Unknown Label is a multi-channel video installation exploring the daily reality 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 human labour necessary to train AI systems. Unknown Label reveals the hidden crowd that works with these operational images and help 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.

Nicolas Gourault developed Unknown Label in 2023 during his residency at Werkleitz (DE).

Nicolas Gourault is an artist and filmmaker based in Paris (FR) with a background in visual arts and visual studies. He has worked with Forensic Architecture before graduating from Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains. His work is imbued with this double training, navigating between online open-source investigations and the critical use of new media as documentary tools. His films and video installations explore the power relationships embedded in technologies and tries to build counter-narratives through the use of situated testimony and experimental image-making. His artworks have been exhibited in contemporary art venues and in film festivals.

Images: courtesy of the artist.
Funded by the European Media Arts Platform (EMAP) and hosted by Werkleitz (DE).