Katherine Behar: Ack, Knowledge, Work

In the exhibition Katherine Behar: Ack! Knowledge! Work! interactive installations, video works, and sculptures address how digital technologies of automation are reforming the future of labor. With Ack! Knowledge! Work! Behar invites us to “acknowledge” crucial labor that automation makes invisible and to question the supposed intelligence of “knowledge work” as artificial intelligence encroaches on traditionally white-collar jobs. Simultaneously, the exhibition gives a nod to the conflicted “Ack!” so many of us feel about work and automation: we understand that automation could lead to unemployment, but even so we wish tedious work could be automated away.