Labor&Materials

Exploring the evolution of industry in the 21st century, Labor&Materials presents a precarious balance between promise and power.

The scale, scope, and speed of technological innovation heralds unprecedented changes in what, how, where, and by whom goods and services are produced and provided. Economists describe the explosion of radically new platforms and products emerging in the digital age—robots and other forms of automated labor, self-driving cars, three-dimensional printing, the explosion of bits and pixels transmitted across the internet, and the growing global network of trade driven by the shipping container—as an inflection point: a time in human history when how we live and work is utterly transformed.

What does an inflection point look like? How will the transformation of commerce and consumption affect access to goods and jobs, to information and infrastructure?