The conference starts with the key processes and conceptions which frame the notion of work today: automatisation, globalisation, digitalisation, capitalism and democracy.

The Dopolavoro conference programme is a four-day gathering which brings together scientists, entrepreneurs, artists, writers and philosophers who from their perspectives speak about the influence of technological change on work. With a series of lectures and panel discussions, the conference starts with the key processes and conceptions which frame today’s understanding of work: automatisation, globalisation, digitalisation, capitalism and democracy. These processes and conceptions significantly influence the understanding of work and they shape the political, economic, social, ecological, educational and cultural landscape in which we live.

Today we observe work through a paradigm of intangible work, which means that we are concentrated on the image of a man who sits in front of a computer. This work is primarily intellectual – we think, imagine, write, draw, create – and its implementation is left to programmed machines. The Dopolavoro conference attempts to enter into the world that is happening between our working chair, in which we create mental images, and the arrival of a physical product which we probably order from the same armchair. Although contemporary society is formed according to the images of work at a computer, constantly permeating into our world is manual, physical work which today is required to adapt to the contemporary world so that it incorporates emotions, identity and communication. Our image of work differs from real work, and this difference filled by the ideology that with its symbols, heroes and rituals builds social relationships according to the needs of contemporary capitalism.

The conference is a part of a global process of a debate about the status of work today and the methods in which it should be improved. Since the status of work and democracy are inseparable subjects, the conference is of distinct importance for Croatia and Europe: with the empowerment of workers, the citizens are empowered, because we are all workers, whilst “those others” are just others.