From October 10 through 16, The New School presents MobilityShifts International Future of Learning Summit (mobilityshifts.org), a university-wide discussion on the de-institutionalization of learning. In collaboration with MobilityShifts, the Vera List Center hosts a conversation between artist Luis Camnitzer and curator Christiane Paul  on the transfer of knowledge from the academy to the street; collective research in pedagogy and artistic practices; how the notion of “assignments” must be redefined to meet the needs of a mobile population; and how to expand learning beyond bounds of school and universities.

Their conversation finds its material counterpart in Camnitzer’s exhibition The Assignment Book, organized by Paul and Scholz, presented from September 21 through October 16 at the Aronson Gallery, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, Parsons The New School for Design.

The Assignment Book consists of many unresolved conundrums and questions concerning the current status of institutional education. The exhibition intends to stimulate critical multidisciplinary thinking on the questions raised while prompting visitors to leave responses that serve as new stimuli for dialogue. Taking cues from the blog format, the exhibition challenges the traditional role of the artist/teacher by offering a platform for the artist, curators, and visitors to enter into conversation as equal partners, and learn from each other.

CALL: Changing Labor Value
Changing Labor Value, a panel discussion on September 29, 2009, examined the nature of work in the digital era, focusing on the relationship between invisible labor, play, exploitation, pleasure, and the production of value. The speakers, Andrew Ross and Tiziana Terranova, considered the impact of corporate expropriation of value from millions of net users and offered some alternatives. The panel was accompanied by an installation of Web-based projects by Burak Arikan, Ursula Endlicher, Scott Kildall and Victoria Scott, Aaron Koblin, Stephanie Rothenberg and Jeff Crouse.

The Internet as Playground and Factory on Vimeo

RESPONSE: Paolo Carpignano
The response is offered by Paolo Carpignano, Associate Professor of Sociology and Media Studies at The New School and coordinator of the Masters/Ph.D. program in the Sociology of Media. A writer, consultant and producer for production companies in the United States, Brazil, and Italy, Carpignano has published articles on sociology, social history and media theory. He is the co-author of Crisis and Workers’ Organization and The Formation of the Mass Worker in the USA, and the author of the online project Televisuality. He is currently working on a book on the relationship between work and media.

For the complete conference schedule and registration

This conference, organized by Lang faculty member Trebor Scholz and, among others, supported by the Vera List Center, confronts the urgent need to interrogate the concepts of labor and value in the digital economy and seeks to inspire proposals for action. There are currently few adequate definitions of labor that fit the complex, hybrid realities of the digital economy. The Internet as Playground and Factory poses a series of questions about the conundrums surrounding labor (and often the labor of love) in relation to our digital present. It is the first in a series of biennial conferences titled The Politics of Digital Media.

The conference was preceded by a panel on September 29 entitled Changing Labor Value that featured Andrew Ross, Tiziana Terranova and McKenzie Wark and presented as annotations in space Web-based art projects by Burak Arikan, Ursula Endlicher, Scott Kildall and Victoria Scott, Aaron Koblin, and Stephanie Rothenberg and Jeff Crouse.

Sponsored by Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts and presented in cooperation with the Center for Transformative Media at Parsons The New School for Design and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics on occasion of the center’s 2009/2010 program cycle “Speculating on Change.”