Lauren Huret
manila stories_chasing ghosts on social media, 2018
HD, approx. 15 min, loop
5 + 2 AP
In the work 'manila stories_chasing ghosts on social media' conceived especially for the group exhibition "Algorithmic Lifestyle", Huret looks at the "story" format on Instagram and the immediacy of sharing your life with your audience as if owning your own TV station. During the course of the exhibition the artist shares videos of her everyday life as an artist in Geneva and her recent research on content moderation in Manila in the form of Instagram stories. With every new video added, the short narrative is established further and displayed on screen, reminiscent of live TV. However, instead of posting these videos on her Instagram account, Huret transmits them directly to a screen in the gallery, therefore short-circuiting her social media feed and disrupting the principle of free labour on which social media companies are built.
The shared images in 'manila stories_chasing ghosts on social media' mainly consist of collages made from Huret's own photographs augmented with text, gifs and effects taken from the Instagram application.
Above all, the videos take a closer look at how social media companies deal with issues of censorship, "offensive" content and outsourced underpaid labour, referred to as "Potemkin AI" - work that is purported to be powered by sophisticated software, when in reality it is performed by humans.
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