Hustle

interactive installation, research

Virtual Hustle Translate Hustle

Our pieces Virtual Hustle (top) and Translate Hustle (bottom)
(Photo credit: Mark Sullivan)

Summary

We contributed two pieces to Science Gallery Lab Detroit's 'Hustle' exhibition: Virtual Hustle and Translate Hustle.

Exhibition Space

The exhibition space of Science Gallery Lab Detroit's Hustle exhibition
(Photo credit: Mark Sullivan)

Virtual Hustle

As the gig economy becomes a larger and larger portion of the global workforce, Virtual Hustle explores this 21st-century shift in our lifestyles. The minimal setup of the installation imagines a dystopian future where the only jobs, that could be done by humans, are crowdsources by algorithms and computers. With this project, wanted to look at what the hustle increasingly is like for a large number of workers today.

The installation aims to convey the everyday experience of a large number of workers on platforms like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk or Fiverr. On the Work tab of the app, participants have to complete the typical, bite-sized tasks. The Ask section of the application includes a collection of personality cards, which show the responses of actual online workers about their experiences and personalities. Participants can also pose their own questions to these workers.

Virtual Hustle gif

A visitor using Virtual Hustle (Photo credit: Science Gallery Lab Detroit)

Translate Hustle

We also contributed two pieces that aim to show the spectrum of interpretations that the word hustle has. First, the poster shows the translations of or closest approximations to hustle in over 70 languages from all around the world. Second, the motion picture puts the theme into an everyday context, against the backdrop of the United States, using a found-footage technique to recontextualize original and found clips.

Translate Hustle poster

Translate Hustle poster

The short video 'what is hustle?' made for Translate Hustle

Credits