Audio Descriptions for

Conscious Tether: Art and the Internet in Los Angeles

HIT, Empire no 1

Danielle Dean

Watercolor on paper, frame

A large painting 46 inches tall by 80 inches wide is hanging on the wall. The painting is framed in dark brown wood. The painting is clearly watercolor and depicts a nondescript tropical scene with sandy mountains in the background, green fields in the middle ground filled with palm trees and lakes, and in the foreground what appears to be small cliffs or excavated land with water running through it. In the top left of the frame there is also a large coconut tree. On the glass of the frame, are a series of elements from computer interfaces which overlap the painting.

From the artist:

Typho Tea’s, 1938 -39, Collectible cards depicting the industries of the British Empire. The watercolor is a combination of landscapes depicted in these cards, from tin mining in Nigeria, Copra in Fiji and bananas in Jamaica. Printed on the Plexi is a HIT, Human Intelligence Tasks on Amazon Mechanical Turk. A work prompt, often used to gather data from humans to train AI technology.

Landscape image reference

Ty. phoo Series no. 12 of 25, Nigeria Tin
Ty. phoo Series no. 21 of 25, Copra in Fiji
Ty. phoo Series no. 23 of 25, bananas in Jamaica