Abstract
Based on an ethnographic study of the production of visual effects, this chapter analyses the role of waiting in digital work. I argue that temporal discrepancies between computational processes, computer operating and human interaction are a constant part of cooperation in digital work. In my analysis, the phenomenon of waiting, hitherto conceived almost exclusively as human (in)activity, is made visible as a sociotechnical practice that is fundamental to the accomplishment of cooperation. The observable forms of waiting—as situated practices—in visual effects production provide information on how cooperation in digital work is established between different participants on a daily basis. Both digital forms of waiting presented in this chapter, waiting in a standby pose as well as waiting in rendering queues, contributed to making design processes accountable for those involved in the production of visual effects.
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Notes
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- 2.
An emphasis on fundamental breaks and discontinuities in social phenomena in the course of digitisation can be seen as characteristic of the early debate on digital media, which was subsequently diversified in terms of regional developments and differences in fields of media use, see for example Coleman (2010).
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Schmidt points out that the boundary of the observable can shift, since this is also dependent on the viewer’s understanding of the technical work processes (2012, p. 169).
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On site I wrote field notes, made sketches and took photographs, audio and some video recordings of everyday work situations and ethnographic conversations. Since intra-active computational processes are more difficult to comprehend through observation, their disturbances offer a welcome starting point for analysis, in which the integration of technology into a larger social network becomes visible (see Rammert, 2016, p. 7). Due to space constraints, the possibilities of different forms of data to record and show temporal incongruences will not be discussed here. The present analysis as well as the data material are part of my study on the organisation of visual effects production, which provides such a classification (see Trischler, 2021). See also Scheller (2020), which presents a ‘tempography’ as a framework for time-oriented ethnography in organisations.
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This representation of the edges or ‘skeletons’ of graphic objects in the animation software is defined by points and lines (including arcs).
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Although aesthetic criteria were important to design evaluation in digital effects production, they will not be discussed further here for reasons of space. They were a constitutive part of different specialised sociotechnical ways of seeing (Trischler, 2021).
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This double-edged approach can be considered typical for Workplace Studies (see Lengersdorf, 2011, p. 48).
- 9.
The conceptualisation of such relations occupies a prominent position in contemporary German social theory (see Hirschauer, 2015; Schindler and Scheffer in this volume).
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Trischler, R. (2023). Bodies/Technology on Standby: The Importance of Cooperative Waiting for Digital Work. In: Gießmann, S., Röhl, T., Trischler, R., Zillinger, M. (eds) Materiality of Cooperation. Medien der Kooperation – Media of Cooperation. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-39468-4_8
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