Radical Space in the Midst of Algorithms: Machinic Labor Interruptions against Digital Spatial Abstractions

• In Event: Disrupting Algorithms: Innovating Work and Life in the Digital Economy - III

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the antagonism between capital and labor from a distinctive spatial/connective perspective: by examining the tension between the production of digital abstract space in the context of algorithmic management, and the powerful push backs of gig-economy workers advancing alternative connective strategies.
Our goal is to advance a spatial approach to digital labour practices capable of grasping the dialectical aspects of current capitalist ‘weaponization’ of algorithms (Finn, 2018; Cardon, 2018). To this purpose, we revive Lefebvre’s perspective (1991) on the production of space in the current capital context. In fact, we will show how space sheds light on a series of interconnected productive tensions between people and technology, connective structures and subjective connective agency, and computational machines and embodied practices. All those tensions generate dialectical outcomes that while subordinating the labor process inevitably create spaces of contention.
We first discuss the notion of digital abstract space as a framework that articulates the technological abstraction tendencies exemplified by algorithmic management. In the second part, and drawing on field notes (Leonardi, 2017), pushing against the dematerializing force of algorithmic management (Waters and Woodcock, 2017) and digital black boxes (Scholtz, 2016), we examine how workers mediate principles of alternative-connectivity against the general tendency of casualization of work in the gig/digital economy.

Authors

• Marco Briziarelli, University of New Mexico

• Emiliana Armano, University of Milan