Disappearing into the Object: Aesthetic Enrollment and the Cultural Labor Process

• In Event: 365 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 15. Working Cultures

Abstract

This paper brings sociological theories of the labor process into a dialogue with theories of aesthetic experience drawn from the “new” sociology of art and anthropology. Drawing upon Alfred Gell’s aesthetic theory and related empirical research, I present the concept of aesthetic enrollment as a form of managerial control found among support staff in the music industry. In order to illustrate this concept, I present ethnographic evidence gathered in the context of a music-recording studio in Los Angeles, CA. Despite less than ideal working conditions in this context, studio workers claimed to “love” their work. In order to explain this, I argue that aesthetically appealing technological objects serve as mediations between management and worker by allowing an imagined sense of aesthetic agency.

Author

• Michael Louis Siciliano, University of California-Los Angeles