Beggar’s Honey
The value of a person or information is now measured by the number of ‘likes’ it gets on social networks. Beggar’s Honey reflects how we search for the honey of digital celebrity and reveals behind the scenes of click farms. These clandestine companies aim to artificially inflate content engagement indicators on social media by manipulating algorithms. Going undercover in factories in Vietnam and Hong Kong, Jack Latham photographs the insides of click farms for the first time. The project also shows images posted by people on TikTok and Instagram who have used the services of this illegal marketplace. Latham warns of the dangers of this on democracy and encourages us to question the validity of content with the most ‘likes’.
Beggar's Honey - Chapter I : Latent Bloom
Targeted advertisements, suggestions on YouTube, personalised results on search engines… the algorithms used to analyse personal data are becoming more and more precise and surprisingly proactive. Algorithmic procedures are dynamic and adapt to user behaviour. In many ways, their evolutionary skills can be likened to those of living organisms. Jack Latham is fascinated by the organic nature of artificial intelligence and completed the first chapter of his Beggar’s Honey project in spring 2020. He named it Latent Bloom, as it illustrates the transformation of algorithms through images of flowers purchased or picked during the lockdown. His virtual, evanescent, and imperfect floral creations update the familiar emotion these universal tokens of love and affection trigger.
His Beggar’s Honey project was awarded the Heidi.news Prize – Reportage by Grand Prix Images Vevey 2019/2020, presided over by Dayanita Singh.
