BPM

Digital machines work with striking rigour. Inexhaustible like metronomes, their existence is bound to precise rhythms and loops from which they cannot possibly escape. They never question their role in the process of value generation, they don’t unionise, they don’t strike. At the same time, the bug is an immanent feature of their existence. They regularly malfunction and resist to work as intended. What critical potential lies in the crippled struggle of algorithmic entities? Is the glitch a role model for resistance and labour strikes in the time of gamified digital capitalism?

Examining these questions, BPM critically negotiates the concepts of “work” and, as its counterpart, “leisure” on the example of non-player characters (NPCs) in video games. Video game spaces are examined with a humorous approach for their subversive potential, setting the stage for an updated critique of capitalism that focuses on human and non-human working conditions. The two multi-channel video installations, the ethnographical essay Hardly Working and the disco installation Club Stahlbad, both question the rhythmicality and loop-ness of life under capitalism. While the former focuses on the Sisyphus-like working life and the characters’ possible escape from it, the latter discusses the area of leisure as both a counterpart and an extension of the clocked work regime.