Author: Simon Schaupp
From the Führer to the sex toy. Humour and solidarity under the cybernetic regime.
This presentation examines the subversive qualities of rebellious humour in digitalized industrial organizations. It is based on an empirical case study of digitalized industry in Germany, consisting of an ethnography and a series of semi-structured interviews and group discussions. The first section outlines the concept of the cybernetic regime of production, which emerges in the current digital transformation of industries. At its centre is the vision of the self-organization of production based on ubiquitous digital feedback loops. The second section identifies rebellious humour in general and the ridiculing of technology in particular as an important strategy of workplace resistance against the cybernetic regime. Rebellious humour deflects interpellations of self-optimization and fosters resistant solidarity among the workers as opposed to management. Together with other forms of workplace resistance, rebellious humour has the capacity to influence the implementation of the cybernetic regime of production.