Towards an Infrastructure of Humans

Humans can exist without an institution, yet no institution can function without humans. Institutions to a large degree are the people who work in them, but they are also more than just a group of individuals working together. What then does the institutional part of an institution contain? What allows a gathering of people to become more than the sum of all its parts? And in the age of neoliberal self-exploitation, are institutions still operative in the interests of the individuals involved? As is well known, recent decades have transformed the cultural sector. Sociologists Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello identified that the culture industry was one of the models for the neoliberal already in 1999, and with its networked economy it has become a frontrunner in developing precarious labour conditions ever since. The freelance artist has been the norm in the sector from the early-twentieth century onwards, and today freelancing and zero-hour contracts dominate all aspects of employment. Like with all things, there is a positive side: in the cultural sector, freelancing does offer greater flexibility and the chance for art and cultural workers to set their own working limits or pursue international careers by working on a portfolio of projects in many different and exciting locations. The downsides, however, are precarious conditions, lack of workers’ rights and protection, fragmented life and work biographies and a lack of longer-term, mutual commitment to people and places. Many cultural workers are in fact forced into flexibility, destined to try to sell their personalities – not as acts of free will, but as a means to survive…