
The History of Corporations Recruiting Artists to Inspire Their Employees - raleighm
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-untold-history-corporations-recruiting-artists-inspire-employees
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nemild
For more on Facebook's art focus, see their Little Red Book (2012) given to
every employee:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-facebooks-little-
red-b...](http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-facebooks-little-red-
book-2015-5)

At Stanford, Professor Fred Turner has written a critique of Facebook's art
culture (both the Analog Research Laboratory and the Artist in Residence
Program), putting Facebook in the context of art programs that came before.
Excerpt:

"First, the Lab’s posters have linked calls for labor to calls for self-
transformation. In the industrial era, a motto like “STAY FOCUSED AND KEEP
SHIPPING” would represent a straightforward professional exhortation: DO YOUR
JOB. But set in the same type as a poster reading “WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU
WEREN’T AFRAID?” and placed in the same sorts of locations, the corporate
slogan can become an answer to a request for self-discovery."

[http://fredturner.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/Turner-
Art...](http://fredturner.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/Turner-Art-at-
Facebook-Poetics-Preprint.pdf)

~~~
jadedhacker
That second link you posted was excellent. It's a very cutting criticism.

"When the Analog Research Lab posts a picture of Dolores Huerta on the walls
of a company whose engineers have no unions, it demonstrates its own power to
transform the most embodied and institutionalized political movements into
acts of decontextualized expression. On a poster, Dolores Huerta’s image
becomes a sign, emptied of its history, and repurposed. A picture that might
once have inspired marches in the street by impoverished farm workers now
offers wealthy engineers an opportunity to celebrate the variety of identities
their company embraces. In the workplace, that embrace may mean a more diverse
set of em- ployees. Online, it means a larger, more varied set of communities
and social experiences to mine."

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olivermarks
Despite the emphasis on sponsoring the arts, a lot of SV promotional materials
feel uncomfortably close to Soviet era propaganda posters to me

[https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+propaganda+posters&cl...](https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+propaganda+posters&client=opera&hs=agt&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_ntyGv43cAhWFN30KHZ5MDacQsAQIQA&biw=1366&bih=749)

~~~
maxxxxx
I have told my coworkers that walking around in some sections of the office
feels like walking around in Eastern Germany. Pretty much the same posters and
also the obvious disconnect between the messages in the posters and reality.

~~~
ShabbosGoy
I noticed this too. What do you think it means, in the context of the culture
of SV?

~~~
extralego
This is a well-researched and frequently discussed topic in critical theory
circles. What it means is not much up for debate anymore.

It means corporations have more in common with authoritarian regimes than is
obvious. They are systematically cold and all-powerful, and merely acting out
the typical series of behaviors that cold and powerful organizations act out.
By definition, corporations have no social commitment to the society within
which they operate and this seems to be at the heart of the issue.

Be careful to note the difference between authoritarianism and socialism. They
do not favor one another. In fact, they are mostly in opposition if anything.
Socialism concerns social and economic structures and authoritarianism
concerns governmental structures.

You might like a book called _Brave New World_ by Audus Huxley. It’s a
science-fictional narrative that explores the potential of human society to
succumb to these cruel structures.

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pasbesoin
It's been a while since I thought of this.

(More Javascript-y, now, but perhaps still the same registrant.)

[https://despair.com/collections/posters](https://despair.com/collections/posters)

A personal favorite, from a dark time:

[https://despair.com/products/burnout](https://despair.com/products/burnout)

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maxxxxx
Is anyone else tired of the whole "inspiring" stuff? When a company does this
I always think that's just a cheap way to squeeze more out of employees. I'd
much prefer to be "rewarded" or "enabled" or "respected".

~~~
rando444
The things you list are not mutually exclusive.

