[NetBehaviour] Expo Data Workers

[An Mertens]

Dear Netbehaviour,

It would be great if you could distribute this announcement through the 
mailing list.

The exhibition 'Data Workers 
<http://www.algolit.net/index.php/Data_Workers>' will open on *Thursday 
28 March at 18h* in the Mundaneum in Bergen (Mons).
In the framework of the exhibition, we invite *Allison Parrish 
<https://www.decontextualize.com/>*, an algoliterary poet from New York. 
She will give a lecture on computer-generated literature 
<http://constantvzw.org/site/Over-automatisch-schrijven-en-autocomplete-the-poetics-of-technology.html> 
at Passa Porta in Brussels on Thursday evening 25 April and a workshop 
for writers and others 
<http://constantvzw.org/site/Computationeel-Kribbelen.html>at the 
Mundaneum in Mons on Friday 26 April.

Thanks & kind regards,


An

*Data Workers* is an exhibition of algoliterary works, of stories told 
from an ‘algorithmic storyteller point of view’. The exhibition is a 
creation by members of *Algolit*, a group from Brussels involved in 
artistic research on algorithms and literature. Every month they gather 
to experiment with F/LOSS code and texts. Some works are by students of 
Arts² and external participants to the workshop on machine learning and 
text organised by Algolit in October 2018 in Mundaneum.

Companies create*artificial intelligences* to serve, entertain, record 
and know about humans. The work of these machinic entities is usually 
hidden behind interfaces and patents. In the exhibition, algorithmic 
storytellers leave their invisible underworld to become interlocutors.
The data workers operate in different *collectives*. Each collective 
represents a stage in the design process of a machine learning model: 
there are the Writers, the Cleaners, the Informants, the Readers, the 
Learners and the Oracles. Robots voice experimental literature, 
algorithmic models read data, turn words into numbers, make calculations 
that define patterns and are able to endlessly process new texts ever after.

The exhibition *foregrounds data workers* who impact our daily lives, 
but are hard to grasp or imagine. It connects stories about algorithms 
in mainstream media to the storytelling in technical manuals and 
academic papers. Robots are invited to go into dialogue with human 
visitors and vice versa. In this way we might understand our respective 
reasonings, demystify each other’s behaviour, encounter multiple 
personalities, and value our collective labour.
It is also a tribute to the many machines that Paul Otlet 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Otlet Paul Otlet> and Henri La 
Fontaine 
<http://constantvzw.org/site/[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_La_Fontaine> 
imagined for their Mundaneum, showing their potential but also their limits.

The *opening* is on *Thursday 28 March (18-22h)*. As part of the 
exhibition, we invite *Allison Parrish 
<https://www.decontextualize.com/>*, an algoliterary poet from New York. 
She will give a lecture in Passa Porta on Thursday evening 25 April and 
a workshop in the Mundaneum on Friday 26 April.

*Data Workers* is a creation by Algolit <http://www.algolit.net>.
*Works by*: Cristina Cochior, Gijs de Heij, Sarah Garcin, An Mertens, 
Javier Lloret, Louise Dekeuleneer, Florian Van de Weyer, Laetitia 
Trozzi, Rémi Forte, Guillaume Slizewicz, Manetta Berends, Mia Melvær.
*A co-production of*: Arts² 
<http://blog.artsaucarre.be/artsnumeriques/>, Mundaneum 
<http://expositions.mundaneum.org/en/expositions/data-workers>, Constant.
*With the support of*: Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Arts Numériques 
<http://www.arts-numeriques.culture.be/>, Passa Porta 
<https://www.passaporta.be/en>, Ugent, DHuF - Digital Humanities 
Flanders 
<https://www.uantwerpen.be/nl/faculteiten/faculteit-letteren-en-wijsbegeerte/onderzoek-en-valorisatie/onderzoeksassen/digital-humanities/> 
and the Distributed Proofreading Project <https://www.pgdp.net/c/>.
*Thanks to*: Mike Kestemont, Michel Cleempoel, François Zajéga, Raphaèle 
Cornille, Kris Rutten, Anne-Laure Buisson, David Stampfli.

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