AN ANGRY AUTOETHNOGRAPHY
Notably, the essay makes early narrative use of Photoshop’s generative AI, employing it to illustrate Ratajczyk’s text in a deliberately flawed manner. The banal visual content generated from fragments of his field research notes mirrors the flat, reductive way algorithms “see” and manage workers, further underscoring the depersonalization of gig economy labor.
➼ video essay
duration:
5 minutes
format:
16:9
2023
“A black square appeared on the google map instead of streets. I looked at it in awe as if it were THE original. As I was approaching its edge I wondered what will happen once I step on it. (...) the map refreshed.”
“In ads aimed at customers, employees are often absent altogether, with food seemingly appearing on the doorstep immediately and spontaneously. Sometimes, a bike or backpack symbolically takes the place of the worker.”