The students produced four projects: The Economics of Uncertainty; looking at world in which Fordist industrial regulation had been replaced with unpredictability and randomness with the intent of pursuing a riskier and thus more profitable economy. The Free Associates in which a group of labourers reject structure and routine and decide instead to perform labour on whim. A History of Value + Labour in Music; an analysis of technological and social changes in the history of music and sound. The Memorial of Unrest; a series of memorials designed by task-rabbits to workers who had died at work. Performative Finance; a ritualising of high finance through television broadcasts and the exchange of gifts.

The School of Tomorrow - Venice, Italy – 2014-06

As part of the Swiss Pavilion's School of Tomorrow at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, the Royal College of Art's MA Design Interaction department organised to send a team of 14 students for a one-week residency at the pavilion exploring the theme of The Future of Labour:

Looking towards a speculative future London, the participants will look critically at the changing nature of labour in one of the world’s financial capitals. With mass automation of production and services, a reliance on algorithmic finance and a growing income gap, the participants will question, speculate and propose forms of labour (in the broadest sense) that power a future London. The students will consider the systems, tools and technologies that might augment or dictate the work of humans as a physical and cognitive presence. The value of the human body as a labour machine will be brought into question in the context of the proliferation or non-proliferation of technology as well as the nature of future political systems that dictate human value as a work object.

The outcomes will be based in a range of media chosen by the participants from prototypes and designs to film or performance.

Participants: Amina Abbas-Nazari, Timothy Clark, Sam Conran, Debbie Ding, Zoe Hough, Rodrigo Lebrun, Anna-Luise Lorenz, Henrik Nieratschker, Ira Pappa, Nestor Pestana, Channing Ritter, Johanna Scmeer, Neil Thomson, Beth Bramich

Teacher: Tobias Revell

More photos on flickr.

06.2014