Data Materiality Episode 3: Paula Bialski on Slow Software, Labour and Ethnographies of Technology

Vasari Research Centre for Art and Technology

In this episode we speak with Paula Bialski, Associated Professor of Digital Sociology at University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. Paula’s research focuses on the impact of digital media on working cultures, communication and the concept of intimacy. In this podcast we discuss her current book project entitled Slow Software which is based on a two-year ethnographic study examining the operating modes and workplace cultures of software companies in Berlin. Paula’s ethnographic methods bring the human body and concepts like exhaustion or friendship into the mix as sometimes overlooked elements of digital materiality. The interview for this episode was recorded in November 2018. Music from filmmusic.io "Clean Soul" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) About the podcast: Data Materiality is a podcast series about the ways in which digital data depends on physical forms and infrastructures, and comes to matter in practice and imagination. The impetus for this podcast is a three-year research project by the same name – Data Materiality – co-sponsored by Birkbeck’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Media and Culture and the Vasari Centre for Art and Technology. The series is co-hosted by Joel McKim and Scott Rodgers. For more information: www.bbk.ac.uk/vasari To listen or subscribe via Apple Podcasts, visit: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/vasari-research-centre-for-art-and-technology/id1494065021 To listen or subscribe via Spotify, visit: https://open.spotify.com/show/6JnV9RJc4QS50kMDKBBFHm