Author: techsocjal

Ewelina Twardoch-Raś
(Jagiellonian University, Institute of Audiovisual Arts, Kraków)

Abstract:
The presentation proposes to investigate the problem of post-affective forms of work presented in contemporary bioartistic projects and pop-culture narratives. Post-affective work is understood here as a mode of body labour carried out using special technologies (mostly biometric ones) that measure, control and process affective body’s functions. The speech refers to the bioartistic projects of Rafael Lozano Hemmer: “Performance Review” (2013), “Pulse Index” (2010) and “Vicious Circular Breathing”(2013) and confront them with the vision of postaffective work presented in the episode “Fifteen Million Merits” of dystopian television series “Black Mirror”. In the both cases affective exploitation of living bodies is shown as a result of process of developing and common using of biometric technologies – a perfect tool for post-capitalist control and management. But – as projects present – it is something more than the reality of personal dataveillance (J. van Dijck). These technological systems based on dataveillance, process not only the obtained data, but also biological, affective body’s reactions and activities themselves (as muscle work or respiratory efficiency). Combining affects with technologies they create the broad area of contemporary post-affective forms of work based on biometric-driven exploitation of organism’s vitality. A simple reference to this type of practices in contemporary society can be found among others in the so-called sweat factories, but also in the necessary efficiency during the co called intellectual work. In the context of projects’ analysis the paper will consider problem of politicizing biological body and affective experiences (in reference to the considerations of Britta Timm Knudsen and Carsten Stage – categories of mediatized affect and vulnerable body). It will also refer to the category of ethos of health (Paul Rabinow, Nicolas Rose) – vision of body’s vitality that is categorized as an absolute social duty. Disabilities and disfunctions are therefore considered as a specific “state of emergency” that should be normalized, but only as an exceptional form of body condition (Giorgio Agamben). Moreover, the presentation will consider categories of self-cultivation (Michel Foucault) and self-invigilation (Thomas Lemke) as a binary opposition that constitute contemporary, dissonant biopolitical thinking of body’s developing, body which should always be able to work and be effective. Lastly, the paper will show how art and popular dystopian narratives reshapes, embodies and co-creates many problems raised by this socio-cultural paradigm.

Ewelina Twardoch-Raś – PhD in humanities (art sciences), assistant professor at Jagiellonian University (Institute of Audiovisual Arts), absolvent of doctoral studies and SET-program. She took part in many national and international conferences (in Vienna, Prague, London, etc.), she published her articles in many periodicals (“Przegląd kulturoznawczy”, “Kultura popularna”, “Kultura i historia”, “Topos”) and monographs (e.g. “Perception of culture, culture of perception”). She was an editor of four scientific books (the last one is “Perception of culture – culture of perception”). Her PhD dissertation concerns the representations and functions of biometrical data in the new media art. Now she is working on the book based on the PhD dissertation’s research. She teaches her students about changes in contemporary television, new media art and cyberculture’s phenomena. She is leading the scientific grant Preludium 8: “New media art and biometric data in the perspective of post- and transhumanist philosophy”.

Szymon Wróbel
(Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, University of Warsaw)

Abstract:
Among theoretical errors with practical consequences irritating Marx the most are always those involving the very word “labour.” According to Marx’s main intuition it is not labour but its disappropriation that forms the proletarian. What the proletarian learns at work is how to discard the status of a worker. If the proletariat comes to be the agent of history, it is not because it creates everything but because it is dispossessed of everything. Thus the proletarian is nothing else than the negation of the worker. By the same token, the worker who is not yet a proletarian can be christened with a variety of names that are all equivalent: artisan, lumpen, petty bourgeois, ideologue. Starting from this kind of premises, the paper will ask whether today, in the post-digital world, we are dealing with the birth of a proletariat deprived of work and in this sense liberated from the status of a worker. Or, rather, what we are dealing with is the production of an army of workers who are just waiting for work, who are ready to work, who are in the disposition to render work – though themselves they never work and never rest. In post-digital age, everywhere, there are productive bodies liberated from the prison of the soul. Everywhere there is meaning at work. This is the word of generalized production. The creative industry, financial capitalism, and non-material work have all become the sign of our times. This world has brought to life new apparatuses of power, economies of meaning, textual machines, and productions of desire. There has been an unexpected reversal of the hierarchy of souls and bodies: there are more or less productive bodies, organs, and productions more or less liberated from the soul, in other words; from anti-production. Is this a world of working machines and without a worker or a world of mass of proletarian without work?

Szymon Wróbel is a professor of philosophy at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales” of the University of Warsaw and at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He graduated in psychology (specialization: clinical psychology) at the Institute of Psychology, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. For many years associated with the Pedagogical and Artistic Faculty of Adam Mickiewicz University in Kalisz. He is the author of numerous books and articles scattered in various scientific journals. His latest books include Deferring the Self and Grammar and Glamour of Cooperation. Lectures on the Philosophy of Mind, Language and Action, published in 2013 and 2014 by Peter Lang. In Polish: Exercises in Friendship, Retroactive Reading. Pedigrees of Contemporary Philosophical Thought and Polish Depressive Position. From Gombrowicz to Mrożek and Back published by the Krakow Publishing House Universitas in 2012, 2014 and 2015. His last book, also in Polish, Philosopher and Territory. The Policy of Ideas in the Thoughts of Leszek Kołakowski, Bronisław Baczko, Krzysztof Pomian and Marek J. Siemek was published by the IFiS PAN Institute in 2016. He leads the experimental Laboratory of Techno-Humanities at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales.” His current interests focus on “ontologies of failure” and “humanities of looting” based on the tactics of studying the remains of other discourses, shreds of incomprehensible languages, obsolete thoughts, abandoned sentences, interrupted gestures, unfinished intentions, dead poses, enigmatic images.

Adrian Zabielski
(Institute of Philosophy, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń)

Abstract:
Modern world of work is getting more and more precarious. One of the aspects of this process is that the division between labor and leisure is blurring. The former colonizes the latter – worker is always at work, even after punching out. On the other hand, elements of leisure, such as play, are implemented into the labor, for example as motivational tools, but in a result as tools of power and control. Time of work is being gamified. According to this mode of production, creativity, playfulness and labor should go hand in hand. In addition, we face ideological constructs, that work should be fun, or that if one turns his passion into a career, one will never have to work again. This opens up a space for exploitation of modern workers, especially the ones working in creative industries, such as art, IT or academia. To describe this phenomenon, Julian Kücklich proposed the term playbor. It made a small career in critical game studies, but in my presentation I will argue that this notion can be extended to other areas of life. I will present examples of playbor and theoretical approach behind them to show that we are all, in one way or another, playborers.

Adrian Zabielski – doctoral candidate at Department of Contemporary Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland. Interested in broadly considered utopistics, philosophy of politics, philosophy of (pop)culture and STS.

Krzysztof Ziarek (Professor and Chair, Department of Comparative Literature, University at Buffalo)

 

This paper will look at Heidegger’s reflections on the essence of technology in the context of his remarks on power and planetarism. Heidegger’s approach to the essence of technology is often misunderstood as a “critique” of technology. In fact, Heidegger makes it explicit that the essence of technology (Technik) is nothing technological (it is not technology, techno-science, production, or technological products) but instead a modality of revealing characteristic of the modern, increasingly globalized, world. That is why, as the paper will show, Heidegger on technology cannot be understood apart from the question of the alternative, poietic revealing. Technology in Heidegger needs to be thought in tandem with the poietic, just as calculative thought has to be juxtaposed with poetic thinking. Though Heidegger’s writings date from half a century ago, since (what he calls) the technic revealing only keeps intensifying, the exigency of the poetic becomes all the more apparent.

 

E-mail: kziarek@buffalo.edu

Marcin Zarod, (Kozminski University. MINDS Group)

 

Studies of science and technology usually focused on regular academic practices, treating hybrids, paradoxes and exceptions as cases to be solved by normal science. Rather than following formalized technoscientific practices, I will focus on informal practices of hacking. In my paper, I will show how hackers and computer security experts construct vulnerabilities in computer systems. Using data from ethnograhpy of computer security tournament, I will focus on reversing approach usually taken by Actor-Network Theory. Rather than following rules, objects and actants, I will track how breach of irregularity is constructed, stabilized and transfered in different networks. In second part of my paper, I will try to show what elements of theory of infrastructure should be updated by study of exploits. Moving from Susan Leigh Star’s approach toward Moulier-Boutang’s critique of cognitive capitalism, I will discuss some differences between digital and non-digital infrastructures.

 

E-mail: marcin.zarod@gmail.com

Szymon Wróbel (Faculty of “Artes Liberales” of the University of Warsaw)

 

The ultimate, though only outlined here, purpose of this text is to think about the enigmatic concept of „techno-utopia”, i.e. to look for its new, more awaited and less obvious meaning. The term „techno-utopia” is a strange fusion of utopia and technology. We do not know whether domination is on the side of utopia or on the technical side. We would like the meaning of this term to be determined not by „struggle” but by the kind of „reconciliation”, amalgam, i.e. the creation of „third meaning” in which „technology” would be socialized from the very beginning, and that what is „social” would be already technicalized at the time of conception of the so-called „social fact”. Techno-utopia is a „new place” for a utopia, it is a „different place”, or the „real place” of utopia, but also a „different technology” of producing the social. As part of the techno-utopia, what is social would not brutally eliminate what is non-social, what is not living, or that what is only material. This is the hope permeating this text. That is also why one of the titles of this text could be a paraphrase of the famous Heidegger’s text and ensuing – question concerning techno-utopia.

 

E-mail: wrobelsz@gmail.com

Yael Vishnizki-Levi (Faculty of “Artes Liberales” of the University of Warsaw)

 

A contemporary observation on Fritz Lang’s 1927 classic inside Łódź’s biggest shopping leisure and arts complex, located in the former industrial complex founded in the end of the 19th century by Izrael Poznański, a Łódź based businessman. My talk will focus on my upcoming film project Manufaktura, which was shot at the Manufaktura complex in Łódź. The film is a semi-documentary project examining the relationship between the huge complex and its history as a spinning mill and a textile factory. The film draws inspiration from Metropolis, the 1927 classic by Fritz Lang as well as uses parts of its script and its artistic structure as a silent movie. Metropolis, which does not relate to any particular place or time, presents a futuristic observation on the city’s structure and appearance and explores concepts of modernisation, industrialisation and mass production, which all were significant topics and foci in Europe of the interwar period. Our contemporary perspective allows us to examine Metropolis in relation to our times where its spectaculous futuristic, science-fiction elements stay in the past as a nostalgic comprehension of the future. The Manufaktura uses its historical atmosphere and industrial architecture of the old factory as a starting point (which also explains the name of the complex) in order to create a nostalgic quality and a unique appearance which differs the complex from other shopping centres in an era that requires to attract visitors and costumers. The film Manufaktura is a documented journey around the complex, which results in a collection of contemporary representations of machines. In the film the exact time is indicated and the location of the Manufaktura plays a significant role. While the concept of the Manufaktura is being challenged in the digital era, the film allows us to observe this phenomenon before its next transformation. I would like to divide the talk into three parts: (a) In the first part, I will show the beginning and the end of the film Metropolis (1927 dir. Fritz Lang) and rethink its artistic qualities as one of the first futuristic, science-fiction movies and its social and political relevance for the contemporary digital age. (b) In the second part, I will show the beginning of my upcoming film Manufaktura, discuss its artistic concept as a semi-documentary, the editing process and the decision to link between the footage shot inside the Manufaktura and the text quoted from Metropolis. (c) In the third part, I will present an analysis of the relationship between the films (Metropolis and Manufaktura) and the terms future and transformation both as practical concepts and as philosophical, socio-political and utopian terms.

 

E-mail: yael.wisznicki@gmail.com

Tom Tyler (Lecturer in Digital Culture, School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds, UK)

 

Videogames, it has been claimed, are the pre-eminent art form of the 21st century. They certainly hold great expressive and persuasive power, and the potential to exert significant influence on the identity and sense of self of anyone who engages with them. So what do games tell us about the fleshy nature of the creatures who appear in and play them? Meat is ubiquitous in videogames and, when consumed by avatars or their agents, will frequently confer some aid or benefit. In many games it serves as the most nourishing form of sustenance for those who are hungry, but it can also operate as the most effective restorative for those who are injured, as a potent source of temporary power-ups and enhancements, or as a valuable resource to be spent on permanent improvements and upgrades. In short, in so far as it functions as an indispensable, life-giving food stuff, meat comes to represent vitality. As a common condition of humans and animals, however, meat can also take on a rather different significance, as is illustrated by the game Super Meat Boy. We will consider the ambivalent claim that Meat Boy is a “boy made of meat”, alongside the game’s contentious promotion and reception, and its problematic politics of the flesh.

 

E-mail: T.Tyler@leeds.ac.uk

Agata Szepe (Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Warsaw)

 

In my paper I will interpret the way in which a social media group on Israeli tourism to Poland was established and developed. A Facebook group Hufsza be-Warsza, Krakow we-Shar Polin [eng. Holidays in Warsaw, Krakow and the Rest of Poland] was established in 2017. From an informal initiative of its moderator Daniela Signer and her group of friends it became the biggest social media group on Israeli tourism in Poland, comprising about 35 thousand of members. The group is noteworthy at least for two reasons. Firstly, it is a part of a wider, brand-new phenomena of a ‘new type’ of Israeli tourism to Poland, which I call a new Israeli tourism. Although already from the 1990s Poland became popular among Israelis commemorating the Shoah victims, in recent years the Israelis started treating this country as a place of entertainment, relax and shopping. Secondly, because the moderator of the group, Daniela Signer based it on specific socio-philosophical principles of a non-commercial project. The main assumption is that it should be moderated voluntarily and should not favor interests of any company or institution.  I will test the case study of the group form two perspective: the perspective of the social science of the Internet and using The Actor-Network Theory (ANT) approach. The first perspective will enable me to point out the possibilities and limitations of interpreting the principles of the group in the context of social movements connected with sharing economy and online collaboration. The second perspective will show how this social media group is tied up with a thick network of relations with human and non-human actors. Tracing the relations, I will flat the global relations to see local connections in the network between Israeli tourists, social media, tourist attractions and infrastructure as well as the tissue of Polish cities.

 

E-mail: agata.szepe@student.uw.edu.pl

Michał Stemerowicz (Graduate School for Social Research, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences)

 

This paper aims to look at Walter Benjamin’s famous art essay (Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit) through a Heideggerian perspective. In order to do so, a brief rereading of Benjamin’s art essay will be supplemented with his critique of the traditional notions of history and his concept of Ursprung. In conclusion of this reproduction of Benjamin’s thought, it will be claimed that Benjamin does not only adopt a position that can be characterized as an affirmative technological modernism, but moreover calls for a guidance, a certain agent that navigates the masses through the turmoils of technological advance. It will be argued that such a reading makes Benjamin’s art essay approachable for its critical examination through the lens of Heidegger’s thought concerning technology. Finally, an attempt will be made to evaluate the aesthetic consequences of a world in which the work of art is truly liberated from any “aura” and its embeddedness in tradition. However, this evaluation will not focus on the prime examples of film and photography but rather concentrate on the architectural landscape of the contemporary polish village.

 

E-mail: michael.stemerowicz@googlemail.com