Synopsis
Otto spends night and day blurring faces on Google Streetview for a cent each. It’s the kind of work he and his friends around the world can find on the Amazon Mechanical Turk, the crowdworking platform. Alongside his turker friends, Otto sinks into a robotic world that raise the question of humanity.
A word from Tënk
Taking its original French title from the work of sociologist Antonio A. Casilli, En attendant les robots (Waiting for Robots) reveals the hidden side of digital platforms and AI. With the clicks and sounds of the mouse wheel as its soundscape, the film reactivates an experience lived by the director by entrusting it to an actor. Placed in the situation of a "Turker", Otto, in turn, builds relationships with people encountered by Natan Castay – living all over the world. In the confinement of his room, surrounded by packages (representing "remuneration") piling up, the young man discovers an invisible world with its own rules. The film becomes an opportunity to partly subvert a system based on the atomization of workers by showcasing the solidarities and friendships formed, revealing a globalized exploitation. The closure with an image produced by a camera obscura (the ancestor of photography) also reminds us of the permanence of systems and devices, whether cinematographic or economic.
Caroline Châtelet
Journalist and critic
