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Let's Get Physical
By Marisa Olson on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008
Los Angeles-based artist Xtine Hanson calls her Mechanical Olympics
"an alternative media spectacle to the Olympic games." Indeed, the
project humorously turns the otherwise tightly-regulated machinery of
both web commerce and international sports competition on their heads.
Launching simultaneously with the Beijing games, on August 8th, The
Mechanical Olympics invite the public to compete in sports previously
restricted to people of specific genders and nationalities. The artist
has enlisted participants via Amazon's Mechanical Turk site in which
users receive paid commissions for completing tasksalmost but not
quite so simple a machine could complete them, thus joining the ranks
of participatory projects like AddArt, Sheep Market, and Ten Thousand
Cents, which also employed this service. Hanson likens this playful
outsourcing of labor to working with artificial intelligence.
Nonetheless, it's clear that her worker bees are bringing a hefty dose
of personal creativity to this web-based role-playing game. A perusal
of the videos thus far uploaded to The Mechanical Olympics' YouTube
channel features Starbucks baristas working overtime to put their own
spin on the classic sport ofHockey, and the woman who represents South
Africa in the Freestyle Swimming event could win a gold medal in charm
for her combined use of a spray bottle and trippy arm movements. When
accepting one of the project's Human Intelligence Tasks (or HITs), the
athletes agree to wear a pre-designed sign indicating their sport,
gender, and country (they get to pick their own number) and to be paid
between $1-3 dollars upon emailing Hanson a URL to their 30-60 second
video. The footage will be posted daily, during the Olympics, and
voted upon by blog readers. Rather than medals, the winning artificial
Olympians receive bonus commissions, much like their more famous
counterparts whose accomplishments score them lucrative endorsement
deals. - Marisa Olson
Simon Fildes
Lecturer and Researcher in Media Arts and Dance
School of Media Arts and Imaging
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design
University of Dundee
Dundee
Scotland, UK
+44 (0) 7813714951
+44 (0) 1382 385250
www.imaging.dundee.ac.uk
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www.hyperchoreography.org
www.videodance.org.uk
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