Documentation of my thesis installation for MICA's Mount Royal School of Art, 2014
In the first area of this two-part work, the viewer is confronted with a projected low-resolution webcam video of someone typing at their computer. Overlaid on the video is text which is apparently being typed, letter by letter. As the viewer watches, she realizes the text describes her appearance and actions, and that she is witnessing a live stream of somebody writing about her. In the next room of the installation, projected on the wall is an arrangement of webcam videos (including the text being typed), each video playing on loop.
The work was built using custom web-based software I developed to interface with a popular global Internet crowdsourcing marketplace called Amazon Mechanical Turk. Originally developed by Internet company Amazon to help with simple tasks such as categorizing products, this service now provides anyone access to thousands of its workers, to offer small tasks in exchange for minimal amounts of money. While anyone can sign up to be a “Turker,” the workers generally reside in the United States and India.
