Entreprecariat

Entrepreneur or precarious worker? These are the terms of a cognitive dissonance that turns everyone’s life into a shaky project in perennial start-up phase. Silvio Lorusso guides us through the entreprecariat, a world where change is natural and healthy, whatever it may bring. A world populated by motivational posters, productivity tools, mobile offices and self-help techniques. A world in which a mix of entrepreneurial ideology and widespread precarity is what regulates professional social media, online marketplaces for self-employment and crowdfunding platforms for personal needs. The result? A life in permanent beta, with sometimes tragic implications.

“A compelling and relentless j’accuse: debunking the social and political myths that push an increasing number of persons to perform in the entrepreneurship circus — with no safety nets.”

— Antonio Casilli, author of En attendant les robots, 2019

With a foreword by Geert Lovink and an afterword by Raffaele Alberto Ventura.

Designed by Superness (Federico Antonini & Alessio D’Ellena).

Silvio Lorusso’s work focuses on the cultures and rhetorical regimes embedded in techno-social systems. He deals with the narratives and counternarratives that define platforms, devices and interfaces. By doing so, he engages with the tensions surrounding notions of labour, productivity, autonomy, self-design, entrepreneurialism, precarity and failure. Lorusso’s practice combines various media such as video, website, artist’s book, installation, lecture. This activity is further stimulated by writing essays, curating exhibitions and organizing public programs. In 2018 he published his first book entitled ENTREPRECARIAT: Everyone Is an Entrepreneur. Nobody Is Safe. (Onomatopee, English; Krisis, Italian).

Silvio Lorusso is Affiliated Researcher at the Institute of Network Cultures of Amsterdam, Creative Coding Tutor at the Royal Academy of Art in Den Haag and researcher at the Willem De Kooning Academy. He’s also a member of varia and part of the editorial board of Italian graphic design magazine Progetto Grafico. His work has been presented at, among other venues, MaXXI, Rome; Transmediale, Berlin; The Photographers’ Gallery, London; Kunsthalle Wien; NRW-Forum, Düsseldorf. He holds a Ph.D. in Design Sciences from the School of Doctorate Studies – Iuav University of Venice. His writing has appeared in several magazines and publications, including Pagina99, Minima&Moralia, Not, Modes of Criticism, Printed Web 3, Metropolis M, Digicult. Since 2013, he manages the Post-Digital Publishing Archive (p-dpa.net). He lives in Rotterdam.

Sebastian Schmieg examines the algorithmic circulation of images, texts and bodies. At the centre of his practice are playful interventions into found systems that explore the hidden – and often absurd – realities behind the glossy interfaces of our networked society. There the boundaries between human and software, individual and crowd, as well as labor and leisure are blurring. Schmieg works in a wide range of media such as video, website, installation, artist book, custom software and lecture performance....