Speeding up, slowing down, losing grip: On digital media metronomes and timespace friction in the platformised temporalities of fashion design

Abstract

The body of literature addressing platform capitalism, platform labour and platform urbanism paints a compelling picture of how digital platforms shape the dynamics of both leisure and labour within the framework of the platform’s model for extracting value. However, this literature rarely captures how the global timespaces of digital platforms are translated in platform-mediated fields of work and which frictions occur in this process. Therefore, the contrasts between the rhythms of the platform prompting users towards instantaneous data production and the production capabilities of the humans, whose daily (work) life has become dependent on such platforms, remain largely unexplored. In this article, I develop the lens of timespace friction, by integrating the existing research on platform labour with a timespace perspective. The aim is to present a framework that reveals the contrasting relationship between the conflating rhythms of platform capitalism and platform-mediated labour. The mechanisms are explored utilising an ethnographic case study of the digital labour of independent fashion designers on Instagram. The proposed perspective on timespace friction demonstrates that mobile apps function as metronomes, nudging the timespaces of daily (work) life. Timespaces are thus negotiated in the polyrhythmic encounters of daily life, where designers challenge the rhythms of the platform or accelerate their practices to follow the imposed pace. A timespace friction perspective therefore sees beyond the smooth operating mechanisms of the platform economy that promise real-time data, flexibility and efficiency, revealing the hidden struggles of synchronisation (speeding up), de-synchronisation (slowing down) and losing grip (going viral).