Ramona Sprenger

A journalistic research on Google and Google's role in Switzerland in collaboration with the online news magazine Republik and the research collective WAV.

Zurich is now Google's second-largest location - but what exactly does the tech giant do here?

While the EU imposed a record fine of 4.1 billion euros on the company in September 2022 for violations of antitrust law, there is hardly any criticism of Google in the second most important location country.

The series of articles "Do not feed the Google" on Republik.ch is a joint journalistic research by the think & do tank Dezentrum, the online magazine Republik and the research collective WAV about Google and Google's role in Switzerland.

In six parts, Republik reporter Daniel Ryser and Dezentrum, with the help of experts from the USA, Holland, Germany and Canada, reveal what Google really is - apart from a search engine with a friendly, colourful logo, offices with slides and an old promise never to be evil.

In three further parts, WAV and Republik reporter Adrienne Fichter trace how the love affair between Switzerland and Google came about. How Google came to Switzerland, how the company lobbies here and how politicians welcomed the corporation with open arms.

Google Gala at Neumarkt Theatre

In February 2023 the Great Google Gala took place at the Neumarkt Theatre. Sascha Ö. Soydan read passages from the Republic series "Do not feed the Google". Andy Müller-Maguhn reported on how we can liberate the internet and Jacqueline Badran spoke about Google as a curse that is settling over the city of Zurich.

Three speculative artefacts show possible future scenarios for a digital democracy in the year 2050.

Digitalisation is changing our lives. How does this affect our democracy? How digital should the democracy of the future be?

In order to proactively work towards a desirable future, we need a shared vision of it as a society. Speculating about desirable futures is therefore an important part of participation and thus part of democracy. This is precisely where our study comes in. What kind of (digital) future do we actually want? The result is three future scenarios for a (digital) democracy in 2050, each told through a short story and a speculative artefact.

The artefacts were made in context of the study "Scenarios on Democracy and Digitisation in Switzerland: A Participatory Future Experiment". The study is part of the TA-SWISS project Digitisation and Democracy, which includes two other sub-studies, namely by gfs.bern and the Dachverband Schweizer Jugendparlamente. The artefacts were created in collaboration with Studio Porto and photographed by Tobias Siebrecht.

"Three art objects are intended to open up the horizon of possibilities of the digital future. [...] The question of whether democracy needs 'electronic frippery' at all does not help. The democracy of the future will be more digital - it is difficult to imagine anything else. This makes it all the more important to face up to the normative questions."

– Florian Wüstholz, WOZ Wochenzeitung

Every time I wake up my MacBook, it takes a picture of me. An ongoing meditation about intimacy, surveillance, vanity, and self-portrayal.

An installation about the obsession with quantifying our world. Images of nature collide with data from the current surrounding world.

The walls are projected with recordings of natural spectacles. At the same time, five sensors measure spatial activities: Movement, volume, time, temperature and humidity. The resulting measurements distort the projected scenarios.

Digital recordings of nature collide with data from the current environment. The breaking, destruction and renewed growth, as happens with a rhizome, are movements that arise from this collision. In the projected space, the viewer is surrounded several times (multiplied) by the video. The projections overlap, delimit each other and move towards or against each other. Edges dissolve, new perspectives can emerge.

This is commented on by randomly played excerpts from the work "A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia" by French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. The quotes stand alone or form new nodules and interweavings together with the video. There is nothing to understand, but many things that can be points of connection.

An interactive installation that deals with the meaning, perception and relevance of physical and digital spaces.

The interactive installation coexistence deals with the meaning, perception and relevance of physical and digital spaces whose definition and accessibility have drastically changed with the internet. In the Immersive Lab, the two artists create and simulate different spaces and give visitors the opportunity to create new contexts through their overlapping and juxtaposition.

Speculative artifacts on the notion of work and working culture.

We live in a world that is designed to work, it’s at the very core of our society. But what relationship do you have with work?

My goal was to collect qualitative results by using an experimental research approach. I communicated with over 60 people via WhatsApp over the course of three weeks. Using WhatsApp as a research tool enabled me to make use of a way of communication the participants were already familiar with and thereby talk to them on a personal level. While they were working I sent them questions like "What does this work mean to you?", "How much of personality goes into what you are doing now?" and "What would stop you from working?". They could answer in whatever way they wanted - be it via text, video, photo, voice message or even with emojis.

I translated recurring narratives of the field research into speculative objects. The video displays me using these objects

Mentored by Joëlle Bitton and Luke Franzke.

The multimedia installation raises questions on the future of work and the role that humans are going to play in an automated society. What will happen to us, if everybody has more time at free disposal?

Is there going to be a lost generation because the governments of the world fail to react adequately to a new, inhuman workforce? Which problems stay the same (human relationships?) and which will arise (envy of robots?) due to technical developments?

A survey from 2013 revealed that the least likely job to be overtaken by a machine is the position of recreational therapists: The installation therefore is going to present itself as a center for activity-based interventions with an emphasis on the individual’s well-being. A therapy about what to do with your soon to be available new free time. Addressing the needs of individuals will never go out of style.

After entering the hypothetical center of the future, people had to undergo a questionnaire, which would diagnose them with a problem that was based on our research and for which they then had to get a treatment we designed.

They were being placed in the waiting area in the middle of the center. Blue waves of light and whale songs created a soothing, hypnotic atmosphere. LED signs displayed quotes orbiting around the role societies and humankind in general would obtain once we were liberated from labour.

"Seldom has any society offered so wide a range of acceptable and readily available leisure time activities."
– Alvin Töffler

"He is happy who lives in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life."
– Aristotle

"This is the advent of automation, which in a few decades probably will empty the factories and liberate mankind from its oldest and most natural burden, the burden of laboring and the bondage to necessity."
– Hannah Arendt

"You are suffering from a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time – in this case, the work environment. To alleviate your distress, you may choose between an experience in the manufacture industry (design or food) and the office environment. Please advise your therapist the workplace you would like to immerse in. Once your session is over, please raise your hand and remain seated."

Treatment: Be immersed back into an old workplace via VR-headset.

"Envy occurs when one lacks another person’s superior qualities. Regarding the working environment, these superiors are robots and Artificial Intelligence. This audiovisual treatment will relieve your envy by demonstrating what makes humankind inherently different than robots and thus our lives profoundly more enjoyable. Once your session is over, please raise your hand and remain seated."

Treatment: Watch footage of facial expressions from humans during masturbation.

"The feeling of insignificance caused by lack of self-realization through work can be anxious. Our lifestyle guide will advise you on various matters, by which you will hopefully quickly gain recognition and increase your prestige."

Treatment: Leisure time activity coaching.

"The lack of purpose and evidently the feeling of fatigue are a contemporary observation in our post-work-society. This therapy will evoke the sense of occupation and stimulate your determination. Please sort and connect the elements by colour. Our therapist will notify you once the session is over. Until then, please remain seated."

Treatment: Sort LEGO bricks.

"According to our diagnosis you are showing signs of lethargy. Our therapist will have a brief session with you, with the intent to raise your spirits and evoke excitement and animation. Because mental health is just as important as physical health."

Treatment: Therapist reading motivational sentences in a very empathic way.

"The sensation of solitude and seclusion is evoked through the loss of daily conversations and social encounters, often those once enjoyed during the workplace. You will have a bilateral session with our therapist. Please lay down. Your therapist will advise you once your treatment is over."

Treatment: Keep eye contact with a therapist for five minutes.

"You have been diagnosed with the feeling of numbness, caused through the lack of pressure to provide for yourself. To stimulate the emotions of liveliness and adrenalin, your treatment will be the knife procedure. Please place your hand on the underlay and begin. Our therapist will advise you when your session is over. Until then, please remain seated."

Treatment: Knife procedure.

The aim of our project was to catch a glimpse of the possibilities that arise with new technologies. Talking about the future is always a very ambivalent undertaking, since many factors come into play. We still pressure the importance of doing so despite the uncertainty. We are convinced that automation will increasingly play a bigger part in our lives and embracing the challenges and opportunities now is the only way to gain a deeper understanding of the matter and coexist rather than struggle with evolving technology. Ultimately, and also an essential drive for approaching this subject, we are in a very privileged and unique position by living in this rapidly changing era, being able to ponder about topics which will profoundly change cohabitation and existing (economical, institutional and social) structures as we know them.

An interactive poem generator that discusses the relationship between artist and artwork.

Does art always need an artist? Can the artist be non-human? Who gives something meaning? The viewer or the creator? Is it possible to translate one artform into another?

You can pluck the guitar strings and get a unique, live generated poem. Each string triggers a certain sentence-structure which is filled with soft to harsh words, depending on how strong you plug it.

An installation about the struggles and the beauty of communication.

Blue light lets the questions on the poster become invisible. They can be uncovered when shined on by the light of a mobile phone and serve as conversation starters.

Is my body a shelter? Has communication emancipated from the content? Where does my opinion come from? Does the world only exist in my head? Can I be truly rational? Do I always have to be honest? Is communication through its impossibility always trivial? Am I special? Do I have something to say? How heavy is the sky?

Discussing communication through communication. The project is loosly based on Paul Watzlawick’s communication model.