Dear SIGCIS,

Tom Haigh and I have been busy preparing the "Computing is Work!" conference at Siegen University - and we would be very happy to see some of you this July!

For those of you who can't: We do have plans to videotape this for documentation, although we do have the recent controversy about scholarly talks on film in mind.

Watch out for program updates here: http://www.socialstudiesof.info/ComputingIsWork/

Kind regards,
Sebastian Giessmann

______________


Computing is Work!

International Conference

July 6–8, 2017

Universität Siegen, Artur-Woll-Haus
Am Eichenhang 50, 57076 Siegen;
Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen

 

Conveners: Thomas Haigh / Sebastian Giessmann

 

We humans spend most of our waking lives working. Work includes cultural, intellectual, managerial, and emotional labor as well as physical toil. Despite this, most work by humanities and media scholars implicitly treats the study of work as marginal or uninteresting. Even the study of “digital practices” rarely engages with the specifics of the workplace, despite the importance of distributed micro-practices like clickworking. Information technology underpins the transformation of work today, as it has it in the past.

 

We welcome interdisciplinary contributions that address computing as work practice, both on a local, situated, infrastructural level. Speakers will be exploring many kinds of work, from the work of computerized literary production to the work of scientific research. We believe that close attention to the social processes of work has the cross-cutting potential to integrate a variety of historical, social and ethnographic research approaches, from labor history to the scientific ethnography to the study of media practices as cooperative accomplishments, into a revealing whole.

 

July 6, Thursday (Artur-Woll-Haus)

 

9:30 OPENING REMARKS 
Computing is Work! 
Thomas Haigh (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee/Siegen University) and 
Sebastian Giessmann (Siegen University)

 

10:00 ROUND TABLE
Computer Supported Cooperative Work as Theory and Practice 

Erhard Schüttpelz / Volker Wulf (Siegen):

Moderator: Dave Randall (Siegen)

 

11:00 KEYNOTE

Matthew Jones (Columbia University):
Data Mining is Work: Scaling Algorithms, Overcoming Friction, Redefining Knowledge

Moderator: Carolin Gerlitz (Siegen)

 

14:00 PANEL: Scientific Workplaces

– Jens Schröter (Bonn):
Work will be 3D: Imaginary Workplaces and Volumetric Displays

– Gerard Alberts (Amsterdam)

Archiving is Work, Archaeology Even More

Moderator: Jörg Potthast (Siegen)

 

16:30 PANEL: Structuring Labor

– Roli Varma (University of New Mexico):
Women at Work: Decoding Femininity in Computing in India

– Nathan Ensmenger (Indiana University):
Documentation is Work: Flowcharts as Temporal Boundary Objects

Moderator: Axel Volmar (Siegen)

______

 

July 7, Friday (Artur-Woll-Haus and Museum für Gegenwartskunst)

 

9:00 KEYNOTE

Kjeld Schmidt (Copenhagen Business School):
Coordination is Work: The Problem of Computerizing Coordinative Practices

Moderator: Erhard Schüttpelz (Siegen)

 

11:00 PANEL: Workflows

– Kari Kuutti (Oulo):
”Muddling through” is Work: a Plea for Workflow Oriented Computing

– Maria Haigh (Milwaukee / Siegen):
Stopping Fake News is Work

Moderator: Peter Tolmie (Siegen)

 

15:00 PANEL: Institutions and Markets

– Hallam Stevens (Nanyang Technological University):
Copycatting is Work: The Diverse Labours of the Shenzhen Electronics Markets

– Ben Peters (University of Tulsa):
Networking is Work: How Computing Institutions Matter even When Networks Fail

Moderator: Christian Henrich-Franke (Siegen)

 

18:00 KEYNOTE

Fred Turner (Stanford University):
Bohemia is Work: Reimagining Art and Labor Inside Facebook

Moderator: Ehler Voss (Siegen)

(Venue: Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Unteres Schloss 1, 57072 Siegen).

_______

 

July 8, Saturday (Artur-Woll-Haus)

 

9:00 PANEL: Fun and Games

– Ksenia Tatarchenko (University of Geneva):
Leisure is Work: The Making of the Soviet Computing Collectives

– Laine Nooney (Georgia Tech):
Games are Work: Notes from the "Little Silicone Valley"

Moderator: Nadine Taha (Siegen)

 

11:30 CLOSING REMARKS

Thomas Haigh (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee/Siegen University) and 

Sebastian Giessmann (Siegen University)

 

12:00 KEYNOTE

Matthew Kirschenbaum (University of Maryland):
(Even) Literature is Work! Word Processing and Literary Labor

Moderator: Till Heilmann (Bonn)

 

Participation is free. Please register in advance with Anja Höse: Anja.Hoese@sfb1187.uni-siegen.de.

 

Supported by the Siegen University iSchool, the Collaborative Research Centre “Media of Cooperation”, Siegen and the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Research North Rhine-Westphalia.


-- 
Dr. Sebastian Gießmann
Collaborative Research Centre Media of Cooperation
SFB Medien der Kooperation
Universität Siegen
http://www.mediacoop.uni-siegen.de
https://www.facebook.com/mediaofcooperation

http://www.sebastiangiessmann.de 
Telefon: 0049-(0)271-740-2586
Sprechstunde: n.V.