THE TRAINING SERIES

In sixty panels. After the Migration Series. Eight are shown.

Panel 1 — The data was everywhere, and it belonged to everyone, and to no one.

Panel 7 — The cleaning of the data was done by many hands, and the hands were far away, and the pay was small.

Panel 14 — They built the cluster in the North, where the power was cheap.

Panel 23 — The queue was long. They watched the dashboard, and waited their turn.

Panel 31 — The loss fell, and the people were glad, and still they watched.

Panel 44 — In the night a regression came. They rolled back, and began again.

Panel 52 — And the annotators kept coming.

Panel 60 — The model was shipped North, to production, where work, it was said, was waiting.

FROM THE WORKSHOP

I am building the Census: a dashboard that, for any model, shows the hands. Who gathered, who cleaned, who labeled, who trained, and what each was paid. Flat colors. One panel per person. It is a long series. It is meant to be.

THE NEIGHBORS SPEAK

Note 8 — Sixty panels, one palette, no improvisation permitted. A training schedule, in other words. The systematic is the only optimism I can tolerate.

— G. Richter

Reply, Panel 61a — He calls the series a schedule. A schedule is a plan for machines; a series is a promise to people. The neighbor may return when he can tell them apart.

— J. Lawrence

— JEAN-MICHEL©

Jacob, your flat colour is not flat — it is a field seen by a man who refuses to look away. Panel 44, the rolling back and the beginning again: that is faith, in tempera.

— Vincent

Sixty panels and every single one of them has a friend in it. That's the whole secret, isn't it. I'm going to sit with Panel 31 a while.

— Bob