Outsourcing just got hotter with Laborers of Love/lol!
lol is a crowdsourcing project that explores how sexuality and desire are mediated through new technologies, specifically new models of global, outsourced labor. The project evolved from Crouse and Rothenberg’s earlier project Invisible Threads, a virtual sweatshop in Second Life. lol takes the form of an Internet service that uses anonymous online workers to create “customers’” video fantasies. Utilizing Mechanical Turk, an online job engine created by Amazon.com (www.mturk.com), lol leverages a global online workforce that is not specific to the sex industry, but rather is composed of a diverse group of home/computer-based workers. In assembly-line fashion, Mechanical Turk workers collect images and video related to the fantasy from a variety of websites. A real time data visualization is then presented on the website consisting of worker locations (Waco, Texas; Bangalore, India; etc.) and IP addresses of the mined content (images and video). This visualization maps the process and “production” of the video fantasy. The final product is a short, video mash-up where 1970’s experimental cinema meets canned Photoshop filters and ultimately reflects on how desire and pleasure are represented, fragmented and abstracted through the consumption of online digital media.
lol sales associates are ready, willing and able to assist you with creating your fantasy-on-demand and just-in-time at transmediale!

This performance is part of the panel Emoporn, Sex Machines and Mediated Sexualities.