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The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
Institute of Human Obsolescence
Manuel Beltrán
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We are getting replaced by machines. What happened to horses after the invention of the steam engine, is now happening to us. Soon our manual labour will no longer be needed and with the advance of artificial intelligence, intellectual labour will be replaced by machines as well.
*The Institute of Human Obsolescence* (IoHO) explores this scenario and tries to ask questions on how to re-position the role of humans by developing and challenging existing and new relationships between human and machine and new dynamics of creation of value in a post-work scenario.
The IoHO explores this scenario and tries to ask questions on how to reposition the role of humans in society, particularly how to cope with a labour-market dominated by machines. Becoming obsolete will create a reality in which new forms of labour will emerge. Our aim is to explore, question, and challenge scenarios of that transition.
In the installation *Biological Labour* we hire human workers to wear a body suit that harvests their residual body heat to produce electricity that is then fed into a microcomputer producing cryptocurrency. With this new form of work we aim to question the possible consequences of the combination of invasive technologies with the lack of jobs to be performed by humans.
In *Data Production Labour* we problematize the social inequalities proposed by companies like Facebook through their exploitation of invisible labour deriving from our production of data. We propose a structural change in how we understand our position: instead of being users we see ourselves as workers.
This process enables us to explore different proposals within the framework of Data Labour Rights, such as the Data Basic Income and Data Cooperative. It allows to ask the question: How can we challenge current inequalities and advocate for collective response?
Currently we are establishing the Data Workers Union, an initiative that enables citizens to gain agency and advocacy for their data labour rights.
Links: http://speculative.capital
*The Institute of Human Obsolescence* (IoHO) explores this scenario and tries to ask questions on how to re-position the role of humans by developing and challenging existing and new relationships between human and machine and new dynamics of creation of value in a post-work scenario.
The IoHO explores this scenario and tries to ask questions on how to reposition the role of humans in society, particularly how to cope with a labour-market dominated by machines. Becoming obsolete will create a reality in which new forms of labour will emerge. Our aim is to explore, question, and challenge scenarios of that transition.
In the installation *Biological Labour* we hire human workers to wear a body suit that harvests their residual body heat to produce electricity that is then fed into a microcomputer producing cryptocurrency. With this new form of work we aim to question the possible consequences of the combination of invasive technologies with the lack of jobs to be performed by humans.
In *Data Production Labour* we problematize the social inequalities proposed by companies like Facebook through their exploitation of invisible labour deriving from our production of data. We propose a structural change in how we understand our position: instead of being users we see ourselves as workers.
This process enables us to explore different proposals within the framework of Data Labour Rights, such as the Data Basic Income and Data Cooperative. It allows to ask the question: How can we challenge current inequalities and advocate for collective response?
Currently we are establishing the Data Workers Union, an initiative that enables citizens to gain agency and advocacy for their data labour rights.
Links: http://speculative.capital
Manuel Beltrán (ES) is an artist, activist, and researcher. His artworks and projects have been widely presented in Europe and abroad. Manuel was involved in the Indignados movement in Spain, the Gezi Park protests in Turkey and several forms of independent activism and cyber-activism. He co-founded the collective Plastic Crowds (2012) and the Alternative Learning Tank (2013). In 2016, Manuel founded the Institute of Human Obsolescence that explores the future of labour and the socio-political implications regarding society’s relationship with technology.