01-Dec-2022 DoriO Published in
Digital Narrations: Fails and Errors 10.37198/APRIA.04.05.a3

Earthbnb, from Platform to Planet

How the Interface Transforms Private and Public Space

critical poetics / gentrification / inhuman modernity / neoliberal digitalisation / platform capitalism takeover

Abstract: This short (5.43 min) online video and accompanying research materials (an online collaborative board) situate DoriO’s research into the platform-capitalism apparatus of Airbnb. Through a digital collage of screen captures and 3D photogrammetry, the work experiments with the aesthetics of Airbnb, inserting text-based interventions and spoken word into the interface that foreground the ‘fails n errors’ that the online marketplace propagates. Within this context, concerns about infrastructure are brought to the fore and questions populate the search bars of the website. DoriO began working on ‘Earthbnb’ during the Covid-19 pandemic. Confined during lockdown, the group each scanned their rooms using a 3D application and joined these together to form an online home of sorts. The film and accompanying materials share the process of conducting collaborative practice-based research during the pandemic.

Keywords: Platform capitalism takeover, gentrification, neoliberal digitalisation, critical poetics, inhuman modernity

Click on the image to play the video

Click on the image to go to the research board

DoriO

DoriO is an artistic research collective that thinks and acts through the internet. Their practice is situated at the intersection of critical posthumanism theory and new materialism. They combine theoretical, curatorial and artistic practices across a range of modes from digital and performative presentations to zines, papers and research interventions. They are situated across Germany, Canada, England, Sweden and Poland. DoriO formed in 2015 as The Posthuman and Art Research Group and have presented at the 7th Annual Conference in New Materialism (Warsaw) and Open Fields International Conference (Riga).

Bibliography

Suggested reading list:

  • Bosma, Jelke R., and Niels van Doorn, ‘The Gentrification of Airbnb: Closing Rent Gaps Through the Professionalization of Hosting.’ Space and Culture. May (2022). https://doi.org/10.1177/12063312221090606.
  • Easterling, Keller, Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure. London: Verso, 2016. 
  • Gravari-Barbas, Maria, and Sandra Guinand (eds), Tourism and Gentrification in Contemporary Metropolises. London: Routledge, 2017.
  • Hoffman, Lily M., and Barbara Schmitter Heisler, Airbnb, Short-Term Rentals and the Future of Housing. London: Routledge, 2020.
  • Lindner, Christoph, and Gerard Sandoval (eds), Aesthetics of Gentrification: Seductive Spaces and Exclusive Communities in the Neoliberal City. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021.