Art/Work/Play

In this episode we talk about all things flightsim and spiritual succession. We talk about the Yes Men’s SimCopter ‘himbo’ intervention and Cat and Jon’s new game, produced for the Global Game Jam, Co-op Copter Scab. We also talk about the RCMP as big oil Pinkertons. Play CO-OP Copter Scabs: https://spekwork.itch.io/coop-copter-scabs Get the Scabby the Rat instagram filter: https://www.instagram.com/a/r/?effect_id=2503745169841908 WTO protests in Seattle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Seattle_WTO_protests Global Game Jam: https://globalgamejam.org/ Four Sisters podcast (Ben’s gf says it’s too arty for mainstream listeners): SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/foursisterspodcast Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/four-sisters-podcast/id1497373632 Find us elsewhere: http://spek.work/ https://www.instagram.com/spekwork/ http://twitter.com/spekwork

“Artists talk a lot about freedom. So, recalling the expression “free as a bird,” Morton Feldman went to a park one day and spent some time watching our feathered friends. When he came back, he said, ‘You know? They’re not free: they’re fighting over bits of food.’” — John Cage The spekwork longfrom social media account tackles bullshit jobs, the force that the PMC (professional managerial class) exerts over the arts, the oversubscription of cultural labour markets and Julian Glander’s Art Sqool. Note: Amusingly, the freeware Jon downloaded to capture the videogame audio for this episode was for trial purposes. This is why the robot voice declares every few seconds ‘trial!’. Although aesthetically it exists within Glander’s idiom, it was our own inadvertent imposition. ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄ ̄ The Uprising: On Poetry and Finance by Bifo Berardi: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/uprising Bullshit Jobs in the Creative Industries by Jack Newsinger: http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2015/04/23/bullshit-jobs-in-the-creative-industries/ On the Phenomena of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber: http://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/ Against Economics by David Graeber: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/12/05/against-economics/ On (Surplus) Value in Art, Reading by Art and Labor Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/art-and-labor/id1387325985?i=1000455509423 Indiepocalypse: https://www.polygon.com/2018/9/28/17911372/there-are-too-many-video-games-what-now-indiepocalypse Art Sqool: Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsfhPVaZDmQ Official website: https://artsqool.cool/ Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/953300/ART_SQOOL/ Itch.io: https://glander.itch.io/art-sqool To rent at the Brandscape you can contact us here: http://brandscape.club/contact.html Find us elsewhere: http://spek.work/ https://www.instagram.com/spekwork/ http://twitter.com/spekwork twitch.tv/SpekWork

“And what I now see is that the new virtual world that our children are growing up in is so addictive precisely because it satisfies the need for reply and response, and because it does so immediately. In this way the virtual penetrates to the core of the social and provides us with all the rewards of the social realm without requiring us to pay the corresponding price, so that we can now sit entirely alone, on our own island, without the mechanical interaction ever causing the urge for other human beings to rise within us and tear wildly about like a recently caught animal in a cage.” --Karl Ove Knausgaard Legal, political and bureaucratic systems often move slowly in response to labour unrest and injustice. Not only does this function to quell the energy required to organize these actions, but too the hope required to sustain them. The gang talks a bit about these techniques in application to the Foodora Unionization vote and the Regina Co-op Refinery lockout, before launching into a play-through of Jon’s beautiful new first person shooter Tower Fantasy. Check it out yourself. Tower Fantasy: Itch.io: https://spekwork.itch.io/tower-fantasy Bandcamp: https://jonathancarroll.bandcamp.com/album/tower-fantasy Coverage of the Regina Co-op Refinery lockout: https://www.rankandfile.ca/dance-parties-personal-growth-and-police-three-days-with-locked-out-regina-oil-workers/ No Man’s Sky and 10,000 Bowls of Plain Oatmeal: https://www.challies.com/articles/no-mans-sky-and-10000-bowls-of-plain-oatmeal/ This guy on Perlin Noise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG0uEXV6aHQ Therapy Font (Jon, Cale, and Ben’s generative and improvised music project): https://therapyfont.bandcamp.com/ Itch.io: https://therapy-font.itch.io/ Find Ben’s fancy theatre podcast: SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/foursisterspodcast Or an Apple Podcasts: https://pcr.apple.com/id1497373632 More on the play and the Trilogy: https://www.empiretrilogy.com/ Find us elsewhere: http://spek.work/ https://www.instagram.com/spekwork/ http://twitter.com/spekwork