Our friends over at the Berliner Gazette are organizing a series of events called SILENT WORKS about hidden labor in AI-capitalism. In the lead up to the central conference and exhibition, they share the following update:

Big tech is using the Covid-19 pandemic to take over Berlin. Amazon, for instance, one of the biggest profiteers of the crisis, is turning its logistics empire into ‘critical infrastructure.’ Meanwhile, workers are being romanticized as an ‘essential’ labor force in order to suppress their bargaining power: ‘heroes’ are expected to sacrifice themselves for ‘the greater good’ rather than go on strike. This neo-feudalism is crowned by Amazon’s soon-to-be erected tower in the heart of the city. How can workers, that is: how can we, join forces against the rising Technopolis?

This was the starting question of a SILENT WORKS warm-up event in Berlin last week – an insightful and stimulating panel discussion with activists from “Berlin vs. Amazon” and “Berlin Tech Workers Coalition,” moderated by Magdalena Taube (Berliner Gazette). Preparing for the upcoming SILENT WORKS exhibition and conference as an “onsite/face-to-face” event in Berlin, Nov.7-28, it was an important experience.

Here are some pictures from the event by Andi Weiland: https://flickr.com/photos/berlinergazette/albums/72157713432698548

Here is an audio recording by Modell Berlin/Radio Woltersdorf:  https://soundcloud.com/berliner-gazette/silent-works-modell-berlin

If you find some time, please also look at the SILENT WORKS text series that we are running on Berliner Gazette (in German). In September we published new contributions by Jörg Nowak (“Arbeitskämpfe in Europa: Neubeginn einer Bewegung oder letztes Aufbäumen?”), Rebecca Puchta (“Tasten, Tippen, Tappen, Wischen, Klicken: Zur Un-/Sichtbarkeit der Arbeit von Fingern), and Timo Daum (“Gespenster des KI-Kapitalismus: Was es bedeutet, Geistesarbeiter*in in agilen Environments zu sein”). Here is the overview of latest texts: https://berlinergazette.de/feuilleton/2020-silent-works/

For those of you who just now are tuning into the SILENT WORKS conversation, the English language edition of selected SILENT WORKS interviews on Mediapart.fr could be of interest, including conversations with Angela Mitropoulos, Tom Holert, and  Kerstin Guhlemann. You can find these texts here:https://blogs.mediapart.fr/krystian-woznicki/blog

More info on the SILENT WORKS project you can find here: https://silentworks.info