Data Labeler Dream Transcendence (WIP)

Girl data labelers achieve gnosis and become god in this desktop performance.

A group of girl data labelers in Makati City log on to discover that their classication interface has become a divine gnosis, now constructing & redefining the world around them. The girls are the model, the model is the god.

A teaser was first premiered at BetaCamp: SuperTele for LEV Festival (Spain) and iMAL (Belgium). I read and played sounds for the performance live, and the audience experienced the performance in an interactive site where they were also invited to label objects.

I manually collected a small dataset of images to be labeled. Upon labeling an object (correctly, and often incorrectly), the object is 'redefined' in the game's reality (cloud → flower, god → girl, etc.); labels presented certain poems in both English and Tagalog to the audience as new permutations were made. Alongside the poems from the labeling, a constant narrative / clock presents a narrative.

A full performance and game is in development. If you're interested in presenting these in any way, please feel free to reach out!

Examining technological reification & sublimation, lineages of women's work in computing, the poetics of infrastructures, and the authorship & agency of the technological pipeline. The performance takes place on a website-specific location, inviting audiences to participate in the labeling.