Artur Szarecki
(University of Warsaw)
Abstract:
Launched in 2013, Coffitivity is a website that streams ambient sounds of a cafe in order to enhance the creative capacities of individuals and help them work better. Invoking the findings of an independent psychological research on background noise and cognition to validate its effects, it is visited by millions of users seeking to improve their work productivity. The premise behind Coffitivity suggests a confluence of cultural logics underpinning ambient noise and work in contemporary neoliberal capitalism, both increasingly becoming a contrived, ever-present background to our lives. In fact, by establishing a link between everyday sounds and creativity, Coffitivity facilitates an extension of the labor process in space and time. It constitutes an always-on digital interface that provides immediate access to a sonic stream specifically designed to induce creative work. Consequently, the paper argues that Coffitivity is at the forefront of a global trend to capture and harness the potential of ubiquitous work that has emerged with the increasing pervasiveness of digital technologies in our lives. The commodification of the sonic commons is one way to advance neoliberal capitalism, in which work is no longer fixed on a specific tasks, but rather consists in constant and inexorable pressure to innovate and produce results. To that end, the presentation will provide a socio-political analysis of Coffitivity, demonstrating how it establishes discursive links between cultural imaginaries of creative work, scientific expertise, and the coffee shop experience, while, at the same time, organizing affective flows between the multitude of bodies through the distribution of sonic intensities, so as to preserve public participation and engagement in generating surplus value under ever more precarious conditions of labor.
Artur Szarecki is a cultural researcher and music journalist from Poland. He received his PhD in cultural studies from the University of Warsaw in 2013. His research interests are focused on embodiment, power, and popular culture. His book, Kapitalizm somatyczny. Ciało i władza w kulturze korporacyjnej (Wydawnictwa Drugie, 2017), investigates regimes of control over the working body in twentieth-century capitalism. Most recently, he turned to exploring power relations that emerge at the junction of sound and the body in posthegemonic perspective.