Art/Work/Play

2020 is interview season for the pod. This week we speak to Sagan Yee, who talks about their collaborative art and video game practice, their role in running the not for profit Hand Eye Society, and the relatively recent emergence of labour politics on to the video game making scene. Find Sagan here: http://www.saganyee.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaganYee Check out the Hand Eye Society: https://www.handeyesociety.com/ Or follow them on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HandEyeSociety Artists and artworks mentioned in this podcast: Nadine Lessio: http://nadinelessio.com/ Hannah Epstein: https://www.han.ski/ Kenton de Jong’s ‘Regina Cemetery Tours’: https://reginacemeterytours.ca/ Kai Hutchence’s ‘Queen City Chaos’: http://www.queencitychaos.com/ Now Magazine article on housing costs an artist incomes: https://nowtoronto.com/lifestyle/real-estate/cost-of-living-in-toronto-2020-lowrates/ Art Stats report from TAC: https://torontoartsfoundation.org/tac/media/taf/Research/2019-TAF-Arts-Stats-booklet-FINAL-web.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0B1EivnD-FrlQPeAUcBfqGnpply5CJPYipoRmwEwBNAJ_FI9Vj8_Rytmg Mayworks’ ‘Unfeeling Capitalism’: https://www.nghtshfts.org/unfeeling-capitalism Game Workers Unite: https://www.gameworkersunite.org/ ‘Rockstar spouses’ controversy: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/rockstar-spouse-accuses-dev-of-pushing-its-employees-to-the-brink Find us elsewhere: http://spek.work/ https://www.instagram.com/spekwork/ http://twitter.com/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

A special episode with activist, playwright, gig-worker and union organizer Thomas McKechnie. Thomas talks about the under-reported case before the Ontario Labour Relations Board between Foodora and its employees. He also takes us through strategies for organizing app-mediated gig-workers and his motivation for writing Remembering the Winnipeg General. Caveat emptor: Because Ben’s computer is ancient and it’s battery dies unpredictably, because his art practice does not afford him the ability to keep himself in working gear, our recording died midway through the session. Happily Jon took a back-up recording, which if you squint your ears ably captures Thomas and Ben’s rich contributions to the middle part of the exchange. Nota bene: Ben is available to offer his professional recording, engineering, and sound design skills to paying customers. Hit him in his DMs. Details on Rally for Worker Rights in the Gig Economy: https://www.facebook.com/events/175351570515807/ More on Thomas: https://www.cbc.ca/arts/this-playwright-is-trying-to-unionize-foodora-while-writing-about-one-of-canada-s-biggest-strikes-1.5164055?fbclid=IwAR35ndnNz7wXYSKSiroIdhD5IHjguVFBrhVg3uz-rr2OBwQ2qm3fYC1lbss Find Thomas: Twitter: @postbrechtian Zeitpunktheatre: https://www.facebook.com/zietpunktheatre1/ The Foodsters: Twitter: @FoodstersUnited IG:@ unitedfoodsters Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JusticeForFoodoraCouriers/ Find us elsewhere: http://spek.work/ https://www.instagram.com/spekwork/ http://twitter.com/spekwork

And we’re back. Cat takes us on an art history tour of late-medieval Paris vis-a-vis Ubisoft’s virtual Notre Dame Cathedral, constructed for Assassin’s Creed Unity. Etienne Boileau’s “Le Livre des Metiers,” written in 1268 outlines regulations and penalties overseen by the various trade guilds (French): http://virtuater.free.fr/Le%20livre%20des%20metiers%20d%20Etienne%20Boileau.pdf Giorgio Vasari, who first used the term “Gothic” to make fun of what had until then been referred to as “French Work” in his 1550 book “Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.” http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25326 Vitruvius wrote even more than Cat thought, with his “Ten Books on Architecture” available here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20239/20239-h/20239-h.htm Find us elsewhere: http://spek.work/ https://www.instagram.com/spekwork/ http://twitter.com/spekwork twitch.tv/SpekWork

“Every new technology necessitates a new war.” — Marshall McLuhan We have SPC. Cale Weir back for a AAA Let’s Play of Counter Strike. The gang talks about passé discourse, the myth and intoxication of war, while Ben and Cale get a little drunk and Jon and Cat eat dinner. War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges: https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/29/books/wars-are-made-not-born.html Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FRW5jw19y0 War Play: Video Games and the Future of Armed Conflict by Corey Mead: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/playing-war-how-the-military-uses-video-games/280486/ Radical Critique of ‘Papers, Please!’ by Marijam Didžgalvytė: https://medium.com/@marijamdid/radical-critique-of-papers-please-d1e24e57b8d5 War and Peace in the Global Village by Marshall McLuhan & Quentin Fiore: https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/2854056 Find SPC. Cale on his newly minted twitch channel here: twitch.tv/taxxxhaven Or his excellent music here: https://taxhaven.bandcamp.com/ 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