Technics, Time and the Internation: Bernard Stiegler’s Thought – A Dialogue with Daniel Ross

This interview with Bernard Stiegler’s long-time translator and collaborator, Daniel Ross, examines the connections between different periods of Stiegler’s work, thought, writing and activism. Moving from the three volumes of Technics and Time to the final large-scale collaborative project of The Internation, the discussion concentrates on Stiegler’s conceptualization of ‘protentionality’, hope and care for a world confronted by climate crises, entropy and computational economic reconfigurations of work, economy and imaginations for futural possibilities. The interview foreshadows the special issue on The Internation project planned by Bishop and Stiegler for TCS that will appear in the near future.

Hand-held mechanical device improves thinning efficiency of peach trees

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of mechanical-manual thinning (MmT) at different developmental stages in the thinning efficiency and productive performance of ‘Sensação’ peach trees. The experiment was performed during the 2013 and 2014 growing seasons, in a commercial orchard located in Morro Redondo (RS), Brazil. Plant material consisted of 7-year-old peach trees grafted on Capdeboscq rootstock and trained as an open-vase system. The experiment was arranged as a randomized block design, with five three-trees replications. In order to reduce the effect of personal experience, the treatments and measurements were applied by the same person in a set of replications throughout the experiment. Treatments consisted of: control I [without thinning (WT)]; control II [hand thinning (HT) 40 days after full bloom (40 DAFB)]; MmT at full bloom (FB): 50% of open flowers; MmT at the end of bloom (EB): 80-100% of open flowers; MmT at petal fall (PF); and MmT at the green fruit (GF) stage (fruit with ~1 cm of diameter). The MmT was performed using a hand-held portable device. The parameters assessed were: percentage of thinning, fruit set, thinning time, work economy, production per tree, fruit mass, estimated yield and fruit size distribution. The use of the MmT at the stages tested reduces thinning time of ‘Sensação’ peach trees, resulting in labor saving, as well as increases the percentage of fruit in category (CAT) 1. The MmT when performed at GF results in a higher percentage of thinning. The treatment MmT at FB increases the average fruit mass.

‘Once more, with feeling,’ said the robot: AI, the end of work and the rise of emotional economies

This article calls for a new research agenda into ‘emotional economies’, or economies increasingly characterised by the creation, extraction and exploitation of emotional products and labour, enabled by and embedded in rapid advances in technological and digital-media systems. We base this concept and call on a literature review linking technological automation, the future of work and emotions. Our review finds that: (1) many existing studies – whether predicting dystopian end-of-work mass unemployment, or utopian complementarities between humans, machines and digital platforms – are technologically determinist in nature, and do not account for the roles of culture, society, government, business and education in the machine–human–emotion interface; (2) despite this, there is evidence that technology will replace many existing forms of human labour, leaving only technologically irreplaceable emotion-based soft-skill service work (and emotional labour) for humans to perform; (3) there is an outside chance (in some literature) that technology and AIs will replace even emotional labour, though we argue this is unlikely for many years; (4) the increasing centrality of emotional industries, emotional data and emotional labour to work, digital platforms and media-imagery will likely lead to emotions becoming vital commodities, central to the economies of the future. The article concludes with an urgent call for a new research agenda on emotional economies to elaborate on private/public intersections between work, economy and emotions that soberly engage with the future while challenging technologically determinist assumptions that underpin populist depictions of the end of work.

Owning It

This paper analyses the constructed reality TV show Made in Chelsea as a vision of a post-work world. Specifically I situate the programme as providing a more realistic vision of a post-work economy than that set out by left futurists advocating for fully automated luxury communism. Through an analysis of the depiction of work and play within the show it becomes apparent that any apparent boundaries between the two are rapidly collapsing, with both subsumed under the auspices of performative authenticity. I argue that increasing automation will more likely lead to fully automated luxury communicative capitalism, unless left futurists acknowledge the affective aspects of social media use.

The difficulties faced by lalas in China in securing defamilisation and familisation

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to focus on the difficulties faced by women with same-sex desire (commonly known as “lalas”) in China in securing defamilisation and familisation. It has two objectives – to show the challenges lalas face in organizing their life in interaction with the family, work economy and government; and to discuss how these challenges make women with same-sex desire difficult to secure defamilisation and familisation. Familisation refers to the extent to which people’s participation in the family is increased; whereas defamilisation refers to the extent to which people’s participation in the family is reduced. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted literature review and in-depth interviews with 20 Chinese women with same-sex desire in Beijing to collect and analyze data for fulfilling the two objectives. Findings Lalas face serious challenges in their daily lives – they receive insufficient support from the government, work economy and family in organizing their life and their freedom is constrained by these three sectors. These challenges render lalas difficult to achieve several types of defamilisation/familisation (the “carer,” “care receiver,” “provider of financial support” and “receiver of financial support”). Originality/value Few defamilisation and familisation studies focus on women with same-sex desire. No studies on defamilisation and familisation of lalas in China have been done before. With the focus on lalas, the paper discovers new causes of the difficulties in securing defamilisation/familisation, and possible solutions to these difficulties.

The Sounds of Enlightenment Paris

What are the relationships between historians and the sounds produced in the spaces and times they study? This article stresses the absence of historiographical interest in noise, due to the silence of the archives regarding matters of sound. It reviews the attempts at devising sonograms of historical periods, such as the eighteenth century. It highlights daily sounds and noises and it seeks out their traces in the domains of work, economy, religion, politics and royalty. Churches and hospitals, in particular, were home to harrowing sounds. Voices are also important data for historical enquiry, such as children's voices, peddlers’ tunes and street songs.