London-hailing, Berlin-based writer and editor Fiona Shipwright presents the work of Laurel Ptak, shedding light on the contemporary realities of digital space - and in turn, illuminating the ideological and functional frameworks that structure initiatives like Making Spaces.
"Maybe we need to start recognising that the information architecture and code used in constructing a website are equally like architecture in physical space — on some level it embodies ideologies and controls our behaviour.”
The above is a quote from artist/curator Laurel Ptak in conversation with artist Marysia Lewandowska about intellectual property, open culture and art practice (2009, Source). I’ve chosen to highlight Ptak’s work on the Making Spaces blog as the framing of the space of digital naturally warrants as much interrogation as that of the physical. However obvious that might seem, given momentum before and sheer number of initiatives (including our own) that choose to lay their foundations online, it can be surprising to see how old models and ideologies are can become not only embedded within cyberspace but also endure there.
Indeed, it was only as recently as 2014 that Wikipedia, one of the most viewed websites in the history of the web, become the focus of “edit-a-thons” organised by Art+Feminism. The project, now an annual event counting participants across the globe, took on not only the misrepresentation rife across the content of the online encyclopaedias when it came to women in the arts but also the editors working on them after a study found that only 8.5 % of editors were women.
During her time as a fellow at Eyebeam, a non-profit art and technology studio based in New York, Ptak was participant in the 2015 edit-a-thon which took place at MoMa. Digital space has been a focus of her own practice and one of her most intriguing projects in this area relates the contemporary sphere of Facebook to feminist praxis of the 1970s. Her Wages For Facebook is a project – a manifesto – no less that demands Facebook users be acknowledged and remunerated for the “work” that they do. The name comes from the International Wages for Housework Campaign of the 1970s, spearheaded by the likes of Selma James and Silvia Federici and which called for acknowledgement and wage compensation for the domestic labour (including – but not limited to – housework and care giving) undertaken by women which they argued not just supported but in fact underpinned the market economy.
Taking this as a starting point, Ptak conducted an interesting exercise, swapping out housework for activity on Facebook and finding the platform, and others like it, can just as easily be described as another site of marginalisation and control. Ultimately Ptak’s project asks a very simple question: is our Facebook activity work? That is, supplying and managing content, “curating” newsfeeds, providing feedback and comments, all, be it directly or indirectly, in the service of Facebook. If the answer is yes, then what about the economic rights of the workers? In playing with such a contemporary medium Ptak explores the manner in which questions can end up simply end up transposed into another medium, as the edit-a-thons demonstrate; a space doesn’t have to have four walls to perpetuate the kind of ideologies which the Wages for Housework manifesto sought to unravel.
Last year Ptak’s work was featured in a show called Office Space at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, which sought to “interrogate universally recognised aspects of office architecture, design, aesthetics, and protocols as a means to understand the shift toward immaterial labour practices”.
At present it just about makes sense to think of office space as something distinct but the blurring of life and work means that the digital sphere now represents the ‘space’ we arguably spent the most time in; the space where we conduct our relationships – both professional and personal, it’s the space children now grow up in, the space where issues such as those central to the Making Spaces project take place. If we’re going to try to highlight and take on visibility using digital means, it’s worth thinking about the architecture of that space and all it embodies.
Fiona Shipwright
http://laurelptak.com/
http://wagesforfacebook.com/
http://art.plusfeminism.org/edit-a-thons/
Indeed, it was only as recently as 2014 that Wikipedia, one of the most viewed websites in the history of the web, become the focus of “edit-a-thons” organised by Art+Feminism. The project, now an annual event counting participants across the globe, took on not only the misrepresentation rife across the content of the online encyclopaedias when it came to women in the arts but also the editors working on them after a study found that only 8.5 % of editors were women.
During her time as a fellow at Eyebeam, a non-profit art and technology studio based in New York, Ptak was participant in the 2015 edit-a-thon which took place at MoMa. Digital space has been a focus of her own practice and one of her most intriguing projects in this area relates the contemporary sphere of Facebook to feminist praxis of the 1970s. Her Wages For Facebook is a project – a manifesto – no less that demands Facebook users be acknowledged and remunerated for the “work” that they do. The name comes from the International Wages for Housework Campaign of the 1970s, spearheaded by the likes of Selma James and Silvia Federici and which called for acknowledgement and wage compensation for the domestic labour (including – but not limited to – housework and care giving) undertaken by women which they argued not just supported but in fact underpinned the market economy.
Taking this as a starting point, Ptak conducted an interesting exercise, swapping out housework for activity on Facebook and finding the platform, and others like it, can just as easily be described as another site of marginalisation and control. Ultimately Ptak’s project asks a very simple question: is our Facebook activity work? That is, supplying and managing content, “curating” newsfeeds, providing feedback and comments, all, be it directly or indirectly, in the service of Facebook. If the answer is yes, then what about the economic rights of the workers? In playing with such a contemporary medium Ptak explores the manner in which questions can end up simply end up transposed into another medium, as the edit-a-thons demonstrate; a space doesn’t have to have four walls to perpetuate the kind of ideologies which the Wages for Housework manifesto sought to unravel.
Last year Ptak’s work was featured in a show called Office Space at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, which sought to “interrogate universally recognised aspects of office architecture, design, aesthetics, and protocols as a means to understand the shift toward immaterial labour practices”.
At present it just about makes sense to think of office space as something distinct but the blurring of life and work means that the digital sphere now represents the ‘space’ we arguably spent the most time in; the space where we conduct our relationships – both professional and personal, it’s the space children now grow up in, the space where issues such as those central to the Making Spaces project take place. If we’re going to try to highlight and take on visibility using digital means, it’s worth thinking about the architecture of that space and all it embodies.
Fiona Shipwright
http://laurelptak.com/
http://wagesforfacebook.com/
http://art.plusfeminism.org/edit-a-thons/