Humans-as-a-service. A video-based research into the hidden labour in the field of global digital infrastructures

Abstract

This Master's thesis is a reflection on my audiovisual research „Humans-as-a-Service“, which explores the invisibility of labour within global digital infrastructures. Through four locations – a Swiss data centre, women’s work at the PTT Rechenzentrum in the seventies, Chinese factory workers’ protests, and Kenyan data labelers – the research examines how labour is hidden by physical, social, and technological abstraction. Using video-based methods and self-documented material from workers, the research treats documentation as a critical, political practice. It interrogates „visibility“ as both a methodological challenge and a site of struggle, exposing mechanisms like outsourcing, offshoring and deskilling. Drawing from media studies, labour history, and Science and Technology Studies (STS) the audiovisual research and this reflection advocates for visual strategies that reveal digital labour without reinforcing existing hierarchies.