AI is making workplace surveillance cheaper, faster and more invasive, threatening workers’ privacy. To spark a collective conversation, this year’s Trades Hall Art Prize was dedicated to the theme of surveillance, control, automation and resistance. The finalist works are on display at Trades Hall during the Fringe Festival until November 2025.
Fingerprints, eye movements, health data: surveillance at work is no longer science fiction.
That’s why the 2025 Create Against the Machine Art Prize invited artists to use creativity as a tool of resistance, exposing hidden systems and questioning how technology is reshaping the workplace.
The winner, artist Huei Yin Wong, impressed the judges with Paid Attention, a participatory installation imagining a future dominated by algorithmic management and constant monitoring. The work envisions a machine employer that pays you not for your skill, but for your gaze.
In front of a screen equipped with an eye-tracking camera, visitors are guided through a loop of attention-affirmations, part meditation, part corporate mantra, while their focus is measured. Every second of eye contact is logged. The moment attention breaks, the session ends and participants are prompted to “collect” their minimum wage earnings.
“My practice re-appropriates the tools of advertising and technology to make hidden systems visible and open to critique,” Wong said.
“The work literalises the Attention Economy. Here, attention itself becomes labour, your worth calculated in obedience to a screen. It mirrors what many workers already face: warehouse staff timed to the second, gig workers tracked by apps, and office workers monitored by keystroke loggers and cameras (...).”
Huei Yin Wong, the Trades Hall Art Prize 2025 winner
Her artwork will now join the permanent exhibition at the Trades Hall.
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Why does work surveillance matter?Under current legislation, Australian employers can use AI to collect workers’ personal data — from background and health history to social life — without breaching privacy laws. Employee records are excluded from the Privacy Act, meaning there is no legal protection against surveillance at work. This data can even be resold to advertisers, other employers or third parties. Our ongoing research shows AI is already being used to intimidate workers, discriminate, and even target union members or delegates. Shocking surveillance cases are multiplying, including in Victoria. Workers need stronger protections, clear limits on surveillance, and most importantly a seat at the table in shaping how these technologies are used.
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Victorian workers in union have been at the vanguard of resistance to these new threats. From the shop floor to the Federal Parliament, workers in union are demanding control over surveillance, automation, and all tech that impacts our systems of work.
Trades Hall’s submission to the Proposed Mandatory Guardrails for AI in High-Risk Settings can be viewed here.
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