Remote Control: Algorithmic Management of Circulation at Amazon
Research output: Contributions to collected editions/works › Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Research › peer-review
Standard
Explorations in Digital Cultures. ed. / Marcus Burkhardt; Mary Shnayien; Katja Grashöfer. Lüneburg: meson press, 2021.
Research output: Contributions to collected editions/works › Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Research › peer-review
Harvard
APA
Vancouver
Bibtex
}
RIS
TY - CHAP
T1 - Remote Control
T2 - Algorithmic Management of Circulation at Amazon
AU - Beverungen, Armin
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - This chapter examines how logistical media organize circulation at the online retailer Amazon. The chapter takes a look at the warehouse and the interaction of algorithmic management with architectural infrastructures and infrastructure space. Over the last decades of the 20th century, logistics became the ubiquitous science of managing circulation, with Amazon today considered the epitome of contemporary logistical intelligence. In the warehouse it becomes clear how a mundane and relatively simple tracing infrastructure in interaction with algorithmic management generates a chaotic material order and an opaque, widely networked system whose logics extend far beyond the warehouse. Lastly, I look at the fantasies and future scenarios that drive the development of Amazon’s logistics, which raises the following question: how can the circulation of labour, data and things be decoupled from the circulation of capital and how can its logistical media be reassembled?
AB - This chapter examines how logistical media organize circulation at the online retailer Amazon. The chapter takes a look at the warehouse and the interaction of algorithmic management with architectural infrastructures and infrastructure space. Over the last decades of the 20th century, logistics became the ubiquitous science of managing circulation, with Amazon today considered the epitome of contemporary logistical intelligence. In the warehouse it becomes clear how a mundane and relatively simple tracing infrastructure in interaction with algorithmic management generates a chaotic material order and an opaque, widely networked system whose logics extend far beyond the warehouse. Lastly, I look at the fantasies and future scenarios that drive the development of Amazon’s logistics, which raises the following question: how can the circulation of labour, data and things be decoupled from the circulation of capital and how can its logistical media be reassembled?
KW - Digital media
KW - Sociology
KW - algorithmisches Management
UR - https://explorations.meson.press/chapters/remote-control/
M3 - Contributions to collected editions/anthologies
BT - Explorations in Digital Cultures
A2 - Burkhardt, Marcus
A2 - Shnayien, Mary
A2 - Grashöfer, Katja
PB - meson press
CY - Lüneburg
ER -