Platformisation: Around, Inbetween and Through

In the context of the Singapore Biennale 2022-23:

This set of works broadly engages in platform politics and platformization as an intrinsic part of our daily lives and beyond: what are they, how do we contend with them within the political sphere, and what are the ways in which we can think around them. How can we think about platforms in an expanded way, and depart from the usual manner in which we understand them? It will be in three parts:

Screening of Ghost Cut film and diagram that resulted from workshop

A workshop where along with 8 participants, we considered drawing as a tool to investigate ‘crowdsourcing’, metaphor and scale as a way to enter platform politics and infrastructure in general.

Platforms: Around, Inbetween and Through is a collection of texts that will understand abstraction as a defining framework of platforms and platformization. What kind of aesthetic do different nodes of this expansive framework employ, how do we encounter them, and what kind of long-lasting or immediate repercussions do they have? If management (algorithmic, logistical, categorization) and autonomy are one of its key concerns, where do they intersect with labor, desire, law and control?

Contributors include Ze Antonio Magalhaes, Noopur Raval, Gary Zhexi Zhang, Mark Graham, John Philip Sage and Aarti Sunder. The book is scheduled to release in early 2023.

Published with the support of Natasha, Singapore Biennale 2022, Organised by the Singapore Art Museum

Specter, Sovereignty, Surplus will be a series of four conversations with artists and scholars on ideas around platforms and platformization as an expanded and broad context of online-offline relationships that brings the human and the non-human, digital conduits, physical infrastructures and the marketplace together. Rather than seeking additional definitions for platforms, these conversations will look to offer methods of thinking around them, newer ways of perceiving and investigating interactions that stem from them.

Participants include Out of Line, Adelita Husni Bey, Akshaya Kumar, and Sebastian Leuhede. These conversations will take place online for four days, from January 30 to Feb 2.

To register: https://spectresovereigntysurplus.peatix.com/

Links:

https://www.singaporebiennale.org/artists/aarti-sunder
https://artreview.com/what-is-it-like-to-be-a-biennale-singapore-2022-natasha/
https://issuu.com/iias/docs/iias_nl93_full/s/17074700