On the premise that our working environment is changing, and that innovations in technology, such as rapidly advancing digitalization and developments in robotics and artificial intelligence are exerting enormous influence over our everyday working lives, the exhibition How Will We Work? addresses, in both analytical and speculative ways, future forms and functions of human work. How Will We Work? will be on view between June 21 and September 27 2017 at the University of Applied Arts Vienna Angewandte Innovation Laboratory.

Het Nieuwe Instituut’s contribution focuses on the case of the new container terminal in the port of Rotterdam, where self-driving vehicles, automated cranes and diverse interfaces maximize the handling of containers with unprecedented performance and productivity. This smooth, self-managed logistical infrastructure has spatial implications beyond the confines of the port. In the context of automation's disruption of not only labour markets but the configuration, design and occupation of entire territories, Automated Landscapes seeks to document and reflect upon the emerging architectures and urbanisms of fully-automated labour. The port of Rotterdam is, in this context, a testing ground for unprecedented urban assemblages of humans and machines.