meta office

Last week we exhibited our ongoing research project ‘MetaOffice: Behind the Screens of Amazon Mechanical Turks’ as part of ‘O Mundo Através da IA’ (The World Through AI) at @sescspcampinas in São Paulo, Brazil. Curated by Antonio Somaini and originally shown at @jeudepaumeparis in Paris, the exhibition presents a critical outlook at the social, ethical, and environmental impacts of Artificial Intelligence. 🗓️ From 26th November to 26 April 2026 at SESC, Campinas, Brazil. 📷 Photos from the setup at the original exhibition in Jeu de Paume, Paris. By Antoine Quittet - Meta Office investigates the unseen workspaces of the data-labelling community: the ghost workers behind the training of databases, from which Algorithms can learn. These outsourced workers are paid cents per minute per task to label, categorise and validate raw data and provide so-called metadata. By using Amazon Mechanical Turk, one of the largest crowdsourcing platforms used for data description services, the project uses the tools of its workers themselves to outsource a cartography of the worker’s decentralised office spaces, in order to document the hidden underbelly of Artificial Intelligence.

[ARTS VISUELS] L’exposition « Le monde selon l’IA » au Jeu de Paume explore l’impact de l’intelligence artificielle à travers des œuvres d’art récentes, distinguant l’IA analytique de l’IA générative et reliant ces technologies à leur contexte historique. Avec la participation du collectif néerlandais Meta Office (@metaoffice_ ), qui à travers une installation questionne cet outil et révèle la vision technologique du monde. Cette installation résulte d’une collaboration entre Meta Office et des travailleurs d’Amazon Mechanical Turk. Ces microtravailleurs, souvent chargés de tâches liées à l’IA comme l’étiquetage d’images ou la modération de contenu, y décrivent leurs conditions de travail. Leurs témoignages, accompagnés d’images, révèlent des inégalités de salaire, une précarité généralisée et une exploitation mondialisée. Invisibles et anonymes, ces travailleurs restent cachés derrière des pseudonymes. Avec le soutien de l’Ambassade des Pays-Bas 🗓️ Du 11 avril au 21 septembre 📍 Jeu de Paume 📷 Inès Sieulle, The Oasis I Deserve, 2024 © Inès Sieulle #culturepaysbas #nlfrtoujoursproches

LIVE ARCHIVE (5/5) Last year I collaborated with @metaoffice_ to create the installation Live Archive that was exhibited during the @iabr___ at @nieuweinstituut in Rotterdam. The final cube functioned as the heart of the archive, allowing visitors to scroll through all the artifacts captured during the biennale. How can a biennale function as a space of assembly? How can an event, a dialogue, or a conversation be made available to future visitors? When an exhibition becomes a place of encounter, the question of documentation arises. The Live Archive takes up the idea of the archive as a physical and digital structure for organizing knowledge and turns it into a dynamic and open-to-use installation within the Practice Place. The installation consists of four different tools, each inviting participants to trace their thoughts and learnings. Via drawings, sound, photographs, and moving images, the Live Archive produces a multilayered mapping. This open document can be reviewed and created by all visitors and bridges the physical and the digital, simultaneously creating an archive of the Assemblies taking place over the course of the biennale and the context in which these gatherings take place. Concept & Cubicle Design @metaoffice_ : @lauritz.bohne @lea__mariaeleonora @edwardzammit_ Production @manfredo____ Technical Installation Support Theresa Reiterer Photos Jacqueline Fuijkschot

LIVE ARCHIVE (4/5) Last year I collaborated with @metaoffice_ to create the installation Live Archive that was exhibited during the @iabr___ at @nieuweinstituut in Rotterdam. As a station to capture moments via photography, we created a mirrored cube with a cloud-shaped phone case. Via a QR-code, visitors could open a custom web-app to take photos and upload them to the archive. (The web-app can still be accessed via myseconddomain.cloud) How can a biennale function as a space of assembly? How can an event, a dialogue, or a conversation be made available to future visitors? When an exhibition becomes a place of encounter, the question of documentation arises. The Live Archive takes up the idea of the archive as a physical and digital structure for organizing knowledge and turns it into a dynamic and open-to-use installation within the Practice Place. The installation consists of four different tools, each inviting participants to trace their thoughts and learnings. Via drawings, sound, photographs, and moving images, the Live Archive produces a multilayered mapping. This open document can be reviewed and created by all visitors and bridges the physical and the digital, simultaneously creating an archive of the Assemblies taking place over the course of the biennale and the context in which these gatherings take place. Concept & Cubicle Design @metaoffice_ : @lauritz.bohne @lea__mariaeleonora @edwardzammit_ Production @manfredo____ Technical Installation Support Theresa Reiterer Photos @cianay Jacqueline Fuijkschot

LIVE ARCHIVE (3/5) Last year I collaborated with @metaoffice_ to create the installation Live Archive that was exhibited during the @iabr___ at @nieuweinstituut in Rotterdam. The second cube of the installation was used to capture sound recordings, by creating a little booth, where sound was recorded with the press of a button, and sent in real time to the output cube. How can a biennale function as a space of assembly? How can an event, a dialogue, or a conversation be made available to future visitors? When an exhibition becomes a place of encounter, the question of documentation arises. The Live Archive takes up the idea of the archive as a physical and digital structure for organizing knowledge and turns it into a dynamic and open-to-use installation within the Practice Place. The installation consists of four different tools, each inviting participants to trace their thoughts and learnings. Via drawings, sound, photographs, and moving images, the Live Archive produces a multilayered mapping. This open document can be reviewed and created by all visitors and bridges the physical and the digital, simultaneously creating an archive of the Assemblies taking place over the course of the biennale and the context in which these gatherings take place. Concept & Cubicle Design @metaoffice_ : @lauritz.bohne @lea__mariaeleonora @edwardzammit_ Production @manfredo____ Technical Installation Support Theresa Reiterer Photos @cianay Jacqueline Fuijkschot

LIVE ARCHIVE (2/5) Last year I collaborated with @metaoffice_ to create the installation Live Archive that was exhibited during the @iabr___ at @nieuweinstituut in Rotterdam. One part of it was a cube that functioned as a scanner for texts, drawings and other artefacts. When the drawer closed, a flash got triggered, capturing any content to the archive, which could be explored in real-time. How can a biennale function as a space of assembly? How can an event, a dialogue, or a conversation be made available to future visitors? When an exhibition becomes a place of encounter, the question of documentation arises. The Live Archive takes up the idea of the archive as a physical and digital structure for organizing knowledge and turns it into a dynamic and open-to-use installation within the Practice Place. The installation consists of four different tools, each inviting participants to trace their thoughts and learnings. Via drawings, sound, photographs, and moving images, the Live Archive produces a multilayered mapping. This open document can be reviewed and created by all visitors and bridges the physical and the digital, simultaneously creating an archive of the Assemblies taking place over the course of the biennale and the context in which these gatherings take place. Concept & Cubicle Design @metaoffice_ @lauritz.bohne @lea__mariaeleonora @edwardzammit_ Production @manfredo____ Technical Installation Support Theresa Reiterer Photos @cianay Jacqueline Fuijkschot

LIVE ARCHIVE (1/5) Last year I collaborated with @metaoffice_ to create the installation Live Archive that was exhibited during the @iabr___ at @nieuweinstituut in Rotterdam. How can a biennale function as a space of assembly? How can an event, a dialogue, or a conversation be made available to future visitors? When an exhibition becomes a place of encounter, the question of documentation arises. The Live Archive takes up the idea of the archive as a physical and digital structure for organizing knowledge and turns it into a dynamic and open-to-use installation within the Practice Place. The installation consists of four different tools, each inviting participants to trace their thoughts and learnings. Via drawings, sound, photographs, and moving images, the Live Archive produces a multilayered mapping. This open document can be reviewed and created by all visitors and bridges the physical and the digital, simultaneously creating an archive of the Assemblies taking place over the course of the biennale and the context in which these gatherings take place. Concept & Cubicle Design @metaoffice_ : @lauritz.bohne @lea__mariaeleonora @edwardzammit_ Production @manfredo____ Technical Installation Support Theresa Reiterer Illustration @edwardzammit_ Photos @cianay

Image Capital is on show at Centre Pompidou until the 26th of February 2024. Go and see our project @metaoffice_ displayed! - 1 lady in front of exhibition piece 2 website of Image Capital 3 clicking through Image Capital — Meta Office 4 interior of an Amazon Mechanical Turk 5 another exhibition snapshot 6 view once you have climbed Piano’s and Rogers’ stairs 7 exhibition shot by Armin Linke - Meta Office investigates the unseen workspaces of the data-labelling community: the ghost workers behind the training of databases, from which Algorithms can learn. These outsourced workers are paid cents per minute per task to label, categorise and validate raw data and provide so-called metadata. By using Amazon Mechanical Turk, one of the largest crowdsourcing platforms used for data description services, the project uses the tools of its workers themselves to outsource a cartography of the worker’s decentralised office spaces, in order to document the hidden underbelly of Artificial Intelligence. - Together with @lauritz.bohne and @edwardzammit_ .

HC1 Meta Office collaborated with De-Studio to create a heating chandelier. Both, the object itself and its performance is designed to be as resource efficient as possible. It is easy to assemble and disassemble, maintain, separable by type, and fireproof. To reduce energy consumption and in harmony with the tradition of chandeliers that excel in reflecting light, the main panel is constructed from mirror-polished steel to effectively reflect and brighten its surroundings. The HC1 hosts an infrared heater to provide warmth, an LED for illumination, a passive infrared sensor (PIR) to detect the presence of moving entities, and an Arduino (computer) with internet access to receive real-time data from the energy grid and potentially interact with other HC1 units. The HC1 is modular and can be extended to create an alternative heating and lighting system, which is called 'Comfort Zone’.

For the POWER exhibition at CIVA in Brussels, TU Delft / The New Open has commissioned @metaoffice_ to investigate the role of open data in our current energy crisis. ‚Feel the heat‘ is a spatial installation designed to challenge our perceptions of warmth and comfort in the context of our changing climate. It presents an alternative approach to space heating, which responds to local demands and global energy supply. Rather than mindlessly heating entire rooms, it selectively warms the areas where warmth is genuinely required and, crucially, only to the extent that our environment can sustain. Red heat clouds, which evolve around moving bodies, challenge our conventional understanding of space and prompt us to reconsider it as a tangible yet immaterial comfort zone—a zone defined by necessity and bound by possibility. @felijee created a live data dashboard that visualizes current weather and energy information on the one hand and power consumption on the other hand, to convey their interdependency in this installation. Year / 2023 Location / @civabrussels Concept & Design / @metaoffice_ (@lauritz.bohne , @lea__mariaeleonora , @edwardzammit_ ) Concept / @newopen.design (@dennis__pohl , @georgvrachliotis ) Live Data Visualization / @felijee Production / @de.studio.co Controller Coding / Pieter H. Pictures Copyright / ©️ Filip Dujardin

www.meta-office.eu is thought of as an assemblage of past and ongoing projects, that have been developed with a growing list of collaborators. Aligning with Meta Office’s thought-process, the back-stage of the digital space is revealed through the interface of the cursor, highlighting the typically-concealed machinations behind the website’s functions. Team:
Meta Office (Lauritz Bohne, Lea Scherer, Edward Zammit) with Felix Reiterer, @felijee [website development]