This local event is a spin-off of the International Symposium “Post-automation? Towards Democratic Alternatives to Industry 4.0”, which took place in Sussex in September 2019 and was organized by Prof. Adrian Smith and Mariano Fressoli.

Post-automation is a concept in the making. The idea is sparked by the observation that, globally, groups of people are appropriating and hacking digital technologies for design, prototyping, and manufacture that were implicated initially in successive waves of automation: code, sensors, actuators, computer numerically controlled machine tools, design software, microelectronics, internet platforms, 3D scanners/printers, video, etc.

Clues and hints about post-automation emerge in diverse places: hackerspaces, makerspaces and fablabs; citizen monitoring platforms and open science projects; open hardware platforms and grassroots innovation initiatives; new crafting practices; repair, repurposing and upcycling workshops; libraries and educational institutes opening technology to popular experimentation; citizen laboratories and DIY urbanism; workplace struggles for human-centered, democratic technology. Many of these places work through networks that cut across conventional categories; appearing simultaneously to constitute a movement and infrastructure for social relations with technology radically different to the depopulated visions of cyber-physical systems in Industry 4.0.

In this two-day event, we will discuss such existing practical alternatives and explore how the future of the work would look like in both an automation and post-automation setting.

Schedule:

04 December 2019_Discussion of real-life alternatives with members of the P2P Lab, Ragnar Nurkse Department. 15:00-17:00 @ SOC-311,School of Business and Governance, TalTech.

05 December 2019_Workshop about the future of work by Maro Pantazidou and Alekos Pantazis. 15:00-17:00 @ UO5-301, Main Building, TalTech.

Free entrance.