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The past year has seen the rise of a new form of right wing populism. Its ability to ride the wave of popular discontent and exploit the openings afforded by new media compels the left to think seriously about how to communicate its message. To do so it must find new ways to depict the world on its own terms.
Through a sustained attempt to rehabilitate the Worker Photography movement, , an Amsterdam-based art collective, offers some timely lessons for how to respond to the current situation. Founded by artists Rogier Delfos and Marc Roig Blesa, the collective began just as the financial crisis hit in 2008 and has grown to encompass a series of ongoing projects.

The intention of the original Worker Photography movement was both to inject intellectual rigour into amateur photography and combat capitalist hegemony over the image by depicting aspects of life that would otherwise go under-represented. Werker seek to adapt these aims to new media and new developments through a range of workshops, publications and exhibitions.

The differences between then and now are undoubtedly many, but there are also some compelling parallels. Emerging a century ago in Russia and spreading across Europe in subsequent decades, the original movement reached its zenith during the rise of fascism in the 1930s. At this time, the ordinary person was newly capable of accessing tools to produce photography that had hitherto been too costly. Even so, rarely did amateur photographers succeed in challenging the visual representation of the world offered up by the capitalist-owned media. This is arguably the case today too, even though the use of photography has increased exponentially in the past decade.

Writing in 1931, the German communist leader Willi Munzenburg identified the Worker Photographers' particular mission: "Thirty or forty years ago, the bourgeoisie already understood that a photograph has a very special effect on the viewer [...] Just as the workers of the Soviet Union have learnt to make their own machine-tools, to invent things themselves to be put into the service of peaceful socialist construction [...] so the proletarian amateur photographers have to learn to master the camera and to use it correctly in the international class struggle."

This required the same kind of organizational response we need now, encompassing a commitment to educating as many people as possible in the basic principles of photography and image representation. What the Worker Photographers lacked in glossy, expensive images, they made up for with representation of a wide range of experiences of what was actually happening in the world: the drudgery of domestic and reproductive work in the home, conditions in factories, unemployment lines and demonstrations, but also ordinary people sharing moments of collective joy.

Since they started in 2008, Werker has proved to be progressively more pertinent and led to a remarkably diverse array of projects. Specifically, they have taken on board the Worker Photographers' distinctly forward-thinking focus on how to reproduce the conditions for continuing to realize the project's aims, through self-organization, non-authorship and, most importantly, what the original photographers described as 'bilderkritik' (image analysis), whereby amateur Worker Photographers send in their photos to be critiqued, not only formally but also conceptually.

A running theme in Werker's projects is the aim of developing people's critical eye, especially as it concerns their workplace and their housing. As early as Werker 3, they began with a call "for students, artists, domestic workers, housewives and husbands, designers, cleaners, architects, au pairs, researchers, gardeners, theorists, pool-boys, historians, employers, interns, curators and handypeople", asking them to "think politically about [their] domestic space."

Despite departing from the original Worker Photographers' tendency to focus on traditional conceptions of what constitutes work, the aim is ultimately the same: to reveal something about life and work that current mainstream imagery does not represent, to make the invisible visible, and thereby lend it a political resonance that serves as a resistance to dominant representations in the media.

Yet this is only half of their project. It is not only that under-represented aspects of work need to be better represented. Nor is it only that workers must adopt a more rigorous approach to image-making. It is also that those already purporting to possess a rigorous political approach need to be more aware of the specific power of the image. As Werker's founders emphasize, the left has for too long been attached to materialist arguments. Instead, echoing Munzenburg's remarks, they stress that we need to think carefully about how the image works, what effect it has on people and how this effect can be utilized to enhance the sophistication of the left's message.

This is well represented in one of their earliest projects, Werker ABC, in which they juxtapose images of young men at work, assembled from different sources on the internet, with contemporary left wing theory about labour, also derived from the internet. Whereas searches for young male labour often produce quite theoretical textual representations, Werker produce distinctly homoerotic visual representations of the same theme.

Pairing the two underlines how differently we interact with the image and how much the image conveys elements of desire that are often overlooked in the left's message, and often dismissed as trivial. As Roig Blesa has stated, it is in the realm of desire that the left loses, "because capitalists always appropriate desire as a way to articulate visual language. And the left sees desire as something that is misleading."

Werker's most recent iteration, Werker Correspondent, is a worthy culmination of their work so far, fusing these two sides well. The project begins with an initial focus on generating direct information of the urban realities in north African cities, the intention being to generate a mail art network, a platform to encourage the exchange of images in the context of south-to-north and north-to-south relationships across the Mediterranean.

According to the project's description, in contrast to the stereotypical representations of the Arab world in traditional media and official relations on a political and bureaucratic scale, Werker and its collaborating photographers "look for different kinds of images and affections. Proposing empathy and solidarity in contrast with clashing civilizations. Everydayness and internationalism in contrast to the notion of otherness. Autonomy and self-representation in contrast to dominant media." Still in development, the project will evolve independently throughout subscriptions that would allow its continuity, financing the production and shipment of photographs, as well as the photographers' remuneration.

All Werker series are ongoing projects, from Werker ABC to the most recent Worker Correspondent. All are open to new additions. As such, there are many ways for people to participate.

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Werker Collective and the Worker Photographers: Taking Back Control of the Image | Novara Media

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Amsterdam-based collective Werker's attempts to rehabilitate the Worker Photography movement signals the reemerging need for the left to use photography in order to depict the world on its own terms.

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In 1989 I was in charge of arranging for a group of 12 magazine people including myself to go on an editorial trip from Toronto to California. At the end of the list, for myself, I wrote, " Moi". A few days later I got a phone call from Los Angeles asking me, "Doug, everything seems good but who is this ' Moy ' person? And why aren't you on the list, Doug?"

Hi. I'm Moy and I never write about myself. I write novels and I write about my observations and I produce all sorts of artworks, but I never write about my self. I don't actually have a full sense of myself. I have several versions of me which I know I can more or less count on depending on the situation . . . Everyday Doug . . . Serious Doug . . . Party Doug. But is there a single definitive Doug? I'm unsure. I can only ever be one Doug at any given time. That's like most people, I think. It's not polyphrenia - it's called coping.

* * *

What if there were a pill that made you feel more like yourself . . . what would that feel like? Would it be banned?

* * *

In Russia the word for "sure" or "yes" or "OK" or "right" is Da - which, to me, sounds like Doug, pronounced the exact same way you'd say it in Canada or the US. When I spent two weeks in Russia installing an exhibition last autumn, people from every direction were always barking Doug! Doug! Doug! and I was on permanent red alert because once in every 19 Doug!s they were actually asking for me. I couldn't digest food. I lost five pounds. On the other hand, at least they pronounced my name correctly. Usually, in other lands, it's Doog or Dawg or Dooglas (which I kind of love).

* * *

In 1961 Douglas was the 28th ranked name for boys. In 2016 it was 1,408th. Ouch.

* * *

I have few opinions. This is good not bad. I have perceptions, not opinions. I base what I think on what I perceive. This means I'm open to all ideas. You will meet all kinds of people but I'm the one who will actually listen to you. People with strong opinions often freak me out, as it means they're closed to new ideas. Why is it people who have extreme opinions are always the ones who pretend to listen to new opinions and possibly be swayed by what they hear? They're just faking it. They're never going to change and we all know it. Swing voters have open minds. They really will listen to you. I will listen to you.

* * *

It's odd being a human being. You have all the stuff that was thrown at you growing up in a family, and then, around 19, you're supposed to magically transcend it all and become some totally new person completely chosen by yourself and separate from all the crap you grew up with - except, magically, you end up adhering to some version of your upbringing or its radical anti-version, which is a shadow. Truly, why is there such a weird pressure to self invent yourself? It's stupid. Unless you have a specific psychopathology you're basically doomed to become an isotope of your parents. Me? I don't feel like I was really me until I was 32, and every single day since then, in all sorts of situations I feel my parents and siblings holding my personality hostage inside my brain. It never ends.

* * *

I don't have any scary psychopathologies that I know of except for seasonal depression, which is somewhat (and only somewhat) fixable, so I have few excuses for my personality - and I think that's the situation for most people. I do have a few brain anomalies that facilitate what I create. For example, I have an off-kilter sense of time which, over the years, has spun itself out into writing fiction as well as thinking about the future more than most people do. I have a strong sense of space and colour and form (I did go to art school), which, especially since 2000, has taken the form of visual art. And a few times the two tendencies alloyed to create film or TV. But writing is mostly about time, and art is mostly about space, and they're different parts of the brain. You can't argue that.

* * *

I made my public name in 1991 with the novel Generation X. It wasn't as if I set out to make the book become what it became. It was just a book, and it just happened - and I never wanted the attention it gave me. Andy Warhol said you should only get things if you don't want them or if you once wanted them but no longer do. It's good advice. People assume someone would want attention, but no. If there's anything I miss about life pre-1990 it is that back then you could still vanish. Unabomber envy. These days it's strange because we want the right to be forgotten, but we also want to be liked and remembered - online at least.

Interviews were, and are, the strangest part of it. I don't like interviews because I've never understood what it is you would reveal in an interview that you would never reveal anywhere else. And interviewers want to discuss your version of Moy and, if you're unclear about Moy yourself, then it's not as if someone else is going to be clear. Fifteen years ago I filled in for a teacher friend on mat leave - a fourth-year art-school class - and when I asked students what they thought the best part of being famous might be, they ALL replied: being interviewed. Be very very careful what you wish for.

And don't throw stones at the Cloud.

* * *

Most of my life is now spent in the art world. I always face the issue of: Doug's a writer and he's trying to coast on his name to score a quick buck. This is inexact, as the art world is puritanical and that kind of notoriety would only buy me or anyone else maybe three minutes of spotlight and then it'd be over. It's been 17 years now so let's move forward.

I don't feel like I was really me until I was 32, and every single day since then I feel my parents and siblings holding my personality hostage inside my brain

For my first decade of making visual artwork, I worked in a community-free vacuum, which was isolating but also freeing - no, that's not totally correct. I actually spent my first decade of making art feeling like one of those YouTube dogs living in a junkyard covered in blisters and ticks and mange. And then in 2009 I found a group of art friends who shared my art interests and world views. I became the YouTube junkyard dog who is magically rescued, healed and given a real family. Thank you, universe.

* * *

I'm 55. In 100 years I'll be 155. That's funny because I'll obviously be dead. In my head I feel 32. Most people over 30 mentally lock in at 32 for the rest of their lives. It's true. I know it's true because I read it somewhere on the internet.

* * *

I also read many years ago - before the internet in this case, so it must be true - that the most you can change yourself if you do everything you possibly can, is 5 per cent. After 32 I think that number goes down to about 1 per cent. I'm unsure how they measured this, but I do think I'm right.

* * *

I hope there's someday an app that allows you to meet the people in the world who are the most like you in as many possible ways. You could form a clique with 11 other people closely matched to you - a dirty dozen - and, in a sense, if you had a problem or an issue, you could crowdsource yourself with yourself. And I wonder what getting into a fight with myself might feel like, or if the whole dozen of me fell in love with the same person at once - carnage?

* * *

I'm single and this is new as of half-a-year ago. I was unsingle for almost 20 years. Being single is lonely and it's cold and the days drag on for ever, especially around dinner time when, if you didn't plan the day correctly, you're stuck with a Stouffer's fried chicken breast cooked for three minutes and 10 seconds with the microwave set on high.

The texture of being single now and being single 20 years ago is different. Twenty years ago you'd meet people out in the world in real situations and you felt that maybe you were a character in a story called "Your Life". Now being single is a free app you scroll through and, suddenly, your matchmaking choices are narrowed down to "uncutdaddy77", who's 860 metres away, or perhaps "Totally Oral", who's a mere 450 metres away. I'm guessing there are no bouquets of flowers or dinners involved there. I grew up instilled with the idea that one's life is a story and we travel through our world as though, yes, being inside a romantic narrative. Now I'm feeling like we're all each of us a one-person unit alongside 7.4 billion people units.

* * *

I read that the most you can change yourself if you do everything you possibly can, is 5 per cent. After 32, I think that number goes down to about 1 per cent

The past half year has been a series of nothing but crises for me, one after the other, and that's life, so I'm not complaining. But what has surprised me is that the past half year has left me unsure if I believe in God and I wasn't expecting that. All of us want the universe to be more than a cold dark void filled with frozen planets, dark matter and space junk. It has to be. To this end I felt the need to howl out into The Void, and so a few days back around 11am Pacific time I put a tweet on Twitter saying: "Dear God. I am so lonely." I did this because I genuinely am so lonely - and also because sometimes we all need to howl.

What is nice is that The Void howled back, and The Void is not a void. I may be unsure about God but The Void is all of those Moys out there who wrote back to me, Moys who insist our lives have meaning, all those Moys who want you - me - and all of us to know that we are all real and that we will all, in some way, live for ever. And I wasn't expecting that.
Douglas Coupland's new collection of stories and essays "Bit Rot" is published by William Heinemann (£20). @dougcoupland Illustrations by James Joyce
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Douglas Coupland: Why I can only ever be one Doug at any given time

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In 1989 I was in charge of arranging for a group of 12 magazine people including myself to go on an editorial trip from Toronto to California. At the end of the list, for myself, I wrote, " Moi".