Free admission
Please register via service@pact-zollverein.de
The event takes place at the foyer of PACT Zollverein.
PACT Zollverein
Bullmannaue 20A
45327 Essen
Which chain of work processes are triggered by a click in an app? Whose bodies are thereby set in motion and exposed to the elements? And how will our cities change when work is no longer tied to spaces, but is controlled by an ephemeral architecture of routes, data and likes?
The promise of services that can be delivered directly to your doorstep around the clock has now become part of everyday life. However, platforms such as Uber Eats, Gorillas and Lieferando are operated at the expense of migrants, who are frequently subjected to precarious working conditions. Digital interfaces conceal the material conditions that make such services possible initially.
The evening brings people together who work in the digital economy, in the context of app-based delivery services, logistics platforms or the care secctor. What future of work becomes visible here, and what future do we want? The audience is invited to open discussions, personal assessments and solidarity-based networking.
With Janne Martha Lentz, Semih Yalcin, Hedi Tounsi, Sebastian Randerath, metroZones e.V. / Jochen Becker and more.
›Work. Clicks And Crowds (AT)‹ marks the start of the new series ›Hidden Futures‹ at PACT, which is organised and developed in cooperation with the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) | RWTH Aachen University.
A project as part of the Alliance International Production Houses, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
Programm
19:00 h
Welcome, Introduction, Open Exchange
19:45 h
Lecture by Janne Martha Lentz: 'When the logic of the platform economy invades the private sphere'
Cleaners who are booked via a platform on the internet usually work in the customer's home - in other words, in a space that is not publicly controlled and is usually invisible, female-dominated and emotionally charged. Unlike people who work for delivery services, for example, cleaners are on their own - there are no standardized processes or structures. They move around online and in other people's homes and have to deal with unspoken expectations, spatial control and precarious working conditions. The intermediary platforms are deliberately profiting from existing inequalities and exacerbating them: relationships of trust, personal networks and responsibility are replaced by digital systems that are geared towards the convenience of customers - workers must be available and interchangeable. This shows the negative side of the platform economy: invisible domestic work between smartphones, cleaning products and the fine lines of social inequality.
Janne Martha Lentz is a research assistant and doctoral candidate at the University of Graz. She is working on a research project on platform work in the care sector and focuses in her work on the intersection of reproductive work, housing and digitalization.
Content Notes: Description of patriarchal abuse of power including sexualized violence by customers towards cleaning staff
20:00 h
Jochen Becker, metroZones: ›Stadt als Byte‹
Since 2012, metroZones - Zentrum für städtische Angelegenheiten has been following the development of the so-called »creative industries« in several projects - between app, mapping and video as well as exhibition or performance. Under the heading of ‘Tech-Urbanism’, the focus is on how scientific research findings and technologies are applied in practice in cities. Examples include buildings, displacement, business models, data cleansing tools or so-called “bullshit jobs” (David Graeber).
Jochen Becker (Berlin) works as an author, curator and lecturer and is co-founder of metroZones metroZones | Center for Urban Affairs and the station urbaner kulturen/nGbK Hellersdorf. He curated Chinafrika. under construction (Graz, Leipzig, Weimar, Shenzhen, Nuremberg) and advised the relocation of the Düsseldorf theatre FFT. There he developed the long-term project Stadt als Fabrik und Place Internationale (2017-22). Most recently, he worked with metroZones on the exhibition Mapping Along (Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin, 2021) and Helle Fabrik, Dunkelkammer Produktion (Scharaun Berlin, Kunstraum München, 2023).
Sensory stimuli: Sudden sound elements
20:15 h
Hedi Tounsi, Semih Yalcin, Sebastian Randerath: ›How to resist‹
›How_to_resist.gpx‹ provides insights into everyday and organized resistance in platform-based warehouse and delivery work. Strategies of platform workers - between fatigue, disruption and strike - are outlined. How can resistance arise in a working environment that makes people disappear behind algorithmic tracking? How does solidarity arise between jobs, apps and chat groups? The lecture performance combines lived experiences of workers and activists with artistic research and creates a toolbox for future resistance.
Sebastian Randerath is a research associate in Digital Media Culture at the University of Bonn. He critically examines (digital) media and labor - with a particular focus on resistance, tracking and planning. In doing so, he brings his research into dialog with artistic practices and activist interventions.
Hedi Tounsi is a works council member at Amazon in Winsen (Luhe) and is involved in several committees. He focuses on health in the workplace, co-determination and protection against discrimination. He regularly takes part in conferences such as AfA Niedersachsen and the Works Councils Day in order to gain further training and network.
Semih Yalcin is Chairman of the General Works Council at Lieferando and has been representing the interests of employees for over six years. He has been with the German branch Lieferando (previously Foodora/Delivery Hero) since 2016, where he is employed as a courier driver and team leader.
20:45 h
Open exchange and joint dinner
