>> The project explores the circumstances we live in, a new and uncharted combination of digital labor markets, "crowdsourcing," "virtual economies," and digital reproduction.
How does this explore "the circumstances we live in"? I'm not knocking the project, but that is a bold, unsubstantiated claim.
Yeah, this is pretty standard stuff for artist statements. One of my favorite part about going to art shows is finding the pieces with the most pretentious descriptions.
I could be wrong, but I think the sentence is really meant to convey:
The project explores the circumstances we live in: a new and uncharted combination of digital labor markets, "crowdsourcing," "virtual economies," and digital reproduction.
People in India spent an average of 11 minutes to make one cent? I must be reading those statistics incorrectly. I know work is cheap on MTurk but it's not THAT cheap.
This is a 2008 project; Turk's marketplace was a bit different 5 years ago.
One problem with open marketplaces is that there's always someone who will do the work badly and unhappily, no matter how low you price it (usually a new or disgruntled entrant).
The "About" page shows a few choice selected ones at the bottom. I like the artist who expresses an opinion of the payout rate for the task set before them!
This is awesome. Also reminds me of Ai Wei Wei's Sunflower Seeds [1]. Where millions of chinese laborers hand made and painted millions of porcelain sunflower seeds. Wonderful parallels of thinking that Amazon Turk is the West's version of labor.
Reminds me a little bit of tiles.ice.org, the old collaborative drawing site from the ANSI art group iCE, where you were each provided the edges of the neighboring tiles from which to extend your own piece of artwork. The site is down now, but some of the creations that came out of there were phenomenal.
Here's the project description, I think it's probably safe.
"Ten Thousand Cents is a digital artwork that creates a representation of a $100 bill. Using custom drawing tool, thousands individuals working in isolation from one another painted tiny part the bill without knowledge overall task. Workers were paid cent each via amazon's mechanical turk distributed labor tool. Total cost of the bill, creation, and reproductions available for purchase are all $100. The work is presented as video piece with 10,000 parts drawn simultaneously. The project explores the circumstances we live in, new uncharted combination markets, crowdsourcing, virtual economies, and reproduction."
How does this explore "the circumstances we live in"? I'm not knocking the project, but that is a bold, unsubstantiated claim.