Algorithms of Resistance

Artists Tytus Szabelski
Genre Installation
Edition Survival 20
  • site-specific installation
  • 2022

In today’s world, technology is part and parcel of social development processes. Although it is not the only force driving progress or a universal panacea against all maladies, we are constantly bombarded with its new forms, from apps for ordering pizza to planetary -scale geoengineering projects. The work is an attempt to show a very important yet frequently overlooked piece of the technological puzzle, seen from the bottom, from the perspective of people employed in corporations that run platforms, e.g. global courier companies. Their employees are subject to the constant surveillance by digital algorithms that track their every move and demand maxi-mum efficiency. As a result, workers often try to find ways around the automated oppression and power relations. Based on research and conversations with employees of platform corporations, the artist has created graphical diagrams resembling drawing algorithms found in patent documentation, once called “blueprints” due to the method of their duplication, which produced white lines on a blue background. “Algorithms of Defiance” shows the struggles, dilemmas and loopholes through which workers try to regain agency and subjectivity in the cogs of algorithm-managed platforms.