Matthias Kispert is an artist, researcher and educator with an interest in the intersections of art, politics and activism. His practice-based PhD uses artistic research methods to investigate precarious forms of work distributed through digital platforms, also known as the ‘gig economy’. This research explores possible articulations of critique, intervention, resistance and solidarity in regards to labour relations that are atomised and governed by algorithms. The practice that emerges from this takes multiple forms, encompassing media such as video, sound, photography, delegated performance, sweat, work with labour rights activists and the repurposing of digital labour platforms as media with which to create artworks that propose critiques of the same platforms.
Besides his PhD research, he has been working for a number of years as a sound artist and electronic music composer, is a founding editor of Hyphen Journal, an open-access journal for research-practice, is coordinating the Committee on Activism for the International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy (IIPPE), and teaches at the University of the Arts London and the University of Westminster.