[iDC] Introduction

[Laura Forlano]

Hi All.

I'm another Laura, also teaching at The New School and working on new  
forms of organizing, mobile work practices and mobile/wireless  
technology.  Currently, I'm working on a collaborative team project  
called Breakout! (breakoutfestival.org), which is part of the  
Architecture League's Sentient City exhibition that opened last  
Thursday.

During my dissertation research in communications at Columbia, I  
studied the ways in which growing ranks of freelance, self-employed  
and independent workers have formed new types of face-to-face  
“communities” including membership in coworking spaces such as New  
Work City in New York; the flexibility and mobility of labor has  
allowed for new spaces like cafes, parks and public spaces to be  
appropriated for work; and, new jobs such as search engine optimizers  
(SEO) have been created.  I believe that such phenomenon point towards  
the reorientation of individual identities away from firms and towards  
ad-hoc, place-based networks of likeminded individuals that perform  
various forms of unpaid labor for one another in absence of firm- 
structured relations.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the above and to the  
upcoming Digital Labor conference.

Best,
Laura