Unknown Label is a video installation exploring the daily experience of online micro-workers from the Global South who annotate images for self-driving cars. It investigates the power asymmetries and neocolonialist exploitation involved in the manual labor necessary to train AI systems. Unknown Label reveals the hidden crowd that works with these operational images and helps shape how machines see the world.
A digital collage, layering together fragments of annotated images and a virtual map of the world as seen by self-driving cars, creates a space where the viewers can share the vision of otherwise invisible data workers. The video installation thus raises the question of how to reappropriate these operational images which depict and categorize the world we live in without our prior knowledge or agreement.
Unknown Label, photo: Nicolas Gourault
Bio
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Photo: Diogo RodriguesNicolas Gourault
FR
Nicolas Gourault is an artist and filmmaker based in Paris with a background in visual arts and visual studies. He worked with Forensic Architecture before graduating from Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts. His work is imbued with this dual training, navigating between online open-source investigations and a critical use of new media as documentary tools. His artworks have been exhibited in various contemporary art venues as well as at film festivals.
Credits
Testimonies: Oliver, Elvina, Ivon, Yonaille, Jonel
Research Assistants: Leonard Nally Simala, Andrea Paola Hernandez, Niside Panebianco
Editing: Lucas Azémar, Nicolas Gourault
Screenwriting Advisor: Quentin Faucheux
Image Assistant: Héléna Michaud
Sound editing, re-recording: Etienne André
Thanks: Inès Sieulle, Antoine Chapon, Claire Williams, Clara Chapus, Charlotte Cherici, Yuyan Wang, Peter Zorn, Marcie Jost, Amir Borenstein, Mary Jimenez, Jorge Leon, Effi Weiss, Julie Pfleiderer, Jan De Coster, Susanne Weck, Julien Chapelle, Sasha Litvintseva & Beny Wagner, Don Quichotte Films, Yannick Beauquis, Quentin Brayer, Julian Posada, Milagros Miceli, Paola Tubaro, Sana Ahmad, Alex Roy, Phil Koopman, Adrien Gaidon
This work was realized within the framework of the European Media Art Platform residency programme at werkleitz with the support of The Creative Europe Culture Programme of the European Union. This film was developed in the framework of SoundImageCulture with the support of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds and Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie.
