Sharing has been engrained in social and cultural practices around the globe and mostly regarded in relation to its positive contribution and social benefits. The emergence of new technological alternatives of the phenomenon have taken a different form. Finding their roots in distributed computing and the early tech industry of the 90s, sharing economies today were conceived as systems for harnessing distributed value. Yochai Benkler was the first one to draw a direct parallel between NASA’s supercomputer SETI@Home and the material culture of sharing in post-war America. A decade later the by-product of these developments has driven us to share our bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens and storage.
Sharing today might not have anything to do with its pre-digital social practices, however, it has enabled a closer reading of a new domestic condition. Could this possibly inform a new subjectivity as a result of the growing pressures of scarcity and unaffordability of housing in metropoles around the world? The piece is to explore the threshold between political action and everyday routines and how this has been formalized in space.
Sharing today might not have anything to do with its pre-digital social practices, however, it has enabled a closer reading of a new domestic condition. Could this possibly inform a new subjectivity as a result of the growing pressures of scarcity and unaffordability of housing in metropoles around the world? The piece is to explore the threshold between political action and everyday routines and how this has been formalized in space.