Presented at
HOPE 2020 Virtual Rescheduled,
July 29, 2020, 3 p.m.
(50 minutes)
Amazon is an American multinational technology company based in Seattle. It focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Amazon is called "one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world" and the world's most valuable brand. For nerds who grew up in the 1980s, it's like a cyberpunk dystopia's wet dream come true. Amazon has moved into health care and insurance. It has dug deeper into AI and automation, and bolstered its in-home delivery services. But that's not enough to understand the brutal capitalist force it represents and the future Jeff Bezos wants to create. This discussion will look at some of the curious aspects of this company, along with what we can learn from its behavior about late capitalism.
Presenters:
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Johannes Grenzfurthner
**Johannes Grenzfurthner** is an artist and a filmmaker, writer, performer, and researcher. _Boing Boing_ referred to him as "leitnerd," a wordplay that ironically hints at his role in nerd, hacker, and art culture. He's the founder and artistic director of monochrom, an art and theory group that acts internationally, and the editor-in-chief of the art/tech/activism magazine _The Free Lunch._ After directing feature length documentaries _Traceroute_ (2016) and _Glossary of Broken Dreams_ (2018), Johannes continues working on feature film projects such as _Masking Threshold_ and _Je Suis Auto._ He's head of the Arse Elektronika sex and tech festival and the Hedonistika food-tech festival, and he's the host of Roboexotica, the festival for cocktail robotics.
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Jasmin Hagendorfer
**Jasmin Hagendorfer** is a Vienna-based contemporary artist, writer, curator, and festival organizer. Her main artistic interest is in installation, sculpture, and performance. As an artist and lecturer, she is concerned with social and political discourses and questions about gender identity. She is one of the founders and creative director of the Porn Film Festival Vienna. Since 2019, she is the creative director of Transition International Queer and Minorities Film Festival.
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