FREE LABOR, SOFT CONTROL, AND INTERNET ART
One of the most interesting topics of this book is the
relationship between free labor, excess of value produced by self-organized
system, and the new dynamics of control and exploitation.
Starting from the assumption that the Internet produces
excessive value and it also depends on massive amounts of labor, Tiziana
Terranova points out two modality of control and exploitation.
One modality is related with the idea that Internet labor
and value is collectively produced, but selectively compensated. According to
the logic of venture capitalism, only some part is picked up by corporate
distribution chains or cultural industries.
The other modality is related with the idea of abstract
machine of soft control that builds on the “discovery of the immense
productivity of a multitude. The soft control exists both at the beginning of
the process in the selection of initial conditions and restrictions and at the
end in the sorting and filtering of desired outcomes and variations.
These two modality of control and exploitation can be found
also in the way contemporary artists relate to the Internet.
1. Many artists, whether or not they are declaring
themselves as internet artists, are using the Internet as an endless source of
inspiration, an infinite archive of free ideas that can be selected and
transformed into art works. The basic strategy is to extract images from the
vernacular culture of the Internet, and then to reposition them in an art context.
One of the most famous example is Maurizion Cattelan, a contemporary artist that just had a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum. A recent article by Domenico Quaranta pointed out how many of his famous irreverent works looks like translation of Internet memes into physical sculptures.
One of the most famous example is Maurizion Cattelan, a contemporary artist that just had a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum. A recent article by Domenico Quaranta pointed out how many of his famous irreverent works looks like translation of Internet memes into physical sculptures.
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2. A more interesting art practice is instead more close to the logic
of the abstract machine of soft control, that takes as its operational field
the productive capacities of the hyperconnected.
Following this logic some artists set up systems, and
initial rules that take advantage of the turbulent creativity of the internet
users, and at the end filters the outcomes.
One of the best example is Oliver Laric with his piece
‘Touch my body’.
Touch my body, (Green Screen Version), is a reworking of
Mariah Carey’s music video. By masking everything in the video other than
Carey's physical form with Chroma Key, Oliver Laric created a template over
which others were able to edit further new versions of the video. After that,
he posted back the video on YouTube, where the large public of the site adopted
the piece and posted remixes of their own.
After some months Oliver Laric made a selection of all these
versions and exhibited the piece in an art Gallery.
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