logistics empire
expansion into New York City was into “critical infrastructure”
met with a torrent of opposition only underlines its frictionless
that was supported and vitalized functioning.
by a vast network of activists.
As a consequence of only two May 26, 2020 – 5:12 a.m.: “Things
weeks of intense protesting and are looking a little different
campaigning, Awesome canceled here in NYC since restrictions
its plans to open in New York have loosened. Within the
City, and the local resistance Covid-19 pandemic that we
became a model for other cities are experiencing, perspectives
and communities struggling regarding labor issues and
against similar plans. corporate activity are even
more relevant for a number of
The Covid-19 pandemic – during reasons pertaining to the specific
which New York City emerged as conditions that this emergency has
the first epicenter in the US – has created. Against this backdrop,
changed the mood. Reportedly, in Diego De la Vega’s contribution
the first ten days of the pandemic to SILENT WORKS will focus
Awesome’s founder Andrea Banks on the perspectives of workers,
gained 10 billion Euro in personal consumers and activists regarding
wealth, while her corporation Awesome’s potential to open
gained 100 billion Euro in market in NYC after its controversial
value. With its success celebrated withdrawal at the beginning
as a miracle, people seem dazzled of the year. Our contribution
– especially in the face of will be comprised of narrative
countless businesses that are going (from interviews and other
bankrupt in the crisis. Suddenly, audio sources) and images in
all the labor struggles (also read: video format. As you already
friction) underlying this newest of know, Diego De la Vega Coffee
magical tricks performed by AI- Co-op has created a number
capitalism’s model company have of projects in NYC that deal
been forgotten. And the fact that mainly with economy and social
in times of abandoned and rotten
11movements. Therefore it is an needs to pass the background,
excellent platform to develop such credit, and drug tests. Awesome
conversations.” is three hours away from home.
But in a really cool place called
July 12, 2020 – 9:09 p.m.: “Things Cyberspace, a duty-free zone that
are really really difficult with exists outside of NAFTA and the
evictions in NYC right now. TPP, it’s sort of like an offshore
There’s people all over the city space, but on-shore. It’s a data
sitting around with their carry- island in the cloud, but still in the
ons, but you know they are midst of the city right next to the
not tourists waiting for their projects, where most immigrants
reservation at a neighborhood and people of color live. If it
B&B. They are really right there, works out, we will be able afford
with all their possessions in their to move into the Bronx in 2-3
hands, unless they have been able months. Anyway, we will let you
to afford to pay a warehouse. know once D. is in.”
Then you see lots of bedrooms
on the sidewalks, people who Diego de la Vega Coffee Co-op
literally continue their life after is an experimental platform for
being evicted, rebuilding their grassroots interventions into
apartment with their furniture and contemporary capitalism run by
things right in the street, living the artists Gabriela Ceja and Fran
life as if they were still inside their Ilich. It aims to connect social
apartment. Those are the most projects in New York City with
scary ones.” equivalent efforts in Chiapas,
creating a horizontal financial
September 17, 2020 – 3:29 p.m.: flow between them. Inspired by
“D. will start working in about rebel Mayan coffee producers, this
two weeks at Awesome, half- performative homage to activists
day shifts! After six months of who serve Mayan coffee in cities
unemployment! It was the best across the world is complemented
of options, also money-wise. D. by exercises in experimental
already signed a contract (although economies.
there’s the catch that it can be
canceled on a whim), but still
12eeefff and through the possibility of
“algorithmic solidarity” under
these conditions.
“We hired random people
from a post-Soviet headhunter eeefff ’s contribution to the
platform whose labor is usually SILENT WORKS exhibition
rendered invisible; they work creates a place where the
for the machinery of micro- aforementioned vectors of their
tasking, crowdsourcing, stress, curiosity intersect. The piece aims
A/B testing, and do all the work to create optics for the perception
that is hidden at the end. And of the infrastructure of collective
we have created a fictional space cognitive work, leisure, romantic
for them to talk and live through relationships and algorithmically
this alienated work. Visitors are modifiable intimacy. This optic
invited to reinvent themselves as is helping build situational
workers by becoming ‘deformers’ knowledge, making it possible to
of AI-driven capitalism’s logistical go beyond the limits of binary
processes.” issues like acceleration/escapism
(or utopia/dystopia, techno-
Platform economies (and more pessimism/techno-optimism, etc.).
broadly, economies supported by
computation) create a geographical Focusing on the figure of an
gradient in the distribution of outsourcer and “deformer” of
labor in the post-Soviet space. interfaces (his or her “algorithmic
eeefff is interested in actualizing production drama,” his/her
the complex structure of the workplace, etc.), eeefff shifts
present moment, captured through the focus from the user’s figure
the perspective of interweaving to the figure of the operator,
various types of alienation. The meaning: to the one who produces
artists work with the translocality contemporary algorithmic reality,
of the post-Soviet space, while he/she is hidden behind all
which they understand through the machinery of micro-tasking.
terms such as “materiality of
outsourcing,” “digital proletariat,”
13To this end, eeefff has developed Offering a “breakdown” or
the computerized online service “add-on” over the existing web
“Outsourcing paradise(parasite),” world, eeefff draws attention to
where online and offline the material infrastructure and
temporalities of scrolling, human labor behind it, which
communicating and working, as keeps afloat everything we see on
well as the “preemptive” affect the front of our devices’ glowing
of users, are put to the test. screens. The videos reveal how
Counteracting the imperative of material and non-material work
activity, free-floating interfaces are being recalibrated in the new
emerge in the gaps of online circumstances.
actions and gestures, stretching
transitioning annexations into eeefff is a cooperation between
autonomous interactions beyond Nicolay Spesivtsev (artist,
the extractive online economy. computer scientist) and Dzina
Zhuk (artist, sci-fi writer). Active
The videos of this contribution from 2013, based in Minsk and
show workers who are performing Moscow, they are working with
micro-tasks. The micro-tasks the emotional effects of the
include modifying the working new economic regimes driven
interfaces of other users, by computation, materiality of
singing algorithmic lullabies, and sensibility, affects within creative
developing imaginations related industries, frictions between user
to algorithmically supported interfaces and protocols, test
infrastructure. The videos appear settings for collective imaginaries.
on the top of different platform The methods of eeefff are:
aggregators’ websites. Here, an making public actions and
intervention takes place inside the situations, online interventions,
web-space of platforms, that is, an performative seminars, software
erosion of website elements. and hardware hacks, framing
environments and settings.
In this context, it is important to
remember the key characteristic
of the infrastructure: when it
stops working, it becomes visible.
14Giorgi Gago floats like a spirit over his retired
life in the Caucasian mountains,
Gagoshidze reminding viewers of ever-
changing economic landscapes,
from the collapse of the Soviet
“The source for this film is Union to the 2008 global financial
the personal life of my father, crisis. In the course of this, it
Nugzari, and his right hand. His comes to symbolize the hand
hand has been playing a crucial of the market that took over
role in his economic and social life the worker’s hand, but also the
and has always ensured his family’s invisible hand of social welfare,
financial stability. The film traces enabling the disabled man a self-
a physical and symbolic transition sustained life in the mountains,
of his right hand: how the where he grows wine and
transition has been affecting his vegetables without the burden of
socio-economic life in his journey wage labor.
throughout different political
ideologies that are represented and “Working through humor was the
governed by symbolic hands.” only approach I could take.”
Combining hand-held camera, The tenderness of the father, the
drone footage, and 3D animation, joy of his retirement garden back
Giorgi Gago Gagoshidze’s home, and the irony of his escape
contribution to SILENT WORKS from market labor is a bittersweet
portrays the artist’s father, a assessment of Adam Smith’s
former contractor in the USSR, “invisible hand of the market,”
and a refugee after the dissolution and a reminder that leisure has its
of the Soviet Union. Just when his socio-political costs.
working status had changed from
illegal to legal, he lost his right Today, as AI-capitalism is
hand in a cement mixer in a work- enforcing the belief in the high-
related accident in Portugal. tech version of Adam Smith’s
In the film, entitled “The Invisible “invisible hand,” it fosters the
Hand of My Father,” the phantom invisibilization of hands essential to
limb develops a life of its own: it upholding the system, such as laborers
15in basic supply (people in logistics, is systemically dependent on the
delivery, and tech work) and devaluation, decomposition, and,
social reproduction work (people ultimately, dehumanization of
in childcare, elder care, and labor – thereby highlighting its
healthcare on the one hand, and in unique political quality.
cleaning, maintenance, and repair
on the other). Giorgi Gago Gagoshidze is an
artist and filmmaker. His practice
In other words, while AI is centers around the moving
nowadays being promoted and image: the political aspects of its
mystified, old and new forms of production and its socio-political
what we call “hidden labor” are contexts. He lives and works in
thriving. In fact, unrecognized, Berlin.
underacknowledged, undervalued,
unwaged, illegalized, and,
ultimately, unhumaned labor is
increasing and diversifying. And
the underlying structures of
subjugation are becoming ever
more elusive hybrids of old and
new forms of power.
However, through the film’s
playful DIY aesthetic riddled
with tenderness, a brutal story
becomes porous and sticky.
A sense of hope emerges for
thinking and acting against and
beyond the Western phantasm
of “capitalism as a self-running
machine” that ostensibly functions
independent of human labor.
Crucially, Gagoshidze’s film shows
that this phantasm of capitalism
16Into the Black shown at earlier stages – is shifting
the balance from production to
Box logistics (and finance) in order
to survive. Thus, if Amazon’s
expansion of its logistics empire
Silicon Valley companies have is a symptom of a systemic crisis,
been using the Covid-19 pandemic then the question is: How can
to take over various regions of the workers – that is, how can we –
world, including Northern Italy. join forces within, against, and
Amazon, for instance, one of the beyond this crisis?
biggest profiteers of the crisis, has
been turning its logistics empire Taking this question as a starting
into “critical infrastructure.” point for their contribution to
Meanwhile, workers are being the SILENT WORKS exhibition,
romanticized as an essential labor the research collective initiated
force in order to suppress their a broad, cooperative project of
bargaining power: “heroes” are participatory cartography around
expected to sacrifice themselves how one of the most “advanced”
for “the greater good” rather than enterprises of contemporary
go on strike. This neo-feudalism is capitalism is transforming work.
fostered by the fact that Northern First, they launched a call for
Italy is at the forefront of the a collective and participatory
global neoliberal transformation – mapping on the presence of
including a large-scale privatization the multinational company
of health care services – and Amazon in Northern Italy and
hence, not coincidentally, emerged the working conditions within
as one of the first epicenters of it, asking for contributions
the pandemic. (videos, photographs, design
ideas, newspaper clippings, audio
The work of the Into the recordings, articles, etc.) to create
Black Box research collective a polyphonic narrative about
in this context is based on the Amazon’s presence there. The
assumption that the present questions raised by the collective
system of production is in crisis are: What is inside the Amazon
and that it – as history has already warehouses that can be seen
17next to the highways? How does and their mutual connection via
an Amazon Locker located in a digitalization in 4.0 industries,
supermarket work? How does using logistics as the lens for
a delivery girl, a truck driver, a analyzing them. This mobile
picker, an Amazon technician interpretative machine creates a
work? How does Amazon productive prism through which it
promote its services as Amazon is possible to analyze the ongoing
Prime? transformations of labor and
develop new political imaginaries
This inquiry is representative of and tools for action.
the collective’s agenda, which
is mirrored in turn in its name. Following their objective of
It derives from the symbolism reconstructing the transformations
of contemporary management that Amazon is spearheading in
techniques and devices that hide the world of work, Into the Black
the entire logic of the system Box’s visual cartography not only
from external viewers. Similar enables an elaborate critique
black boxes are all around us: of the Amazon model and its
in platform capitalism, in urban restructuring of labor, but also
planning, in labor organization, offers a glimpse into the potential
and in state governance. One for labor struggles yet to come.
way to penetrate the opacity of
the system is to analyze inputs Into the Black Box is a research
and outputs, operations and collective that adopts logistics as
consequences, procedures and a point of view on contemporary
resistances. Thus, the collective’s political, economic and social
multidisciplinary approach transformations. It started in 2013
provides a flexible tool to gain with a research project at the
deeper understanding of the University of Bologna on supply
contemporary world. chain development and conflicts in
North Italy. Today, it hosts a blog,
The specific aim of the research organizes events, and participates
collective is to merge labor in grassroots mobilizations.
transformations, urban change
18Melanie Gilligan Before the Covid-19 pandemic,
various governments encouraged
businesses to develop nursing care
Mass media in countries as diverse robots. This development was
as India, China, and Japan co- met with criticism, challenging
produced the meme of “robots the robot as a care worker, saying,
as heroes in the war on corona.” e.g., “the elderly deserve to be
Here, ground robots come to the cared for by humans; after all,
fore as immune and contagion- a robot cannot care for people
free workers that deliver medicine, like a human could.” In addition,
serve meals, take temperatures, the underlying rationale has been
disinfect rooms, and handle under critique, along the lines of:
communications. Meanwhile, aerial “Replacing humans with robots
robots (also read: drones) are safely is the technocratic dream of
transporting medical and other efficiency. It transforms the care
supplies from disease control system into a game of market
centers to hospitals without dynamics, and ignores ethical
exposing humans to infection in questions.”
doing so.
Tellingly, the reality of labor
Moreover, with the web becoming struggles in the face of
the main site of social interaction rationalization, privatization, and
and web-ready smartphones new robotization is blocked out in this
family members, an increasing critical discourse. This is all the
number of web robots have also more symptomatic since, parallel
come to the fore in the cycles to – yet somehow disconnected
of care: so-called “bots,” widely from – the discourse on the
known as today’s most common robotization of care work, there
form of AI. In sum, all these is also an ongoing debate about
different applications of semi- a labor shortage. Predictably,
autonomous robots seem to be industrialized and increasingly
replacing care workers. aging societies all over the world
will need a great number of
additional care workers in the
years to come. Migrant laborers
19are being recruited to this end. In care and their experiences in long- the course of this, a vast realm term care homes; the other with of underwaged, unstable, and Catherine Dougherty, who works often rightless labor conditions is in retirement living and long-term created. care. Against this background, the “Meeting with a person who “robotization of care work” researches health equity and appears to be an ideology that social determinants of health, enables glossing over system I learn that in Ontario, Canada, errors, such as the systematic aging immigrants do not receive precarization of labor in general, adequate support for their health and care and social reproduction and well-being. Meeting with a work in particular. Viewed from person who works in retirement this angle, the promotion of living and long-term care, I hear robots is revealed to be less about what it is like to provide support the replacement of workers to older people. It becomes clear and more about the devaluation that care work is often given by of workers and suspension of people who should be paid much their bargaining power. After more, and by some who are not all, the invocation of robots can paid at all. Despite this context, signal: “Human workers are not important relationships are built indispensable. Therefore, they’d and sustained through the work of better be quiet and submissive.” caring for older people.” Melanie Gilligan’s contribution to Composed as a documentary the SILENT WORKS exhibition video, the narrative touches on intervenes in this discourse by various aspects of care work constructing a counter-narrative for older people, including the centered around two interviews: tasks involved in the work and one with Seong-gee Um, a the stresses that result, from, researcher in Toronto who studies for instance, being on the job home care and long-term care for 24/7. It also sheds light on the seniors, particularly focusing on relationships that develop with the immigrant seniors’ access to home seniors who are cared for. 20
Gilligan’s work subverts and
recodes the status quo that
metroZones
defines care workers as part of
the system’s infrastructure, and The expansion of the Internet
that – so long as this infrastructure economy in San Francisco and
functions in a frictionless fashion Seattle has caused real estate
– literally invisibilizes these very prices to skyrocket, accelerating
workers. In contrast to that, the gentrification and social division.
artist presents care workers as AI-savvy tech companies are
an integral but neglected part of acting as urban developers,
(social) infrastructure, prompting offering municipalities to
viewers to think about how provide and manage their basic
societies could ensure that they infrastructure services as a
remain visible, recognized, and solution in times of budgetary
valued for the indispensable work constraints.
they do.
Berlin’s digital economy is
Melanie Gilligan works in a also booming. After years of
variety of media, including video, deindustrialization, start-ups, fin-
performance, text, installation and tech companies, e-commerce and
music. Her practice reconceives logistics companies are bringing
television drama and its links to entirely new industrial sectors to
various forms of non-fictional the inner city. The protests against
moving images in order to discuss the Amazon Tower on Warschauer
contemporary political conditions. Straße, the Google campus on the
One of the major themes is labor Paul Lincke Ufer, the new Zalando
in contemporary capitalism. Her building on the Cuvry wasteland,
art has been exhibited in galleries, the Rocket Internet purchase on
museums, and festivals all over the Skalitzer Straße, Silicon Görli with
world. Factory or B:Hub, and the wildcat
strikes by the riders of Foodora or
Deliveroo reveal new urban and
social conflicts.
21Entitled “City as Byte. Mapping sharing platforms for all kinds of Tech Work & Tech Urbanism services are transforming urban between Amazon Tower Berlin spaces of social reproduction and Amazon Fulfillment work; co-working spaces – Center Poznan,” metroZones’ promising even better rates of contribution to the SILENT return than standard office real WORKS exhibition brings estate – are catalyzing new forms together the perspectives of of precariousness; and a milieu of diverse laborers (including those young, well-educated, and often active in tech). Addressing well-paid international workers is their work environment, living emerging in central city locations. conditions, and the right to the The members of this pseudo- city, the following questions are avantgarde provide the humus and raised: What does the tech-driven resources for the growth strategies transformation of the city mean of local tech entrepreneurship. for working and living conditions, Tellingly, they are supplied for urban participation and according to digital-urban lifestyle social rights? What processes of norms: with food by couriers revaluation and devaluation are from AI-driven delivery service set in motion or reinforced by platforms like Deliveroo, Foodora it? What new spaces are created, and Lieferando, and with other and what political intervention is services by the underwaged required? laborers of Helpling and co. The “Big Five” (Amazon, Apple, It is claimed that tech-driven Google, Facebook, and Microsoft) urbanism generates social and as well as the start-up scene of the cultural added value in the “creative cities” grouped around form of creativity, diversity, and them, also stand for a fundamental community. A closer look reveals change in urban working scenes of expulsion, images of conditions. This transformation is culturally, socially, and habitually more complex than AI-capitalism’s comparatively homogeneous often-cited “ghost work army” workforces, an ethos of might suggest. In this rising performance characterized ecosystem of labor extraction by extreme competition, the 22
polarization of employment
relationships, and, last but not
NoCyberValley
least, the monotonization of
neighborhoods. “Cyber Valley is Europe’s largest
research consortium in the field of
For this reason, metroZones’ artificial intelligence with partners
contribution focuses on the from science and industry. The
economic, geographic, or social state of Baden-Württemberg, the
peripheries – be it the suburbs Max Planck Society with the Max
that are being transformed into Planck Institute for Intelligent
a logistics hinterland, or the Systems, the Universities of
invisibilized multitude of bogus Stuttgart and Tübingen, as well
self-employed laborers who as Amazon, BMW AG, Daimler
continuously process all kinds AG, IAV GmbH, Porsche AG,
of online orders or drive them Robert Bosch GmbH, and ZF
through the city. Friedrichshafen AG are the
founding partners of this initiative.
metroZones – Center for Urban [...]
Affairs was founded in Berlin
in 2007 as an independent “Creating a breeding ground for
association at the intersection of start-ups is another key goal.
research, knowledge production, Cyber Valley aims to build bridges
cultural practice, and political between curiosity-driven basic
intervention. Focusing on research and applied research,
international, interdisciplinary, and thus facilitating a lively exchange
inter-institutional collaboration, between academic and industrial
its current members are Jochen partners and providing an ideal
Becker, Christian Hanussek, Anne environment for spin-offs.”
Huffschmid, Stephan Lanz, Diana
Lucas-Drogan, Oliver Pohlisch, NoCyberValley’s contribution to
Katja Reichard, Erwin Riedmann, the SILENT WORKS exhibition
and Kathrin Wildner. is structured in three thematic
sections: “Hidden Labor/
The Killing of Animals in AI
Production,” “The Penetration
23and Preparation of Geographical or other applications as input (e.g.,
Space Through Production,” and satellite images, traffic situations,
“The Protest Against the Rising crowds of people). Displayed on
AI-Science-Industry-Complex the other side of the mouse are
as a Struggle to Make Ourselves research theories and technical
Heard.” The three sections interpretations of the prevalent
are connected with each other white male gaze of nature research
playfully, withholding overly easy that extracts ‘circuit diagrams’
access to a ‘bigger picture’ and or ‘thought algorithms’ from the
instead inviting visitors to establish mouse’s brain. (In Cyber Valley,
their own connections. this is called ‘application-oriented
basic research.’)
The first section is intended
to render visible the hidden The second section deals with
labor of laboratory mice in the the geographical transformation
development of AI. This is of Tübingen. Excavating the
related to a research project in restructuring of life and labor,
Tübingen developed by IARPA numerous pictures of common
(an organization within the Office places in Tübingen are on display.
of the Director of National The visitors are invited to think
Intelligence “responsible for creatively: What is hidden behind
leading research to overcome these places in terms of the
difficult challenges relevant to penetration of the city by the
the United States Intelligence AI sector? You can also flip the
Community”), which is intended images at any time. On the back
to improve automatic image of each picture there is a story,
recognition, among other unearthing what is happening at
objectives. Reworking this research the place depicted and highlighting
project’s examination apparatus how the overall reconstruction
and its reliance on hidden labor, of the city into a center of AI
the NoCyberValley installation development is impacting it.
places a toy mouse at its center. Interesting facts, including their
On one side of it, you can see classification in their overall
examples of image data that have contexts, as well as stories of
been altered by military, economic
24significant events are shown or and the knowledge” took place
presented as to be ‘discovered’ in on July 6, 2018. It was the starting
Tübingen. point for a lively public discussion
in Tübingen about the intersection
The third section deals with the between politics, science and
protest against the democratically industry. As AI became physical
uncontrolled penetration of life and even tangible as a mode of
and labor through socio-technical transformation and dispossession,
applications and the redesign of more and more people felt able
the city as an AI production site. and motivated to join the debate.
Based on protesters’ experiences,
and responding to the theme
of the SILENT WORKS
exhibition as a whole, the protest
is seen as a constant struggle
to make ourselves heard. In a
discursive environment, which
corresponds to the imperative
of the economic-technological
transformation, any criticism of
it becomes an integral part of the
resistance against the silencing of
protest and labor struggles.
NoCyberValley is a loose alliance
of activists who has initiated
various forms of protest against
the emergence of the Cyber Valley.
The idea that the alliance will
always remain open to interested
parties was always central. As
a prelude to a first publicly
formulated critique of Cyber
Valley, a rally entitled “Against the
sell-out of the city, the university
25oddviz visitors to a surreal space where
the question of perceptual and
political agency as such arises.
As assembly line work is being
transformed in AI-capitalism, it In “Inventory: Kreuzberg” –
also morphs into the everyday their first contribution to the
and into the homes of laborers SILENT WORKS exhibition –
recruited by platforms such they captured nearly 200 facades,
as Amazon Mechanical Turk. emphasizing the district’s street
Subjected to a new variety and art culture; they then reorganized
intensity of repetitive work, them according to an entirely
various political and aesthetic new architectural structure. In
strategies experiment with the “Kreuzberg Shedding” – their
interruption and disruption of second contribution – this aspect
capitalist everyday life, engaging comes to the fore in the night labor
with the extraordinary and the of graffiti writers in Berlin. Based
excessive – such as the night- on thousands of photographs
long assembly at Occupy Wall manually taken of wildly designed
Street that also included phases of walls, the animated images are
collective sleep. gradually dissolved and torn off,
leaving behind a grey, indistinct
It is in this context that oddviz’s surface: the drawing board of
two contributions to the SILENT computerized 3D modeling.
WORKS exhibition can be read
as an exploration of the role Amassing look-alike objects,
of dreaming and sleeping as arraying them next to each other
productive acts that challenge to create patterned landscapes
the status quo of AI-capitalism. – this is how the art collective
Rather than mobilizing the notion mimics the work of machine
of a “society of sleepers,” with its learning algorithms that crawl,
inherent implication of impaired scan, order and reorganize the
perceptual and political capabilities digitized world according to their
– people as passive automatons more or less self-defined principles
in states of mass somnambulance of what is supposed to belong into
– the art collective transports a given target category. However,
26their work actually hinges upon “Symmetry Drawing” (1948)
huge amounts of labor, namely to Thomas Bayrle’s “The City”
taking thousands of photos and (1976), and from Will Wright’s
feeding algorithms with them. “Sim City” (1989) to Hiroshi
Thus, their work can be said to Sugimoto’s “Sea of Buddha”
intervene in the discourse on the (1997) – the art collective prompts
hidden labor of AI-driven systems far-reaching questions about the
at two different levels. role of human and machine labor
in compositions of artworks.
Firstly, their faux AI surrealism
is less an autonomous product Rethinking the role of repetitive
of intelligent machines, and labor, exploring sleep as a
more a product of human- productive process, and expanding
machine symbiosis akin to early upon the political dimension
experiments with so-called of unconscious labor, Jonathan
“écriture automatique,” whereby Crary reminds us in his book
the (sleeping) worker turns into “24/7” (2013) that it was André
a writing machine navigated by Breton who, in “Les Vases
an uncensored stream of (un) communicants” (1932), imagines
consciousness. Secondly, the Paris being viewed at the break
human-machine symbiosis of dawn from the hilltop of the
presents a challenge to account Sacré-Coeur. In Crary’s reading,
for labor on aesthetic terms: if Breton manages “an extraordinary
the human body turns into a evocation of the latent desires and
machine of sorts – as it turned collective powers of a multitude
into a typewriter of sorts in of sleepers. He conjures up in the
écriture automatique, and into liminal moment between darkness
an extension of the camera in and light, between the restoration
oddviz’s work – then what is the of sleep and the working day,
artistic labor value of the human a collaboration yet to come
body as machine? between work and dreams that will
animate ‘the sweeping away of the
Echoing intersections between capitalist world’.”
surrealism, constructivism, and
pop culture – from M.C. Escher’s
27oddviz is an art collective based
in İstanbul focusing on scanning
Peng!
objects and locations using
photogrammetry technique, Who do you work for when your
producing 3D digital replicas. “boss” is an app? How can you
The collective presents organize when the app makes sure
digitized commodities in virtual you never meet your colleagues?
environments in the form of How do you go about demanding
installations. Çağrı Taşkın is sick leave, minimum wage and a
an architect who works on 3D safe job environment when a self-
modeling, visuals and visualization. learning algorithm is in control?
Serkan Kaptan studied
engineering and did his masters in Workers in the food delivery
environmental studies. He works sector are deemed essential –
in digital arts, performance art especially during the Covid-19
and political ecology. Erdal İnci pandemic. Yet, their working
studied painting and works in conditions remain precarious and
photography and digital arts. The often dangerous. On top of that
oddviz collective has been working they don’t even get symbolical
with their dear friend Gurur recognition. Was anyone clapping
Gelen aka Pullahs for all audio for them during the shutdown?
compositions used in their videos.
While Deliveroo and UberEats
customers are supposed to
believe that their food is brought
to them directly by the app
– that is, without the risk of
inter-human contagion – the
work of drivers and bike riders
is rendered invisible, despite
their neon-colored jackets and
huge backpacks. It seems that
the Western phantasm of AI-
capitalism is about just that:
invisibilizing its own workforce
28and consolidating the myth that biggest player in the German
labor disappears into the cracks food delivery market, infamous
and gears of intelligent machines. for their union busting attitude. In
Peng!’s multimedia piece visitors
So, how can this workforce can listen to their prank phone
organize and strike back? In call with Lieferando and get to
2016, Deliveroo riders went on hear and see a Lieferando driver
strike in Great Britain; in 2019, who is a member of the workers
workers in France protested union. If Lieferando is somewhat
against new payment structures; representative of today’s AI-driven
in March 2020, Amazon and capitalism, then these voices
Instacart workers in the US were prompt us to think how we as
resisting their bosses. Against this workers can act within, against,
backdrop, Peng!’s contribution and beyond this dehumanizing
to SILENT WORKS takes the system of exploitation, extraction,
Covid-19 pandemic as a starting and control.
point to question capitalism itself.
Peng! or Peng Collective is a group
The multimedia piece contributed of artists, activists, craftspeople,
by the Berlin-based collective and scientists based in Berlin. The
presents the results of a series collective develops subversive
of activist pranks. Disguised as art with the aim of encouraging
Bundesamt für Krisenschutz civil society to engage in more
und Wirtschaftshilfe (Federal courageous campaigns. Using false
Office for Crisis Protection and identities, Peng! has infiltrated
Economic Assistance), they events several times as an act of
approached ten of Germany’s civil disobedience. Their work
largest companies, asking “Call a Spy” was also shown at the
them how they feel about Danish State Museum Kunsthal
“commoning”, “eco-sufficiency,” Charlottenborg; their exhibition
and “de-privatization.” “Pretty Good Privacy” was shown
at the MuseumsQuartier Wien.
One of the companies they
focused on was Takeaway – the
owner of Lieferando and the
29Petero Kalulé/ Western man, as Sylvia Wynter
might call it. Combining prose,
AM Kanngieser narrative and musical composition,
as well as excerpts from interviews
and lectures, their audio essay
The fear of AI taking over the unfolds how AI, like so many
world, stealing and automating other kinds of intelligence and
jobs, and eradicating humanity knowledge that the west has
has always been driven by an tried but failed to grasp, calls into
apprehension of the unknown: AI question who can be designated
exposes us to what is beyond and human. The white anthropocentric
outside of human comprehension. framing of intelligence means
In the desire to predetermine, that the knowledges designated
calculate or program AI, we are as non-human are situated as
faced with the failure of human dangerous and incommensurable –
intelligence to decode what AI particularly Black and Indigenous
knows and can do, what AI can knowledge. This has consequences
be. It is perhaps for this reason for who and what comes to be
that AI is being deployed on recognized as the subject who
issues related to risk and human thinks, lives and labors.
insecurity, and as such is being
put to the task of making itself Crucially, Kalulé and Kanngieser
knowable. Standing in for the link the question of labor to the
absence of human control are question of intelligence and racial
AI ethics – a set of human ethical capitalism (Cedric Robinson), that
principles designed into AI that is, they view labor as an “artificial”
cannot program outside of the imperial project that is hinged
Western individualist capitalist self. on hierarchies that emphasize
the centrality and dominance
In their contribution to the of Western knowledge. Which
SILENT WORKS exhibition is to say, they look at how AI
Petero Kalulé and AM Kanngieser ethics and design as a modality
think through the foundation of of precalculation pre-programs
AI in Western ethics that rely on hierarchies of class, cognition and
the overrepresentation of the intelligence that overrepresent
30Western white bourgeois the knowledge or intelligence
ethno class (Wynter) ideals of that drives these systems and the
knowledge. These categorical assumptions and delineations that
stratifications of “dialectical they carry. Crucially, one needs
difference,” as Robinson might to start with the assumption of
say, are also feudal, racialized and who is human, because this is the
anthropocentric and therefore very foundation upon which the
affect who gets to own AI, design discourse of human rights – and
AI, and pre-determine its present indeed labor rights – is built. It is
and future functions (see, e.g., also a foundation that determines
the bourgeois merchant capitalist whose or what “intelligence” is
figures of Elon Musk or Mark liable to be expropriated. Thus,
Zuckerberg) as well as what a critical analysis of the human
knowledges, intelligences, and involves an undoing of the project
labor get expropriated and deemed that always violently disavows
threatening and dangerous. Thus, those (racialized, under-classed,
they suggest that this imposition and unhumaned) outside of it. For
of hierarchical categories onto AI without interrogating the racial
through AI ethics and design is an capitalism inherent in the Western
ongoing auto-transmission of the concept of the human, the human
Western global capitalist imaginary. will always remain hidden – this
hidden problem then becomes
Expanding the critical discourse transmitted (unavoidably) on to
on underpaid and undervalued the question of labor.
workers and the working
conditions of click farms, logistics, With regard to concrete AI labor
warehouses, the Mechanical practices, Kalulé and Kanngieser
Turk, and so forth, Kalulé and tackle the teaching, training,
Kanngieser focus on what is less and supervising of AI and how
discussed in discussions of labor: they are circumscribed under an
the question of who is even AI design and ethics program.
deemed human in the first place. They look at examples of
This question then demands that training, teaching, regulation, and
one probe the programming of supervision, e.g., online platform
knowledge, i.e., that one probe content moderators and how
31their knowledge as subjects of
labor is programmed, classed, and
Shinseungback
unhumaned on an ongoing basis Kimyonghun
as a part of a global capitalist
imaginary.
One of the most troubling aspects
Petero Kalulé, a Ugandan of the Covid-19 pandemic is the
poet, composer and multi- liberating effect it has had on AI-
instrumentalist, holds a PhD in based monitoring technologies
law at Queen Mary University and policies. Clouded by vague
of London, and is a lecturer at but authoritative crisis solution
London South Bank University; propaganda, this effect has often
their debut collection is entitled gone unnoticed.
“Kalimba.” AM Kanngieser
is a sound artist and political Suddenly the playing field
geographer, and is a Research widens, providing unprecedented
Fellow at University of opportunities for data-capitalizing
Wollongong, Australia. tech giants to expand their reach
and power. Perhaps the clearest
indicator of this trend is the
devices to track the infection that
invade and control individual
and group behavior by analyzing
datarized landscapes for signs
of symptoms, such as fever
or breathing problems. Facial
recognition is one of the most
advanced calculative devices at
play in this context.
Clearview AI, for instance, is the
Benthamian name of a company
that, according to the New York
Times, deploys shady, privacy-
violating facial recognition
32software in attempts to control (and by implication “criminal”)
the virus. Here, self-learning person on the other. As many AI
algorithms are ostensibly capable critics point out, deploying facial
of “reading” faces as indicators recognition technologies in crisis
for subsequent movement control management during the pandemic
and quarantine measures. not only fosters a thoroughly
phantasmagorical solutionism, but
Such tech initiatives are presenting also amplifies structural racism.
AI as an infallible and efficient
technology by catering to the However, the Covid-19 pandemic
misleading fantasy that one can not only functions as a catalyst
detect the state of people’s health for this trend, but also presents
from their faces – as well as even an opportunity for questioning
the proliferation of the virus. it. After all, in their desperation
While entire populations are for armor during the Covid-19
subjected to a speculative gamble, pandemic, cities are turning
questions of privacy violation, to masks and consequently
discrimination, and racism are initiating a retreat into “solitary
blocked out. This is justified by facelessness,” as Fionnuala
the claim that “it is all being done McHugh writes in the South
in the name of protecting the China Morning Post. Such
population.” “solitary facelessness” confounds
the very grounds on which
What remains hidden in this facial recognition systems rest.
context is the labor that goes Obviously, the systems only work
into training algorithms to with faces. Now that people are
recognize faces. Based on existing covering their faces with masks
data, this training reproduces in public (also read: monitored)
underlying presumptions. Hence, spaces, they present a disruption
the result of AI labor in this to the systems’ very order. Is
context enforces biases related to this leading to the systems’
socially constructed categories: deterioration or even collapse?
the face of a “healthy” (and
by implication “law-abiding”)
person and the face of a “sick”
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