Data Derives: Confronting Digital Geographic Information as Spectacle

Algorithmic Surveillance in the Gig Economy: The Organization of Work through Lefebvrian Conceived Space

“…Briziarelli (2018) details how Deliveroo workers ‘would log in then, when being assigned delivery orders, would refuse to deliver them, thus breaching the circuit of production between the abstract digital realm and the lived space where a given order translates into a physical delivery’ (p. 830). Further, by organising a street protest in the form of a leisurely group bike ride ( biciclettata ), workers created a ‘space for radical contestation’ (Thatcher & Dalton, 2017, p. 143). The conscious refusal to perform deliveries, instead cruising around common delivery routes, highlighted the gap between the individually experienced practice of riding within the city and the ‘abstract representation of space as provided by Deliveroo’s logistic imperatives’ (Briziarelli, 2018, p. 831).…”

Introduction to spectacle and the screen

“…[11] To the same extent, spectacle has retrospectively revitalized vintage theatrical genres, such as burlesque and vaudeville, as much as it has actualized, intensified and staged all possible sorts of situation, taboo and/or fantasy as those being displayed by the flourishing pornographic business. Hand in hand with the spectacularization of science and technology, including the landing of a human on the moon, cloning techniques (biotechnology), big data (predictive and userbehavior analytics) [12] and, last but not least, new revelations of black holes (astrophysics), spectacle is colonizing our existence to such a degree that all aspects of the quotidian, from the most banal and ordinary daily events (feeding a dog, painting a wall), up to a whole parallel universe of microbiology, nano-biology and quantum physics can be said to be shaped and mediated by it, for example, on mobile apps such as TikTok. [13] Of course, spectacles have been traversing history in both the western and eastern hemispheres.…”

Did You Find the World or Did You Make it Up? Media, Communications and Geography in the Digital Age

“…While the additional layers of data that are included in such digital maps as those produced by Google are seen as good for the user, Duggan refers to these tools as 'more than representational'. Here Duggan seeks to go beyond the works of Crampton (2001) or Gerlach (2018 to make explicit the linkages between the representational properties of the map and its performative effects, both in terms of returning to the map, but also in changing navigational practice through a series of feedback loops via which the lived experience is channelled (Thatcher and Dalton, 2017). Duggan also explores the power of what is collected through these mapping practices, noting that the process of using digital maps is not static, but is also used to further create those digital maps, allowing the mapping agencies to wield yet more power (and commercial wealth) from the data they accumulate from users (See also Thatcher and Dalton, 2017).…”

“…But even in those maps, users themselves are being encouraged to crowdsource data, be that to add to the 'usefulness of the map' or to create counter maps. Data has become the standard way in which the world is ordered (Thatcher and Dalton, 2017), with those that link location and temporal information being seen as fixes for capitalism's tendencies towards over-accumulation (Greene and Joseph, 2015). As the scholars in this issue demonstrate, there is much to be gained from the combining of communications theories and those from the geographic disciplines.…”