The University of Amsterdam is providing funding and support for new or early-stage creative media projects that unearth, explore, and critique the digital economy in India from the perspectives of the labour that supports and sustains it.
The ‘digital economy’ has reconfigured relationships between technology and labour in India and around the world. The meteoric rise in data analytics, digital platforms and artificial intelligence has also been accompanied by a host of new practices of work, and new relationships between labour, capital and technology.
This ‘datafication’ of labour (as a stand-in for varied technological, political and cultural practices that seek to quantify and compute human life) has become central to a whole set of work practices in the digital economy. In India, such ‘data work’ is visible in a number of new labour practices – including for the annotation and labelling of data that is used for training Machine Learning models (including the increasingly popular chatbots and search technologies) used by global AI corporations, the constant and routine surveillance of workers on digital platforms that sustains the models of algorithmic-mediation of platform work, or the content moderation practices of large social media firms.
These new forms and conditions of labour in the data economy have had uneven consequences for those involved in its production and maintenance. For example, often and increasingly, much of the data work demanded by multinational corporations developing global digital platforms and AI reproduces systems of value extraction from workers that some have termed a new form of ‘digital colonialism’. The production of data-based systems can inherit the exploitation inherent in social dynamics of caste and gender, while platform-mediated data work can enable and entrench new forms of precarity and inequality.
A number of concerns emerge from these new practices and discourses of ‘data’ as central to work in the digital economy: Who is performing the ‘data work’ for the digital economy and under what conditions? What is the place of this work in local and global supply chains of the digital economy, and what implications does it have for how we think about AI as a tool of knowledge, culture or labour? What kinds of cultural, political, epistemic, and social power relations does ‘data work’ reproduce? Most importantly – how might practices that are unjust and harmful be challenged, critiqued or otherwise reimagined?
FAQs
1. What types of projects are eligible?
We are open to a wide range of creative visual media projects, across various mediums. These could include video art, interactive websites or digital works, print work or performance work. The original work may be in any two-dimensional, non-digital form, provided it can be preserved and represented in some digital format for exhibition purposes.
These projects are intended to bring together well-researched perspectives with new and accessible forms of creative artistic practice. As such, the projects may be in early stage or conceptual stages, or form a part of, or extension of, a larger piece of work. We encourage proposals that are flexible and open to potential collaboration with other members of the project cohort.
The projects will be featured in a published work, accompanied by reflections from the artists and researchers about their projects.
Examples of previous work we are inspired by include:
- Shifting the Angle of Shine;
- Vertical Atlas;
- ‘Anatomy of AI’, Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler;
- Dark Matters, Johann Diedrick.
We particularly encourage proposals that are:
- From researchers and practitioners from under-represented and marginalised communities in India, and adopt critical and social justice-based approaches to the digital economy and labour (particularly anti-caste and feminist approaches).
- Collaboratively built with data workers, broadly defined.
In addition, applicants/proposals must meet the following requirements
- Projects must be based on and informed by research on labour practices around the digital economy in India, and ideally based in India, or affiliated with an India-based institution.
- Awards support works at either the conceptual or prototype stage. Projects may be part of a larger piece of work, provided applicants can demonstrate how this support would contribute to a specific output.
- Project outputs must be publicly accessible under an appropriate license.
- Projects must demonstrate an understanding of who their audience is and how they want their project to impact this audience.
- Applicants must demonstrate an ability to execute their plan via prior experience, prototypes or in their project plan.
Able to receive funding from the University of Amsterdam.[1]
2. What support do we provide?
Funding
We will award funding for three creative media projects, for amounts up to EUR 2250 for each project. The final amounts will depend upon the budget proposals and will be based on the committee’s final decisions and discretion.
Curatorial and community support and mentorship
We will provide curatorial and community support meetings and opportunities for networking and mentorship with cohort members as well as representatives from the academic, civil society and artistic practice communities, at least once a month. The curatorial meetings will be led by Vishal Kumaraswamy, and will offer space for artists to explore research and artistic collaborations, curatorial direction regarding project development and asynchronous discussions with the cohort on delivery of the works.
We will also provide the opportunity to present early concepts or prototypes at a workshop on data work held in Bangalore on March 18, 2025, where we will provide travel and accommodation support if required.
Showcasing Projects
Projects will form part of an online and/or print publication. We also intend to exhibit the projects at appropriate exhibition spaces in Bangalore, London and Amsterdam.
3. What are the evaluation criteria?
Evaluation Criterion
Relevance to theme: The project must indicate how it critically engages with the theme of data work in the digital economy.
Suitability of team: the individual or members of the project team seem suitable for the proposed project, based on their proposal and prior body of work, and/or plans are in place to pull in outside expertise where needed.
Feasibility of budget and timeline: the applicant has a clear project plan in place and the award amount requested is appropriate and will be catalytic for the project. The project can be completed within the grant period.
Availability for regular (~once a month) online curatorial and community meetings, as well as a potential onsite meeting in Bangalore on March 18 and 19.
Review and Selection
Projects will be reviewed by a jury of experts from academia and artistic practice. Depending on the number of proposals, we will try to provide detailed feedback on all proposals, but we cannot guarantee this.
Key Dates and Deadline
- Feb 4: Application opens
- February 20: Informational session about the call
- March 10, 2025: Deadline for project proposals
- March 18 and 19: Workshop on Data Labour (Bangalore)
- Late-March, 2025: Notifications of accepted projects
- December 2025: Final report deadline
4. How to apply
To apply for this grant, please send the following documents to dataworkartsindia@proton.me, by March 10, 2025.
- A written project proposal, no more than two pages, describing the project, providing a timeline for completion, and indicating how the evaluation criteria are met. This could also include an abstract for the final publication piece relevant to the project.
- A budget proposal providing a clear breakdown of how funds are to be used (including material costs, research costs, etc.) The budget proposal will also be used to determine the timelines for release of funds.
- Details of the project team, including a CV and/or portfolio indicating prior experience in creative media practice or critical technology research and contact information.
- Please let us know of your interest and availability to participate in a workshop on Data Labour (Online or in person in Bangalore, March 18, 2025). Please note, this is not compulsory, but we see this as a space for applicants with relevant projects to share their work among each other, as well as with academic and civil society researchers present at the workshop.[2]
We are mindful of language barriers to English. Please ensure to use clear, simple language about what your ideas are, how you intend to develop them and what form/s the final work might take.
For any further enquiries, please reach out to project leads Divij Joshi or Jef Ausloos at dataworkartsindia@proton.me.
[1] Recipients are responsible for all tax and legal liabilities for receiving these funds.
[2] More details about the workshop are here.