Geoff Cox

Bio

Geoff Cox is a lecturer at the University of Plymouth (UK), an occasional artist, writer, and Associate Curator of Online Projects at Arnolfini, Bristol (UK). He is part of Art & Social Technologies Research at Plymouth, as well as an adjunct member of faculty at Transart Institute (Donau University, Austria). He has a research interest in software (art) studies expressed in various projects such as the co-curated touring exhibition 'Generator' (2002/03), his PhD thesis 'Antithesis: The Dialectics of Software Art' (2006), the co-curated
public art project 'Social Hacking' (2007) and is currently working on a book project. He is an editor for the DATA Browser book series (published by Autonomedia), and co-edited 'Economising Culture' (2004), 'Engineering Culture' (2005) and 'Creating Insecurity' (2009).

Abstract

Software Art-Work For-Itself

With software, not only is the programmer's work difficult to identify (often hidden behind the interface) but the user's labour also disappears into the operating system. In a contemporary scenario, this is exemplified by the operations of 'social media', wherein the social relation is produced in restrictive form, underpinned by the socio-technical hierarchical logic of server-client relations. The participatory work-play ethic of social media can thus be understood as an expression of new forms of control, such that the value stolen no longer relates simply to labour power but to subjectivity too. The associated dislocation of social antagonism remains useful to conceptualise the way that exploitation is 'subsumed' into the wider social realm. Consequently, the control of social media, and the labour related to it, are key sites of antagonism that need to be identified for alternatives to be engaged. The presentation will refer to a number of artist projects that draw attention to the contradictions expressed in the complexities of production, and the continued importance of antagonism as a mechanism for social change. The phrase software-art-work is expressed in a deliberately ambiguous way - to indicate the work involved in making software, the work involved in using software, as well as the work that software does in-itself - taken together to establish the necessity of software-art-work operating 'for-itself'.