My Critique of Immaterial Labours Market

"This is the most immediate sociological and anthropological implication of the passage of economic paradigms. Information, communication, knowledge and affect come to play a foundational role in the production process." (M. Hardt 2003 )

From the reading I assume that the market place I will be walking into will focus more on the exchange of feelings, memories or thoughts for some form of reward in return be it information or knowlege.

Overall at the entrance of the immaterial labours market we were welcomed by caution tape and construction site equipment. This gave the impression the we would be working for a reward and providing the ‘labour’ in a form of time banking. However overall the system of exchange was information or feelings  such as stress, secrets or a personal memories, in exchange for a gift. This worked well however not all groups had the same system of exchange, e.g. one group had a quilt which was given to someone else and it did not feel like exchange but time banking for someone else benefit. As Hardt states most services are based on the exchange of ideas and information which benefits both parties involved. Therefore, I feel like the quilt group followed the theme of immaterial labours the best as participants passed on their creative ideas by designing a panel. Participants were given a reward in the form of  hot beverage but the end product would be given to a children's hospital thus continuing the transfer of ideas.

Overall there was a variety of different offerings, however a few market stalls did not actively  participants in and few explained how they had interpreted the brief.  One of the strongest stalls in my opinion was in the dark room as participants we worked for our own reward, You had to spin the wheel and provide lighting thus giving your own energy, time and belongings to produce our own reward - the film as seen in the image below.

The final offering which I believe expressed immaterial labours in a unique was was the secrets group, participants would remove the burden of keeping a secret and the reward was a feeling of acceptance as all secrets could be viewed anonomously. 

The overall flow of the market worked very well as we did not wait in a queue and could go to whatever stall we wanted whenever we wanted.