Vincenzo Estremo's 'Teoria del lavoro reputazionale' critiques precarious art labor

Vincenzo Estremo (Caserta, 1980), a moving image theorist and professor at NABA in Milan, has published 'Teoria del lavoro reputazionale' (Milieu Edizioni, 2020). The book examines how cultural work increasingly prioritizes visibility and personal reputation over professionalism, driven by neoliberal capitalism and platformization. Estremo argues that the art sector has systematically anticipated precarization trends, eroding workers' rights while promoting an entrepreneurial ideology. He coins the term 'reputational labor' to describe how reputation becomes a tool for obscuring power, drawing on Machiavelli. The text also calls for a political shift in art writing, away from aesthetic critique toward a synergic theory that addresses contemporary complexity. Estremo advocates for collective action inspired by gig-economy workers, such as Google engineers and Glovo/Just Eat riders, to combat platform capitalism. He critiques the 'artistic stage of capitalism' where art's subversive potential is co-opted by consumer culture. On media, he proposes a 'media ecology' approach to reverse algorithmic logics. The book analyzes artists across time and geographies, and discusses the role of images as 'Immcoin'—a reputational currency serving capital. Estremo emphasizes the need for visual literacy as a political and social necessity to counter inequalities in an image-saturated world.