Documentation video 




Hands, central to human expression and labor, have long carried hidden emotions and involuntary messages. Once symbols of resilience and alienation in the shift from manual craftsmanship to mechanized industry, hands now navigate the blurred boundaries between physical and digital spaces. In Ilse Kind’s work, hands take on new meaning within the digital age, shaped by Artificial Intelligence.

This dual installation features Hand 14, Hand 21, Hand 45 and Hand 71, sculptures that physically resemble AI-generated hands: distorted and anatomically flawed. Their unfamiliar gestures signal the hidden dependence of AI systems on human resources; particularly those of undervalued annotation workers. Their hands, compelled by economic necessity, tirelessly train AI systems what human reality looks like. This dynamic reflects how human labor is quietly absorbed and discarted to create the illusion of autonomous technology, leaving their contributions obscured and unacknowledged.  

The video work Lifetime Approval Rate 96% reveals these hidden mechanisms, offering a glimpse into the biases interwoven in databases, and the relentless, repetitive clicks that are the lifeline of AI systems.

By blending AI-generated forms with their human origins, the installation explores the hidden relationship between creator and creation exposing the pervasive extraction of value from the hands that sustain our evolving technological ecosystem.


    [Accompanying essay ’Handwerker; a human resource farm’ on request ︎]