[Air-L] “THE INTERNET AS PLAYGROUND AND FACTORY”

[Laura Forlano]

FYI

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Trebor Scholz" <scholzt at newschool.edu>
> Date: October 8, 2009 6:57:27 PM EDT
> To: "<Laura Forlano" <lef45 at columbia.edu>
> Subject: Please distribute on your list etc?
>
> NEWS RELEASE
>
> Media Contacts:
> Bridget Fisher, 212.229.5667 x3094; fisherb at newschool.edu
> Sandra Ordonez, 212.229.5667 x3994; sandratordonez at hotmail.com
>
> EUGENE LANG COLLEGE PRESENTS:
>
> “THE INTERNET AS PLAYGROUND AND FACTORY”
> A CONFERENCE ON THE CHANGING FACE OF LABOR IN THE DIGITAL AGE
>
> First-of-its-Kind Conference Examines How Social Media is Transforming
> the Economy, Labor and Society
> November 12—14, The New School, New York
>
> New York, October 12, 2009—On November 12 to 14, Eugene Lang College  
> The
> New School for Liberal Arts will host an international conference,  
> "The
> Internet as Playground and Factory," which will explore the meaning  
> and
> changing face of labor in the digital era. For three days, 90  
> theorists,
> artists, legal scholars, activists, students, programmers, historians,
> and social media experts will join to re-evaluate what constitutes
> unpaid labor, value, leisure, play, fun, and exploitation in an  
> economy
> that is increasingly driven by the expropriation of all our blogging,
> data entries in online profiles, and submitted photos and videos. This
> event will commence a biennial series of conferences titled, “The
> Politics of Digital Media.”
>
> 	"Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook are changing the way citizens
> can speak truth to power,” said Neil Gordon, dean of Eugene Lang  
> College
> The New School for Liberal Arts. “Social networking services and  
> mobile
> phone technologies allow activists and the millions of people who
> generate financial value online to re-think unionization, resistance,
> and even ways of making a living.  Eugene Lang College is proud to  
> begin
> an ambitious series of biennial conferences on digital media with an
> event drawing attention to labor, an issue that affects us all. With a
> focus on interdisciplinary education and an emphasis on civic
> engagement, Lang is the perfect platform to analyze social media and
> emerging forms of labor from the perspectives of the social sciences,
> arts, and Internet studies.”
>
> 	The conference will be comprised of discussions, panels,
> presentations, a film screening, a playroom, a conference game, and a
> re-enactment of Facebook by a performance artist. The event seeks to
> advance the conversation about digital media beyond technological
> advances and commercial applications to touch upon vital issues facing
> the future of Internet users. Topics include motivations for social
> participation, exploitation of online play, data-lock, access across
> race and class, the precariousness of working conditions and
> unionization, political consciousness, and the social costs of
> government and corporate surveillance. Beyond critical analysis, the
> conference will seek to offer potential responses to the commercial
> culture of the global network of networks. It will address the dangers
> of yielding our pleasure, data, and friends to profit-oriented,
> mainstream platforms and discuss current alternatives and possible
> near-future scenarios.
>
> 	"This conference alerts us to the fact that hundreds of millions
> of people continuously make the totality of their life energy  
> available
> to a handful of enterprises,” said Trebor Scholz, conference convener
> and assistant professor of Culture and Media Studies at Eugene Lang
> College. “ The speakers will join to propose different visions in  
> which
> individuals and groups can be change agents in the building of
> alternatives. By approaching this subject through a series of
> collaborative follow-up events, we hope to support and continue the
> critical analysis of this ever-evolving social phenomena.”
>
> 	Internationally visible authors, activists, and artists
> including Mark Andrejevic, Michel Bauwens, Jonathan Beller, Patricia
> Ticineto Clough, Gabriella Coleman, Sean Cubitt, Jodi Dean, Ursula
> Endlicher, Alexander Galloway, Pat Kane, M. Christopher Kelty, Nick
> Montfort, Lisa Nakamura, Christiane Paul, Howard Rheingold, Douglas
> Rushkoff, Fred Turner, McKenzie Wark, and Jonathan L. Zittrain will
> address issues of digital labor from various disciplinary standpoints.
>
> 	The conference will take place at The New School campus in
> Greenwich Village. On Thursday, November 12, the conference will begin
> with a film screening of Sleep Dealers, a widely celebrated science
> fiction film about virtual labor, followed by a discussion with the
> director, Alex Rivera. The screening will begin at 5:00 p.m. in Room  
> 404
> of 66 W. 12th Street and be followed by a reception at the Eugene Lang
> Café at 7:30pm. On Friday, November 13, at 10:00 a.m., New School
> President Bob Kerrey will open the conference, which will run events  
> in
> three parallel tracks. At 6:00 p.m. on Friday, performance artist  
> Ursula
> Endlicher and Burak Arikan will perform “Facebook Re-enactments,” a
> piece about networked structures, identities, and online behavior.  On
> Saturday at 10:00 a.m. at 66 Fifth Ave in Room 101, presenters include
> Harvard Professor Jonathan Zittrain, cultural critic Brian Holmes,  
> media
> theorist Mark Andrejevic, and Jodi Dean, Professor of Political  
> Science
> at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Erasmus Professor of the
> Humanities in the Faculty of Philosophy at Erasmus University. 	
>