The Internet as Playground and Factory

“THE INTERNET AS PLAYGROUND AND FACTORY”
A CONFERENCE ON THE CHANGING FACE OF LABOR IN THE DIGITAL AGE

November 12—14, The New School, New York

New York, October 12, 2009—On November 12 to 14, Eugene Lang College The
New School for Liberal Arts will host an international conference, "The
Internet as Playground and Factory," which will explore the meaning and
changing face of labor in the digital era….

The conference will be comprised of discussions, panels,
presentations, a film screening, a playroom, a conference game, and a
re-enactment of Facebook by a performance artist…

Internationally visible authors, activists, and artists
including Mark Andrejevic, Michel Bauwens, Jonathan Beller, Patricia
Ticineto Clough, Gabriella Coleman, Sean Cubitt, Jodi Dean, Ursula
Endlicher, Alexander Galloway, Pat Kane, M. Christopher Kelty, Nick
Montfort, Lisa Nakamura, Christiane Paul, Howard Rheingold, Douglas
Rushkoff, Fred Turner, McKenzie Wark, and Jonathan L. Zittrain will
address issues of digital labor from various disciplinary standpoints.

The conference will take place at The New School campus in
Greenwich Village. On Thursday, November 12, the conference will begin
with a film screening of Sleep Dealers, a widely celebrated science
fiction film about virtual labor, followed by a discussion with the
director, Alex Rivera. The screening will begin at 5:00 p.m. in Room 404
of 66 W. 12th Street and be followed by a reception at the Eugene Lang
Café at 7:30pm. On Friday, November 13, at 10:00 a.m., New School
President Bob Kerrey will open the conference, which will run events in
three parallel tracks. At 6:00 p.m. on Friday, performance artist Ursula
Endlicher and Burak Arikan will perform “Facebook Re-enactments,” a
piece about networked structures, identities, and online behavior. On
Saturday at 10:00 a.m. at 66 Fifth Ave in Room 101, presenters include
Harvard Professor Jonathan Zittrain, cultural critic Brian Holmes, media
theorist Mark Andrejevic, and Jodi Dean, Professor of Political Science
at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Erasmus Professor of the
Humanities in the Faculty of Philosophy at Erasmus University.

To view the full conference agenda and list of participants, please
visit http://www.digitallabor.org.