– 1500x1500 px, mp4, audio, 160 frames each

Making Kin with Machines+

I invite systems, shaped by their own datasets of landscapes and creatures, to reinterpret the structures of my portrait. In doing so, I open a visual dialogue with the Other — whatever that Other may be, them, textures, data, patterns, or possible futures.

The work cycle consists of 10 audiovisual pieces that together form a larger composition. The works in this exhibition are part of my project “Is It Me or a Misunderstanding?”, in which I experiment with a new model of identity — a distributed one.

The loose connection between what is said (prompt) and what is done (result) – creates fascinating misunderstandings, which are at the core of this work cycle. For the visual layer I tasked a generative algorithm trained on landscapes and textures from the biological realms to interpret my portrait. Since faces are rarely part of the training set and my facial structure does not match any patterns derived from the trained images, the algorithm was forced out of its intended functionality. The acoustic layer stems from my audio work “I can’t find silence”. I tasked a generative algorithm with creating silence, yet it produced musical pieces that operationalized it instead of no sound. I combined this material with sounds created by various interpolating techniques. What lies between two samples? It is not emptiness but, in the logic of mathematical formalization, infinitely many additional samples. In either case, you cannot find silence.

I anchor my work in art history through Francesca Woodman’s self-portraits. I see them as attempts to disappear and reemerge as traces. She entwines her body with landscapes and ruins, becoming at once more and less than herself. This is what I aim for. I embed myself in data in search of a “we” – me and my agentic counterpart. But sitting in front of the screen, reflecting myself in the data, does not create a “we,” yet I am becoming many.

Making kin with machines: What if we used AI not to mirror ourselves, but to dissolve the boundaries of the self? Could this open toward a new understanding of identity — not as something we possess or describe, but as an ongoing process of becoming with our surroundings: algorithms, machines, social relations, biological systems, and our own bodies?