Manuel Beltrán

Presentation

Founder of the Data Workers Union addresses data exploitation and colonialism, through data cooperativism, tax, income and infrastructure.

Biography

Manuel Beltrán (ES) is an artist, activist, and researcher, whose work focuses on contemporary art, independent and cyber activism, social movements and post-digital culture. 

As an activist, Manuel was involved in the Indignados (The Indignant Ones) youth economic movement in Spain (2011) and the Gezi Park protests (2013) in Turkey, which resulted in national protest against president Erdoğan policies and approach. 

Between 2012-2013, Manuel founded the collective Plastic Crowds and the Alternative Learning Tank. In 2016, he established the Institute of Human Obsolescence, which focuses on the future of labour and the socio-political implications regarding society’s relationship with technology. From this the Data Workers Union emerged as an international organisation that seeks to pursue the data labor rights of citizens. As the first union of its kind, the Data Workers Union demands an end to the limitless exploitation of our data through individual and collective ownership, data cooperativism and data tax.

Links: @Beltrandroid

Date of publication

Thu 28 Nov 2019