Jesse And Glenda Drew

About

Jesse Drew and Glenda Drew, "A Hack in the Odious Machine: Digital Organizing Tools for the Precariat"

Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium

April 13, 2015, 7:30-9:00pm

The David Brower Center, Berkeley CA

Co-presented with the CITRIS Data and Democracy Initiative.

Many high-tech projects that hoist the banner of “innovation” pride themselves on creating “disruption” to established modes of industry and commerce. Yet, often the disruption that ensues comes at the expense of the lives, livelihoods and neighborhoods of people in a vulnerable position on the socio-economic scale. What would a technology of disruption look like that champions the lesser off? How can we as technologists, artists, designers and innovators “disrupt” an economic system that has led to shockingly high inequalities of wealth and has damaged an already flawed system of democratic political participation? Stories of Solidarity attempts to do just that, to build a platform of social media that connects low-wage, part-time, marginal or seasonal workers (the precariat) to others in the same predicament, in order to build new solidarities that can combat inequality. In the spirit of the Free Speech Movement, our project asks how the resources and intellectual power of our public university can be used to empower Californians often deprived of the fruits of university research.