THE FUTURE IS HERE!
Mimi Onuoha (2019)
How do you ‘make’ AI?
Much of machine learning – from personalised recommendations to spam filters and image recognition – relies on huge quantities of data quickly being cleaned, labelled and precisely annotated. Tagged datasets are used to then train algorithms and help machines learn.
Companies like Sam’s, Appen and Clickworker outsource this work to people around the world, mainly from the Global South. Workers are paid small amounts – by the task – to tag datasets that companies upload to their platforms. The labour of this crowdsourced tagging work is mostly unseen. But without it, the bulk of machine learning as it unfolds today wouldn’t be possible.
The Future Is Here! presents the domestic sites where crowdsourced labourers carry out their work, accompanied by stylized renditions of those spaces. Obtained by the artist joining and interacting with top workers on the digital platforms, the final video teases out the myth of AI labour versus its reality.
The work of Nigerian-American artist MIMI ONUOHA questions and exposes the contradictory logics of technological progress. Through print, code, data, video, installation, and archival media, Ọnụọha offers new orientations for making sense of the absences that define systems of labor, ecology and relations.
Ọnụọha's recent solo exhibitions include bitforms gallery (USA) and Forest City Gallery (Canada). Her work has been featured at the Whitney Museum of Art (USA), the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (AUS), Mao Jihong Arts Foundation (China), La Gaitê Lyrique (France), Transmediale Festival (Germany), The Photographers Gallery (UK), and NEON (Greece) among others. Her public art engagements have been supported by Akademie der Kunst (Germany), the Royal College of Art (UK), the Rockefeller Foundation (USA), and Princeton University (USA).
Ọnụọha is a Creative Capital and Fulbright-National Geographic grantee. She is also the Co-Founder of A People's Guide To Tech, an artist-led organisation that makes educational guides and workshops about emerging technology. Website