Anna Ridler
Anna Ridler is a London-based artist working with self-generated data sets and the creative potential of machine learning.
Intro:
Anna Ridler is interested in working with collections of information or data, particularly self-generated data sets, to create new and unusual narratives in a variety of mediums, and how new technologies, such as machine learning, can be used to translate them to an audience. She is currently working with and researching the creative potential of machine learning, and how it relates to drawing and painting.
Selected AI Artworks:
Anna Ridler on using Artificial Intelligence:
How important do you think it is for artists to be interrogating machine learning and artificial intelligence?
“Extremely important. Art can do multiple things. It can provide a way of engaging with machine learning for people who are outside academia or technology, particularly engaging with some of the moral and ethical debates around it. Without people outside the computer science community engaging with these ideas and interrogating them, they will be developed inside a bubble. Art can also suggest new ways of working with this technology. I was recently at a conference where there was a lot of discussion about how science fiction has influenced technology and I think there is the potential for art to do the same thing with machine learning. Finally, for me, in my work, machine learning is a tool, just like ink or charcoal. It does different things and offers a different history when you choose to work with it. Its importance will only increase. To ignore it just seems to be willful.”
What was the initial idea behind Drawing with Sound?
“I took all of the life drawings that I did over two years and scanned them. Then I broke them into grids and used something called a t-SNE to group the marks (so all of the diagonal lines together, all of the straight lines together, etc) to work out what were the marks that I most commonly made in my work. I then worked with a composer Ben Heim to think about what these marks would sound like. It’s not only about what the lines would sound like when drawn: the act of drawing was very important to the piece. Drawing is of course both a verb and a noun. It reacts to the process – a line coming from one direction will generate a different sound to a line coming from the other. A semi-circle will start a sound that will move smoothly into a full circle. Making sure that all of the sounds that make up the composite parts of shapes that I commonly draw worked together sonically was actually very difficult.”
For a piece that uses a lot of technology, Drawing with Sound really foregrounds the human body. To what degree would you say this foregrounding is a reaction against the technology in your work?
“I don’t think it’s a reaction to technology, it’s more a way of trying to use technology in new or perhaps more seamless ways. Things like machine learning now allow to do things that 15, 20 years ago would have been in the realm of fiction. I’m not using AI to critique AI, but rather using AI to push what drawing can be into new realms. Part of doing this is by trying to use it with the body, by making it real and tangible and not just hidden away on a screen.”
Ridler’s Background:
Ridler is an artist and researcher who lives and works in London. She has degrees from the Royal College of Art, Oxford University, University of Arts London and have shown at a variety of cultural institutions and galleries including Ars Electronica, Sheffield Documentary Festival, Leverhulme Centre for Future Intelligence, Tate Modern and the V&A. She is a recipient of the 2018 European Media Art Program and the winner of the 2018-2019 Dare Art Prize. She has been commissioned by Opera North, Live Cinema UK and Impakt Festival to create works.
Ridlers’s Selected Awards, Fellowships, and Residencies:
2019 Honorary Mention Prix Ars Electronica in category “Artificial Intelligence and Life Art”
2019 UAL Creative Computing Institute Fellowship
2019 Residency, Tetley, Leeds
2018-19 Residency, Opera North
2018 Residency, Impakt Artist in Residence, EMAP/EMARE, Utrecht
2018 Residency, Blitz Residency, Valetta
2018 Adobe Award for Best Creative use of Technology at European Conference for Computer Vision
2018 EMAP Fellow
2018 DARE Art Prize
Ridler’s Selected Group and Solo Exhibitions:
2019 AI and Art, Today Art Museum, Beijing
2019 Lying Sophia and Mocking Alexa, Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing
2019 Cryptobloom, Espacio E+T Foundation Telefonica, Mexico City
2019 Dreaming, Automated, Robert L. Ringel Gallery Purdue Univeristy, USA
2019 Screen Shots: Desire and Automated Image, Galleri Image, Aarhus
2019 Touching From A Distance II, Goethe Media Space, Toronto
2019 Artistic Intelligence, Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover
2019 New Technologies, New Visions, Geffen Contemporary Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles
2018 Error: The Art of Imperfection, Ars Electronica Export, Berlin
2018 AGENCY, Nome Gallery, Berlin
2018 Post Truth: Algorithmic Superstructures, Impakt, Utrecht
2018 Traces of Things, Blitz Gallery, Valetta
2018 The Line Up: The Power of Drawing, Centraal Museum, Utrecht
2018 Touching from a Distance: Transmediations in the Digital Age, Literhaus, Berlin
Ridler’s Selected Invited Talks:
Machine Learning in a Creative Practise, Hek Basel, June 2019
Stanley meet Alexa, AI and Filmmaking, BFI, May 2019
AI and Creativity: what makes us human?, Barbican, May 2019Machine Learning in a Creative Practise, International Symposium on Computational Media Art, January 2019
The Artistic Potential of Data Sets, Post Binary Conference, Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, November 2018
Using Technology Creatively, Science and Media Museum, October 2018
AI in Art, FACT Liverpool, October 2018
Datasets and Decay, V&A Museum (Digital Design Weekend), September 2018
Data and Training Sets in an Artistic Practise, European Conference of Computer Vision, September 2018
Art in an Age of Computational Creativity, Forecast Forum, HKW, May 2018
The Artistic Potential of Computer Vision, ZKM, April 2018
Deep Fake or Rendering the Truth, Impakt Festival, April 2018
Join the Resistance, Sheffield Documentary Festival, June 2017
New Forms, BFI, June 2017
Action Tells His Story: Language and Machine Learning, Language Games Conference, Chelsea College of Art, May 2017
Ridler’s Selected Press:
2019 “17th century Tulip Mania is alive and well on the blockchain”
2019 “Anna Ridler uses AI to turn 10,000 tulips into a video controlled by bitcoin”
2019 “BBC Free Thinking: AI and Creativity - what makes us human?”
2019 “AI: More than Human”
2019 “Digitales Tulpenfieber”
2019 “Artificial Intelligence as a Godlike Tool for Experimentation: Forging the Gods”
2019 “Malen nach zahlen” (Painting by Numbers)
2019 “Artificial intelligence: the art world’s weird and wonderful new medium”
Learn more about Anna Ridler:
Ridler’s website: http://annaridler.com/
Ridler’s Twitter: @annaridler
Ridler’s Instagram: @annaridler