KONTAKT: info@mikro-berlin.org
tel: 0177 225 37 97, fax: 030 4434 18 12 [or] 313 66 78
mikro.termine mikro.self mikro.linx mikro.home
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Mikro
e.V. Verein zur Förderung von Medienkulturen in Berlin
KONTAKT: info@mikro-berlin.org tel: 0177 225 37 97, fax: 030 4434 18 12 [or] 313 66 78 mikro.termine mikro.self mikro.linx mikro.home |
| Programm
Podiums
discussion on working conditions in multimedia agencies with:
Moderation
Video
Audio
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mikro.lounge
#6: Net Work
<http://www.mikro-berlin.org/Events/19980902E.html> WMF, Johannisstr. 20, Berlin-Mitte
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deutsch |
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They're called "knowledge workers", "digital artisans", "symbol analysts" or the "digital class". All these terms refer to a new milieu for labor which has developed in the last four years in multimedia and Internet agencies. What all these jobs have in common is not only the work with computers and the Internet, but also a very specific work culture: young employees, long hours, an abundance of freelance or "steadily employed freelance" workers, a high turnover of employees, below-average pay, but also "blitz careers". The sixth mikro.lounge was critically addressed at the working conditions in multimedia agencies. This mikro.lounge is the only one for which there is no video or audio recording. As always, when you do something in front of an audience, you know less than anyone else what actually happened. So there is no protocol or record of this lounge. The tone for the evening
was set by a video by Berlin artists Ingo Vetter and Annette Weisser entitled
"Was zählt, ist nicht, die Gegensätze Vetter/Weisser see the development
in the relatively new multimedia industry as paradigmatic for a restructuring
of the entire working world towards new forms of "immaterial work" (T.
Negri) [T. B.] |
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aufzulösen, sondern gleichzeitig einzunehmen" ("What matters isn't
resolving opposites but accepting them simultaneously"). The tape, Weisser's
graduation work for the Academy of Media Art in Cologne, shows edited interviews
conducted by Vetter/Weisser with artists and employees at Berlin multimedia
agencies. Topically, the interviews centered on overlapping structures
between the relatively free existence of the artist and that found in the
new labor segment sometimes referred to as the "digital class".
which
demand more responsibility and flexibility of the individual. And indeed,
the interviews with artists and multimedia workers showed amazing parallels
with regard to the concrete organization and structure of each person's
working and living conditions. This observation all but guaranteed a lively
debate between the artists, the head of a Berlin agency and a representative
of the union for media workers, and the audience was once again quick to
become engaged in the discussion.