gretchen
Hacks systems of power with art, code, and glitter
CHAPTER 4
SUBJECTS
These Portraits are On Canvas Battles with AI & Algorithms.
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While produced with digital processes and custom robotics the works are oil paintings.
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These oil on canvas portraits are exploring 3 subjects
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Selfies & Celebrities - We see selfie feminism clash with the normalizing impact of popular algorithms. We see some of today’s most famous bodies and selfies subjected to the controlling influence of the algorithm.
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"Likeness" / Reverse Uncanny Valley - While traditional portraits seek to capture a likeness, Facetune Portraits express a certain futility of the likeness in a world in which many of us are using homogenizing and normalizing algorithms to represent ourselves online in an image environment in which each of us is so controlling as to how we are perceived. As a result, some of the portraits end up looking like an AI generated person attempting, and largely failing, to look real - the Uncanny Valley in reverse.
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"Natural Settings" - “Natural” is a preset of AI-driven algorithms within the popular BodyTune app that makes a person within a photograph skinnier and taller. By naming this preset feature “Natural” there is a purposefully created myth that the act of modifying likenesses is somehow opposite of artificial.