Electronic Literature in AI data work
Proposal Type
Individual Talk
Location
Narratives & Worlds
Start Date
July 2026
End Date
July 2026
Abstract
This paper is based on my personal experience of working as a transcriber for AI projects between 2023 and 2025 in a Business Process Outsourcing company located in Eastern Europe. The job of transcribers is to listen to audio recordings provided by The Client (a major tech company whose name cannot be mentioned due to nondisclosure agreements) and either transcribe them from scratch or correct an AI generated transcription. The recordings are gathered from users of digital devices, many of whom appear unaware of being recorded.
During the transcription work, probably due to the excruciating boredom of performing the same robotic tasks again and again, imagination tends to take over, combining the recordings between them, and with fragments of personal experience and memories, into complex surreal compositions (auditive, visual, haptic, etc.). Inspired by the imaginary music proposed in the 1970’s by avant-garde composer Octavian Nemescu, I suggest understanding such imaginary compositions as results of processes of spectatorship and valuing them as artworks in their own right, despite the fact that they remain singular, 'personal', unshareable experiences.
The ground for the imaginary artworks, that flicker at the borders of consciousness for transcribers, is the mind-blowing piece of experimental electronic literature constituted by the algorithmic combination of myriad voice recordings of everyday life caught unawares. This piece of electronic literature inadvertently created by The Client (AI data workers being its only spectators) could easily rank among the most intriguing works of the genre, despite the fact that it is not the conscious creation of an artist, it is not intended for public display, and it is highly problematic from an ethical perspective.
The aim of this paper is to provide a starting point for understanding this hidden, unintended work of electronic literature and the imaginary artworks that it engenders.
Electronic Literature in AI data work
Narratives & Worlds
This paper is based on my personal experience of working as a transcriber for AI projects between 2023 and 2025 in a Business Process Outsourcing company located in Eastern Europe. The job of transcribers is to listen to audio recordings provided by The Client (a major tech company whose name cannot be mentioned due to nondisclosure agreements) and either transcribe them from scratch or correct an AI generated transcription. The recordings are gathered from users of digital devices, many of whom appear unaware of being recorded.
During the transcription work, probably due to the excruciating boredom of performing the same robotic tasks again and again, imagination tends to take over, combining the recordings between them, and with fragments of personal experience and memories, into complex surreal compositions (auditive, visual, haptic, etc.). Inspired by the imaginary music proposed in the 1970’s by avant-garde composer Octavian Nemescu, I suggest understanding such imaginary compositions as results of processes of spectatorship and valuing them as artworks in their own right, despite the fact that they remain singular, 'personal', unshareable experiences.
The ground for the imaginary artworks, that flicker at the borders of consciousness for transcribers, is the mind-blowing piece of experimental electronic literature constituted by the algorithmic combination of myriad voice recordings of everyday life caught unawares. This piece of electronic literature inadvertently created by The Client (AI data workers being its only spectators) could easily rank among the most intriguing works of the genre, despite the fact that it is not the conscious creation of an artist, it is not intended for public display, and it is highly problematic from an ethical perspective.
The aim of this paper is to provide a starting point for understanding this hidden, unintended work of electronic literature and the imaginary artworks that it engenders.
Bio
Mihai Băcăran (mihaibacaran.com) is an independent researcher focussing on intersections of art and technology. His work proposes an embodied, yet not humanistic, understanding of art spectatorship from a perspective grounded in a critical reading of the theory of individuation.
Mihai is particularly interested in engaging with processes of spectatorship that act as vectors of (dis)orientation, challenging, deconstructing, and remodeling the embodied experience of living in cultures permeated by digital technologies. His current research addresses the labour of audio transcription for AI projects as a performative process of spectatorship.
Since 2013, Mihai has been active in the contemporary art collective dalpofzs: www.dalpofzs.com.