Computational Gallerte
Compressions of culture
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24020844 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Daniel De Zeeuw (0000-0002-2116-9054, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-08-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Journal of Cultural Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1367-5494 • E-ISSN: 1460-3551 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/13675494261468651 |
| OpenAlex | W7172094117 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 8 |
In Capital , Marx describes ‘abstract human labor’ as a jelly-like, amorphous substance: Gallerte , often translated as ‘gelatinous blob’. Turning from questions of consumption (or outputs) in debates on ‘AI slop’ to the ‘sloppy’ side of AI production (or inputs), this essay draws a speculative line from Marx’s account of labor as Gallerte to how current AI models similarly metabolize the linguistic and cultural labor of the post-industrial worker, creating a new form of computational Gallerte . Charting the entangled, extractivist histories of both labor, gelatine production, and AI models helps rematerialize and reconnect the latter to the violent histories of (in)human and non-human labor under capitalism.
Assembly line · Capital (architecture) · Consumption (sociology) · Human capital · Line (geometry) · Production (economics) · Production line · Cybernetics and Technology in Society · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Digital Education and Society
| Highly cited | No |
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