By engaging with detested and would-be obsolete programming language COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language), this lecture by Linda Hilfling Ritasdatter explores the dark sides of automation through the concept of ‘crisis computing’, in which execution, crisis and maintenance are entangled with one another. COBOL becomes  a case in point for this entanglement: the functionality of digital interfaces and global flows that are maintained and kept from breaking down by workforces in countries such as India who serve as anonymous janitors of the information society. The sites of crisis computing unfold here as a series of ‘lessons’ that include artistic research in and through COBOL and which ultimately demand nothing less than a reconsideration of information architecture design. To understand the asymmetrical labour conditions produced through the “curse of smooth operations”, we need to look not only at the level of user interaction and its back-ends, but also at the back-back-ends of automated systems.

Single tickets

What else is on Friday?

See the Friday timetable to visit the other programmes with your Festival Pass (5-days) or Day Pass (1-day). With the passes you can also visit the festival exhibition The Curse of Smooth Operations at the IMPAKT [Centre for Media Culture] and Steenweg 26.

Friday day pass 5-day festival pass Online festival pass

For more information on the festival tickets please see here