"Take The Kids Off The Streets": Jane Jacobs vs. The Modern Urban Aspiration

Love: The Medium is the Message

Notes from an Ethnography on Post-Modern Labor: Ludo-Capitalism or Computer Feudalism?

Last week the American Anthropological Association kicked off its 109th meeting in Montreal’s Palais des Congrès. As the 5000 speakers shuffled papers and cleared their throats, I was among the happy anthro-devotees going through the 632 page program to decide which panels to attend during the five days: Mobile Phones in Papua New Guinea? Favela Tourism in Pre-Olympic Rio? Breastfeeding in a Time of Post-Feminism? The Aesthetics of Egyptian Political Pop Music Videos? The Soundscape of 9/11's Heritage?... Some panels I wish I attended others I am so glad I did.

For example David Hakken from Indiana University presented his talk “From Labor to Playbor: Business Anthropology In the Time of Social Networking.” As a labor anthropologist he discussed the role – from an evolutionary perspective – of computerization on work. Today, similarly to technology breaking down the traditional lines between the private and public, computers are changing how we work, where we work, why we work and what qualifies as work.

Up till this fall Google had a game - called ESP - to label their gazillion images into categories. This game transformed an intensive, repetitive and certainly costly archiving chore into a fun (addictive) activity resulting in a better Google service, and all this produced by free labor.

Could this virtual collaborative project be the demonstration that surpassing the barriers of face-to-face labour results in better, less costly, and funner systems of efficiency. A sort of Ludocapitalism fuelled by playbor? Or rather is this a form of post-modern Taylorism? A 21st century feudalism – computer feudalism – in which our free bug reports, tweeking of open source projects and fun Google tags feed empires we are never rewarded by?

Leaving the panel I started to think that if technology can enable us to game our way through labor, then workers most probably will start acting like players. It doesn’t seem entirely unlikely that Wall Street traders sell, buy, negotiate and think in a similar fashion to the questing, grinding, hating factions or joining guilds World of Warcraft avatars do.

Both just as removed from the impact of their labor on the ‘real’ world but getting the addictive high of success that industrial Taylorism most probably never provided its workers. 

Commodifying Rituals and Patterns at the American Anthropological Association Meeting!

 

  

The Phenomenology of Colour: What Happens When We See

From Always With Honor

Bad Urban Design and Public Art Installation: the MMFA's Homogeneous Plastic Yellow Poles and Night Guard Protect Their Failed Sidewalk

Last month the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts opened a new building, a new curatorial plan for its Canadian collection and a new sidewalk/sculpture garden (which, as the press release happily stresses makes it "one of the largest collection of public art in Montreal" - Montreal being really well known for its public art this is really thrilling).

Hence to enlarge its sculpture garden and create spaces to reflect and observe it, the Museum commissioned marble steps, platforms, columns and benches for its main sidewalks - on avenue du Musée and rue Sherbrooke. As the images show, today these designs are angular, of different hight and slanted (not totally unlike the ideal skatepark) and are meant to "create a high-quality urban environment for the Museum complex that is both distinctive and homogeneous, [as well as] improve the comfort and aesthetics of the outdoor spaces, integrate public artworks, [and] improve pedestrian safety in the vicinity of the Museum."

Well it seems like the Museum has been caught off guard by how much Montrealers have found these new urban props comfortable and safe. Skatboarders, in particular. But sadly these types of pedestrians are deemed unwelcome by the Museum and so the institution has hired a night guard to make sure only their ideal art lovers come enjoy their sculptures (with their eyes only). But this wasn't enough to deter the normal human pedestrian from touching and interacting with these public installations so the MMFA has added extra yellow plastic sticks to most marble corners making sure no one ever goes near their "high-quality urban environment". (I'm guessing this yellow plastic repetition is to maintain the aesthetic homogeneity mentioned in the press release.)

It seems obvious that the Museum and its favoring of what they wish their backyard looked like rather than what the reality of urban space is, are the only ones to blame for the sidewalks' current absurdity. And as a pedestrian it's hard not be saddened about 33 million dollars that were put into what the field of yellow poles is trying to protect, in particular while budgets in the arts throughout the country are being cut.

Update of 26/11/11: After the night-guard and the plastic yellow polls, the MMFA has now invested in the panoptican power of the surveillance camera to insure the peacefulness they intended for their newly developed sculpture park. Brilliant. 

The Colour of New York's Troubles

In this very very witty and pretty graph by artist Andrew Kuo one can read smart data with a New York City biased twist.

Finally Marina's Presence in a Game!!!

Closed for over a year now, Marina Abramovic's retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art and the amount of coverage, articles and commentary documenting it seem like a distant past.

At the time I remember being struck by the general uniformity of critical response which matched her audiences attitude: either utmost seriousness or profound awe (and a striking lack of humor). The constraints of the institution - the intense security (transgressors could be banned from the MoMA for life), the difficult acoustics, the bright neons - were probably the principle causes for this monotone outcome, but overall the artist's serious form of self-making in the show - with Abramovic replicating herself through her performance and reperformances - was like turning everyone that participated into her (too grim? too dramatic?) outlook.

Pippin Barr recently came up with "The Artist is Present" game, which embodies quite well the qualms mentioned above as well as the weird steps involved in the Marina art experience (although I feel like the art experience in general to a certain extent too).

Pigeons Are Our Friends: Bernice's Move

Published: Dirt and Pigeons

I'm happy to say my passion for pigeons has finally seen its first material manifestation in this multi-faceted, pleasantly deep and particularly clean issue of On-Site dedicated to dirt.

Coloured Water, Tape and Glass Cups: NPR Explains Seven Billion Humans

Found at flowingdata