Content Form:APRJA 13 Esther Rizo Casado - Revision history

Geoffcox at 13:29, 10 November 2024

2024-11-10T13:29:06Z

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	[[File:ERC Figure 12.jpg\|thumb\|600px\|Figure 12: Frames of a colonoscopy video and the algorithmic prediction of the next frame. Source: Xenoimage Dataset archive.]]		[[File:ERC Figure 12.jpg\|thumb\|600px\|Figure 12: Frames of a colonoscopy video and the algorithmic prediction of the next frame. Source: Xenoimage Dataset archive.]]

	== ~~Results~~ ==		== Outcomes ==
	The co-creation of a dataset with 18,000 images serves as an example of questioning and disrupting the context of human identities through the lens of speculative feminism. We tested how image-generative algorithms can lead the universal imaginary to ambiguous spaces with transformative potential. This prototype is the refunctionalisation of image databases in xeno-keys through the elaboration of protocols that alter and stimulate visual imaginaries outside of current normative identities. Feeding and collapsing networked imaginaries with liminal, non-binary materials and thus forming realities detached from cultural identity conditioning factors, algorithms have been able to generate a multiplicity of xeno-tuned visions.		The co-creation of a dataset with 18,000 images serves as an example of questioning and disrupting the context of human identities through the lens of speculative feminism. We tested how image-generative algorithms can lead the universal imaginary to ambiguous spaces with transformative potential. This prototype is the refunctionalisation of image databases in xeno-keys through the elaboration of protocols that alter and stimulate visual imaginaries outside of current normative identities. Feeding and collapsing networked imaginaries with liminal, non-binary materials and thus forming realities detached from cultural identity conditioning factors, algorithms have been able to generate a multiplicity of xeno-tuned visions.

Geoffcox at 09:58, 15 October 2024

2024-10-15T09:58:19Z

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	= Xeno-Tuning =		= Xeno-Tuning =
	= Dissolving ~~hegemonic identities~~ in ~~algorithmic multiplicity~~ =		= Dissolving Hegemonic Identities in Algorithmic Multiplicity =

	== Abstract ==		== Abstract ==
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	The study of xenoimages, initiated by the artist Mar Osés, and continued during the participatory lab ''Sintient Media,'' in 2022, in the contemporary cultural centre Medialab Matadero, Madrid, created along the lines of Amy Ireland's ''Xenopoetics'' (155), leaving aside the importance of authorship by collective thinking processes. Since then, and following the premise that "virtual images are not objects that can be created all at once, but processes in progress" (Bottici 61), the search for xenoimages has become a long-term investigation developed by the collective ''XenoVisual Studies'' (XVS). In addition to testing different creative and experimental exercises, the collective organises exhibitions and knowledge transfer activities with citizens from Madrid and Buenos Aires, and cybernauts around the globe. In these gatherings different intelligences, especially those affected by identity biases, come together with the objective of generating consciousness about current oppressive algorithmic imaginaries.		The study of xenoimages, initiated by the artist Mar Osés, and continued during the participatory lab ''Sintient Media,'' in 2022, in the contemporary cultural centre Medialab Matadero, Madrid, created along the lines of Amy Ireland's ''Xenopoetics'' (155), leaving aside the importance of authorship by collective thinking processes. Since then, and following the premise that "virtual images are not objects that can be created all at once, but processes in progress" (Bottici 61), the search for xenoimages has become a long-term investigation developed by the collective ''XenoVisual Studies'' (XVS). In addition to testing different creative and experimental exercises, the collective organises exhibitions and knowledge transfer activities with citizens from Madrid and Buenos Aires, and cybernauts around the globe. In these gatherings different intelligences, especially those affected by identity biases, come together with the objective of generating consciousness about current oppressive algorithmic imaginaries.

	== The ~~homophilic context~~ ==		== The Homophilic Context ==
	Authors have been pointing to a homogenisation of human identity through contexts like scientific eurocentric hegemony, bureaucratic categorisation, work automatisation and social alienation. Postmodern feminist Rosi Braidotti rejects unitary identities modelled on the humanist, normative, and Eurocentric context (52). Franco Berardi describes work automation not as something to do with software but as the replication of these entrenched intentionalities and established forms of human relations (113). Stuart Levine and Marshall McLuhan argue that technology forces us into the entanglement of thoughts, desires, and passions of our fellow human beings as an alienation process (646). Lastly, Remedios Zafra warns us that the times we live in favour categories that hinder a necessary detour from excess and acceleration (102).		Authors have been pointing to a homogenisation of human identity through contexts like scientific eurocentric hegemony, bureaucratic categorisation, work automatisation and social alienation. Postmodern feminist Rosi Braidotti rejects unitary identities modelled on the humanist, normative, and Eurocentric context (52). Franco Berardi describes work automation not as something to do with software but as the replication of these entrenched intentionalities and established forms of human relations (113). Stuart Levine and Marshall McLuhan argue that technology forces us into the entanglement of thoughts, desires, and passions of our fellow human beings as an alienation process (646). Lastly, Remedios Zafra warns us that the times we live in favour categories that hinder a necessary detour from excess and acceleration (102).

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	[[File:ERC Figure 2.jpg\|thumb\|600px\|Figure 2: People of the Twenty-First Century (Eijkelboom).]]		[[File:ERC Figure 2.jpg\|thumb\|600px\|Figure 2: People of the Twenty-First Century (Eijkelboom).]]

	== The Xeno ~~tendency~~ ==		== The Xeno Tendency ==
	Xenofeminists believe in new rationalism, and by that they understand all kinds of intelligences (human and non-human) to be found in the xeno, the unknown, a force of speculating new worlds like anti-identitarian futures. Furthermore, this cyberfeminism contextualises the xeno in the world of technology, as new technological incorporations are often seen as entities that do not fit the organic or physical world, difficult to understand, and therefore weird.		Xenofeminists believe in new rationalism, and by that they understand all kinds of intelligences (human and non-human) to be found in the xeno, the unknown, a force of speculating new worlds like anti-identitarian futures. Furthermore, this cyberfeminism contextualises the xeno in the world of technology, as new technological incorporations are often seen as entities that do not fit the organic or physical world, difficult to understand, and therefore weird.

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	Another value of xenofeminism has to do with its anti-naturalist approach which does not understand nature and technology as separate entities. Following Mark Fisher's theory about ''The Weird and the Eerie'' (58), in which the 'weird' tends to live away from anthropocentric and normative landscapes, and inhabits the world of liminality, with its continuous mutations. It cannot be described as pure human or non-human, female or male, inside or outside. A relevant example of this non-binarism in the weird is the uncanny valley: when anthropomorphic replicas, like robots, come too close to our appearance and behaviour, we cannot classify them as human or machine, and it causes a rejection response when we observe or interact with them. XVS takes this uncanny valley feeling as a strategy for exploring unexplored spaces.		Another value of xenofeminism has to do with its anti-naturalist approach which does not understand nature and technology as separate entities. Following Mark Fisher's theory about ''The Weird and the Eerie'' (58), in which the 'weird' tends to live away from anthropocentric and normative landscapes, and inhabits the world of liminality, with its continuous mutations. It cannot be described as pure human or non-human, female or male, inside or outside. A relevant example of this non-binarism in the weird is the uncanny valley: when anthropomorphic replicas, like robots, come too close to our appearance and behaviour, we cannot classify them as human or machine, and it causes a rejection response when we observe or interact with them. XVS takes this uncanny valley feeling as a strategy for exploring unexplored spaces.

	== The ~~slow cancellation~~ of ~~hardware~~-based ~~future~~ ==		== The Slow Cancellation of Hardware-based Future ==
	Accelerationists like Mark Fisher conjure that nowadays "culture has lost the ability to grasp and articulate the present. Or it could be that, in one very important sense, there is no present to grasp and articulate anymore" (54). Their stated reason is "a lack of imagination" in late capitalist society. Simon Reynolds, on the other hand, argues that what has been dying is a certain metallic-robotic aesthetic, and that futurism lives in a surprisingly organic way (Reynolds); not only organic in the sense that this term is usually given, but full of organs like (artificially intelligent) brains. We can confirm this aesthetic turn by comparing the Kraftwerkian futuristic style of the 1970s, metallic and wiring, hardware heavy and robot-centric, in contrast with the futurability that emerges from software-based examples like applying distorting voice techniques, auto-tune, to human voices (Reynolds 11-19), artificial filters to our faces, or the poetry in fictional theory: "She becomes the Body without Sex Organs: The body in a virtual state, ready to plug its desire into technocapital, becoming fused with technocapital as a molecular cyborg who is made flesh by the pharmaceutical-medical industry" (n1x).		Accelerationists like Mark Fisher conjure that nowadays "culture has lost the ability to grasp and articulate the present. Or it could be that, in one very important sense, there is no present to grasp and articulate anymore" (54). Their stated reason is "a lack of imagination" in late capitalist society. Simon Reynolds, on the other hand, argues that what has been dying is a certain metallic-robotic aesthetic, and that futurism lives in a surprisingly organic way (Reynolds); not only organic in the sense that this term is usually given, but full of organs like (artificially intelligent) brains. We can confirm this aesthetic turn by comparing the Kraftwerkian futuristic style of the 1970s, metallic and wiring, hardware heavy and robot-centric, in contrast with the futurability that emerges from software-based examples like applying distorting voice techniques, auto-tune, to human voices (Reynolds 11-19), artificial filters to our faces, or the poetry in fictional theory: "She becomes the Body without Sex Organs: The body in a virtual state, ready to plug its desire into technocapital, becoming fused with technocapital as a molecular cyborg who is made flesh by the pharmaceutical-medical industry" (n1x).

	Having placed the chosen aesthetic in this soft-organic context, I will explain the different techniques on which xenoimage production is based.		Having placed the chosen aesthetic in this soft-organic context, I will explain the different techniques on which xenoimage production is based.

	== Artificial ~~imagination~~ and ~~xeno~~-tuning ==		== Artificial Imagination and Xeno-tuning ==
	Image generation and algorithmic prediction can learn from past acts and speculate about the future, but if the algorithm does not identify a statistically matched visual option in its prediction, it will practise apophenia by finding meaning in random stimuli. Not only will it invent the next image, but it will also be able to see shapes in the noise, and can produce an infinite number of variations. Following the tactic that xenofeminism uses for gender abolitionism (Hester) – advocating for a plurality of gender identities that transcend binary and rigid categories – XVS uses multiplication of fictional identities as a fluid where hegemony goes unnoticed, getting lost in the immensity of the archive. Experiments with the representation of bodies in art need not follow laws. We can explore themes of identity and anti-identity through digital fluidity which allows us to test visual incognitas: at what point does a human body cease to look capitalised, binary, human?		Image generation and algorithmic prediction can learn from past acts and speculate about the future, but if the algorithm does not identify a statistically matched visual option in its prediction, it will practise apophenia by finding meaning in random stimuli. Not only will it invent the next image, but it will also be able to see shapes in the noise, and can produce an infinite number of variations. Following the tactic that xenofeminism uses for gender abolitionism (Hester) – advocating for a plurality of gender identities that transcend binary and rigid categories – XVS uses multiplication of fictional identities as a fluid where hegemony goes unnoticed, getting lost in the immensity of the archive. Experiments with the representation of bodies in art need not follow laws. We can explore themes of identity and anti-identity through digital fluidity which allows us to test visual incognitas: at what point does a human body cease to look capitalised, binary, human?

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	[[File:ERC Figure 8.jpg\|thumb\|600px\|Figure 8: Faces generated with ''This Person does not Exist'' and modified with StyleGAN2. Resource: Xenoimage Dataset archive.]]		[[File:ERC Figure 8.jpg\|thumb\|600px\|Figure 8: Faces generated with ''This Person does not Exist'' and modified with StyleGAN2. Resource: Xenoimage Dataset archive.]]

	== Computational ~~prevision~~ ==		== Computational Prevision ==
	Until computer vision, the only way for machines to predict, for example, the weather was through numerical models and measurements. Since algorithms can see, they analyse the images they capture to learn from them. Once they learn, they create speculative images of what might happen in the future based on what has already happened. This gives rise to forms of machine creation such as next-frame prediction (Zhou), synthetic apophenia (Parikka), and nowcasting. Nowcasting techniques, widely used in foresight practices such as meteorology, demonstrate how the very act of capturing images of the real world and recording them leads to a calculable future: images give rise to other images. Next-frame prediction algorithms can learn from past acts and speculate on the future, but if the algorithm does not find a statistically matching visual option in its prediction, it will practise apophenia: sensing meaning in random stimuli (Steyerl). Not only will it invent the next frame, but it will also be able to see shapes in the noise (Nguyen).		Until computer vision, the only way for machines to predict, for example, the weather was through numerical models and measurements. Since algorithms can see, they analyse the images they capture to learn from them. Once they learn, they create speculative images of what might happen in the future based on what has already happened. This gives rise to forms of machine creation such as next-frame prediction (Zhou), synthetic apophenia (Parikka), and nowcasting. Nowcasting techniques, widely used in foresight practices such as meteorology, demonstrate how the very act of capturing images of the real world and recording them leads to a calculable future: images give rise to other images. Next-frame prediction algorithms can learn from past acts and speculate on the future, but if the algorithm does not find a statistically matching visual option in its prediction, it will practise apophenia: sensing meaning in random stimuli (Steyerl). Not only will it invent the next frame, but it will also be able to see shapes in the noise (Nguyen).

Christianvonand at 11:24, 11 October 2024

2024-10-11T11:24:08Z

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	Fisher, Mark. ''Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures''. John Hunt Publishing, 2014.		Fisher, Mark. ''Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures''. John Hunt Publishing, 2014.

	Fisher, Mark. '''Lo raro y lo Espeluznante''' [The Weird and the Eerie]. Caja Negra, 2018.		Fisher, Mark. ''Lo raro y lo Espeluznante'' [The Weird and the Eerie]. Caja Negra, 2018.

	Germanidis, A. ''RunwayML''. RunwayML, 2018.		Germanidis, A. ''RunwayML''. RunwayML, 2018.

Christianvonand at 11:23, 11 October 2024

2024-10-11T11:23:28Z

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	Fisher, Mark. ''Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures''. John Hunt Publishing, 2014.		Fisher, Mark. ''Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures''. John Hunt Publishing, 2014.

	Fisher, Mark. Lo raro y lo Espeluznante [The Weird and the Eerie]. Caja Negra, 2018.		Fisher, Mark. '''Lo raro y lo Espeluznante''' [The Weird and the Eerie]. Caja Negra, 2018.

	Germanidis, A. ''RunwayML''. RunwayML, 2018.		Germanidis, A. ''RunwayML''. RunwayML, 2018.

Simoon at 12:23, 19 September 2024

2024-09-19T12:23:15Z

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			'''Esther Rizo Casado '''
	__NOTOC__		__NOTOC__
	~~'''Esther Rizo Casado '''~~

	<span class="running-header">Xeno-Tuning</span>		<span class="running-header">Xeno-Tuning</span>

Geoffcox at 12:55, 7 September 2024

2024-09-07T12:55:40Z

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	'''Esther Rizo Casado '''		'''Esther Rizo Casado '''

	<span class="running-header">Xeno-Tuning~~: Dissolving hegemonic identities in algorithmic multiplicity~~</span>		<span class="running-header">Xeno-Tuning</span>

	= Xeno-Tuning =		= Xeno-Tuning =

Geoffcox at 11:49, 7 September 2024

2024-09-07T11:49:39Z

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	<div class="page-break"></div>		<div class="page-break"></div>
	~~== ==~~
	The production of images has a crucial role in prospective thinking since we need to picture the future to face it. The Palaeolithic Chauvet cave was found with evidence on how hunters first painted the beasts they were going to kill and even stuck arrows on them, as if killing their image would put an end to anticipatory uncertainty. This study is based on the practice of creating a collection of images generated by artificial intelligence (AI) representing fictional and weird bodies. These bodies are not of the beasts we prepare to hunt; they are a visual imaginary where the multiplicity of represented identities enable "the right of everyone to speak as no one in particular" (Laboria Cuboniks). As the critical designers Dunne and Raby convey in their manifesto on speculative design: "We rarely develop scenarios that suggest how things should be because it becomes too didactic and even more moralistic. For us futures are not a destination or something to be strived for but a medium to aid imaginative thought – to speculate with." (3)		The production of images has a crucial role in prospective thinking since we need to picture the future to face it. The Palaeolithic Chauvet cave was found with evidence on how hunters first painted the beasts they were going to kill and even stuck arrows on them, as if killing their image would put an end to anticipatory uncertainty. This study is based on the practice of creating a collection of images generated by artificial intelligence (AI) representing fictional and weird bodies. These bodies are not of the beasts we prepare to hunt; they are a visual imaginary where the multiplicity of represented identities enable "the right of everyone to speak as no one in particular" (Laboria Cuboniks). As the critical designers Dunne and Raby convey in their manifesto on speculative design: "We rarely develop scenarios that suggest how things should be because it becomes too didactic and even more moralistic. For us futures are not a destination or something to be strived for but a medium to aid imaginative thought – to speculate with." (3)

Simoon at 11:45, 7 September 2024

2024-09-07T11:45:42Z

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	__NOTOC__		__NOTOC__
	'''Esther Rizo Casado '''		'''Esther Rizo Casado '''

			<span class="running-header">Xeno-Tuning: Dissolving hegemonic identities in algorithmic multiplicity</span>

	= Xeno-Tuning =		= Xeno-Tuning =

Simoon at 10:32, 7 September 2024

2024-09-07T10:32:06Z

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	[[File:ERC Figure 11.jpg\|thumb\|600px\|Figure 11: Speculative video process. Source: author.]]		[[File:ERC Figure 11.jpg\|thumb\|600px\|Figure 11: Speculative video process. Source: author.]]

	[[File:ERC Figure 12.jpg\|thumb\|~~480px~~\|Figure 12: Frames of a colonoscopy video and the algorithmic prediction of the next frame. Source: Xenoimage Dataset archive.]]		[[File:ERC Figure 12.jpg\|thumb\|600px\|Figure 12: Frames of a colonoscopy video and the algorithmic prediction of the next frame. Source: Xenoimage Dataset archive.]]

	== Results ==		== Results ==

Simoon at 10:31, 7 September 2024

2024-09-07T10:31:10Z

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	The cybersphere that emerged in the 1990s was a text-based interaction where anonymity provided a safe space to experiment with components of human identity. The current democratisation of image-making and the dissemination of photographs and selfies through mobile phones and web 2.0 have become design tools for our digital selves. The real impact of these tools has been that companies are the decision-takers in identity matters. Images are detached from their representative or human functions (Farocki; Parikka and Gil-Fournier 11); even those created by humans, become data, therefore operational images, feeding algorithms. We have gone from being the creators and promoters of our self-image to leaving it in the hands of those who design algorithms. The main purpose of the companies that design algorithmic social communications is to feed our fear of not being socially accepted, based on a sense of belonging (Navarro). That is why society tends to favour homogenising imitation as a cultural generator and curator. The bulk of digital identity is nothing more than wanting to look like others (see Fig. 2).		The cybersphere that emerged in the 1990s was a text-based interaction where anonymity provided a safe space to experiment with components of human identity. The current democratisation of image-making and the dissemination of photographs and selfies through mobile phones and web 2.0 have become design tools for our digital selves. The real impact of these tools has been that companies are the decision-takers in identity matters. Images are detached from their representative or human functions (Farocki; Parikka and Gil-Fournier 11); even those created by humans, become data, therefore operational images, feeding algorithms. We have gone from being the creators and promoters of our self-image to leaving it in the hands of those who design algorithms. The main purpose of the companies that design algorithmic social communications is to feed our fear of not being socially accepted, based on a sense of belonging (Navarro). That is why society tends to favour homogenising imitation as a cultural generator and curator. The bulk of digital identity is nothing more than wanting to look like others (see Fig. 2).

	[[File:ERC Figure 2.jpg\|thumb\|~~480px~~\|Figure 2: People of the Twenty-First Century (Eijkelboom).]]		[[File:ERC Figure 2.jpg\|thumb\|600px\|Figure 2: People of the Twenty-First Century (Eijkelboom).]]

	== The Xeno tendency ==		== The Xeno tendency ==
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	Asking ourselves questions like 'are faces the ones that bear the burden of defining identity?', we also used the extant algorithm ''This Person Doesn't Exist'' (Wang) to generate human faces and xeno-tune them with Style-GAN 2.		Asking ourselves questions like 'are faces the ones that bear the burden of defining identity?', we also used the extant algorithm ''This Person Doesn't Exist'' (Wang) to generate human faces and xeno-tune them with Style-GAN 2.

	[[File:ERC Figure 8.jpg\|thumb\|~~480px~~\|Figure 8: Faces generated with ''This Person does not Exist'' and modified with StyleGAN2. Resource: Xenoimage Dataset archive.]]		[[File:ERC Figure 8.jpg\|thumb\|600px\|Figure 8: Faces generated with ''This Person does not Exist'' and modified with StyleGAN2. Resource: Xenoimage Dataset archive.]]

	== Computational prevision ==		== Computational prevision ==
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	Figure 11 shows another process for image generation using video frames: Pix-to-Pix (Isola). This GAN works with two databases. The first is composed by the frames from a real-time video, which in this case is a colonoscopy. The second is made with images generated with the algorithm exercise of predicting how the next frame of the video will look.		Figure 11 shows another process for image generation using video frames: Pix-to-Pix (Isola). This GAN works with two databases. The first is composed by the frames from a real-time video, which in this case is a colonoscopy. The second is made with images generated with the algorithm exercise of predicting how the next frame of the video will look.

	[[File:ERC Figure 11.jpg\|thumb\|~~480px~~\|Figure 11: Speculative video process. Source: author.]]		[[File:ERC Figure 11.jpg\|thumb\|600px\|Figure 11: Speculative video process. Source: author.]]

	[[File:ERC Figure 12.jpg\|thumb\|480px\|Figure 12: Frames of a colonoscopy video and the algorithmic prediction of the next frame. Source: Xenoimage Dataset archive.]]		[[File:ERC Figure 12.jpg\|thumb\|480px\|Figure 12: Frames of a colonoscopy video and the algorithmic prediction of the next frame. Source: Xenoimage Dataset archive.]]