Further notes on “The Soul At Work” by Bifo
In this chapter Bifo forms a great analysis of the affects of cognitive labour on our bodies, psyches and social relationships. Bifo loosely determines cognitive labour as paid employment and freelancing “creative” work that involves the processing and communicating of information. It seems that our general behaviours on digital media for communication and entertainment cause similar affects. The distinction between “pleasure” activities and “labour” activities is put into question.
Bifo describes how the competitive nature of cognitive labour isolates us from each other. We see other workers as competition and therefore we lose solidarity. Bifo claimes that due to automation of manual labour, it has become possible to reduce the entire production process to exchange of information. Virtual information is expanded towards infinity driven by the profit motives of the economic machine. Survival and competition becomes a semiotic production of symbols no longer based on sufficiency but infinitely expanding due to the infinite capacity of virtual information and the profit incentives of this production.
Bifo descibes the destructive nature of cognitive labour: “An infinite velocity of exposure to signs percieved as vital to the survival of the organism produces a perceptive, cognitive and psychic stress culminating in dangerous acceleration of all vital functions, such as breathing and heart beat, leading to collapse.”
Since cognitive workers are dependent on this labour for their own survival (duh :P) (or hm?), the signs they are exposed to are deemed crucial to this survival. What happens when the signs are changing too quickly to be able to comprehend their meaning, while chasing after them in belief of our dependence on them?
(What is our emotional dependence on social mass media?)
Bifo points out this is not an isolated individual experience. It is the formation of a collective panic, but it seems to create a feedback loop of self isolation. As we collectively panic our ability to care and support each other is weaker than the tendency to isolate and reach for the semi present connection we can recieve online.
Collective panic can lead to aggression and hate in small local bursts or in large, even national or international formations such as border policies, financial crashes and geopolitical conflicts. Bifo imagines this is not a problem that can be dealt with political persuasion or punishment by law, since it is not a political problem but cognitive stress based on the “infosphere’s excess.”
A question emerges: How can we manage and heal cognitive stress in an ever changing environment, when our own survival seems to depend on engaging with the “infosphere’s excess” to find work and make sense of what is going on?
Bifo proposes that a priviledged “virtual class” can isolate themselves from the physical destruction through virtual spaces. “The removal of corporeality is a guarantee of endless happiness, but naturally a frigid and false one, because it ignores, or rather removes, corporeality: not only that of others, but even one’s own, negating mental labour, sexuality and mental mortality.” By spending time in virtual spaces such as social media we can remove ourselves from the physicality of the pain of other bodies and also our own. Bifo proposes we need to analyse the virtual class in corporeal, historical and social terms to rematerialise virtual lifestyles.
I would like to hypothesize a manifesto of action to be derived from Bifo’s critique. We can aim to reduce our time in digital space, which has the capacity to produce an excess of information towards infinity and therefore leads to cognitive stress. We can aim to reduce our time in specific online platforms that use manipulative algorithms to entangle our attention and emotions into more cognitive labour. While the medium of a virtual space is problematic, certain platforms can be more stressful than others in the way our survival and social ranking is semiotized through likes, followers and instant messaging. These platforms encourage a competitive nature and lead to as much isolation as their proposed connective capactities. We can integrate embodiement practices into our lifestyles to reduce cognitive stress. If a person does not feel safe to engage with their body there are forms of therapy available to help heal towards embodiment. Of course humans have been practicing “embodiment” in different ways since recorded histories and the term is overly simplified. If we look within but particularly beyond western medical sciences we can find incredible resources for healing cognitive stress.
Another way we could collectively deal with cognitive stress could be to increase our disembodiement. Imagine transhumanist biotechnologies that reduce the tension between the human and the machine, junk media that destimulates our imagination and desire, and hyperstimulating experiences that work as a vaccine for cognitive overload. I imagine these already exist in many forms, whether it is hardcore club experiences as vaccination, netflix as sedation or developments in immersive reality technologies that reduce our sensorial seperation between the real and the virtual. I think that these behaviours can be seen coping mechanisms for our current worlds. They can help each of us in different ways, but we may have confused these states of “frigid happiness” as something to strive for rather than a temporary release from suffering.
Not everyone has access to frigid happiness. Neither has all manual labour been automated. Bifo has made a sturdy critique by fixating on a certain part of the labour force, but what does it mean about other humans who are outside of the “virtual class”? I am confused by his projections of a collective psychosocial collapse from cognitive labour when many human bodies are still carrying out manual labour all around the world, without which the virtual class could not survive. Why is Bifo fixating on this class of humans when they represent a small minority? He writes “I’ll focus on the most innovative and specific forms (of labour), since they represent the trend that is transforming the whole of production.” I guess Bifo discusses what he can relate to, which reveals the limitations of his point of view and future predictions.
I am also carrying out my research on cognitive labour as a form of cognitive labour, disembodied from the mass of infastructure and other bodies that makes it possible for me to type, read, compose on my DAW, eat food and generally survive day to day.
