Even when technologies produce phenomena too large, too small, too fast for our senses, these ‘occur’ to us through conventional physical human-scale aesthetics. Therefore the political and ethical implications of the “digital turn” can be elaborated through the analysis of the materials on which these appear.

There is no “immaterial” production, reproduction or labour.
NEST-ethics (Tsjalling Swierstra & Arie Rip: 2007), points to fundamental problems of the means of technical production which have troubled human consciences throughout recorded history. This presentation, concentrating on the contributions of miners to the electronics industry, will elaborate methods for ethical analysis of digital aesthetics through biographical labour-models.

Baruch Gottlieb, trained as a filmmaker at Concordia University in Montreal, is a canadian artist working with electronic materials, a writer and curator. He is fellow of the Vilem Flusser Archive and member of the arts collectives Telekommunisten, Laboratoire de Deberlinisation, and Arts & Economics Group. He is founder of the SFX Seoul series of sound art festivals and initiator of the McLuminations series of video discussions. Gottlieb is currently curating the exhibition “Vilém Flusser & the Arts” to open in ZKM in 2015. Gottlieb’s doctoral dissertation concentrates on digital image production in nanotechnology and particle physics.