Labour in the Greenhouse: Reaping the Fruits of Automation

02/27/25 • 40 min

Greenhouses are sites of encounter between humans, plants, and machines, as well as socio-economic and geopolitical regimes. Within them, intricate stories of our day-to-day food production are weaved out of both visible and invisible threads. In this episode, we talk to artists Špela Petrič and Penelope Cain, and doctoral researcher Carolien Lubberhuizen about the intricacies these spaces hold.

Resources:

Seasonal Matters Rural Relations — Seasonal Neighbours
Ways of Being by James Bridle
Living Labour (documentary) by Renzo Sgolacchia
Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States by Seth Holmes
Awkward Intimacies by Agnieszka Anna Wołodźko & Špela Petrič

Host & Producer: Ana-Maria Carabelea
Editing: Ana-Maria Carabelea
Music: Karl Julian Schmidinger
The Digital Deal Podcast is part of European Digital Deal, a project co-funded by Creative Europe and the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport. Views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the host and guests only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) can be held responsible for them.

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Computation, Improvisation, Narration

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The stories we tell about, with, or for technologies matter. Can we demystify misnomers such as artificial intelligence through storytelling, role-playing, and improvisation? In this episode, we talk to dmstfctn (Francesco Tacchini and Oliver Smith) and Lawrence Lek about how they build narratives around complex computational systems.
Resources:
The Tricks of the Trade by Dario Fo
Dadda by Brood Ma
Role-play with large language models by M. Shanahan, K. McDonell & L. Reynolds

Next Episode

Virtually Real: Writing Transmedia Spaces

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In this episode we talk to Lara Lesmes + Fredrik Hellberg of Space Popular, Pierre Christophe Gam, and Brooklyn J. Pakathi about spaces - private, public, real, virtual, but most importantly transmedia spaces that confuse these definitions and open us to different ways of inhabiting spaces, interacting with one another, performing rituals, or building communities.

Resources:

The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis by Amitav Ghosh
Dismantling the Master's Clock: On Race, Space and Time by Rasheedah Phillips
The TESCREAL Bundle: Eugenics and the Promise of Utopia through Artificial General Intelligence by Timnit Gebru and Émile P. Torres

The Digital Deal Podcast - Labour in the Greenhouse: Reaping the Fruits of Automation

Transcript

Ana-Maria Carabelea: Welcome to The Digital Deal Podcast, the series where we talk about how new technologies reshape our democracies and how artists and critical thinkers can help us make sense of these changes. My name is Ana Carabelea, and today I am joined by artists Špela Petrič and Penelope Cain, and doctoral researcher Carolien Lubberhuizen.
Špela is a Slovenian new media artist with a background in natural sciences. Her artistic practice combines bio-media prac