Anne Ampersand
a drag computer vision specialist working mainly as an outsourced producer of images synthesized by Machine Learning. Sometimes she is employed to pretend to be an AI assistant, other times to do work for which certain ML companies are still without a solution.
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FRAGMENTS: AUDIO NARRATION 5′, VIDEO 3’30”, DRAWING, 3D RENDERS, TATTOO TRANSFER DISSAMINATION PERFORMANCE
This fragmentary episode follows Anne Ampersand’s employment by an unknown chain of clubs and restaurants on the Adriatic coast, requesting unwanted items to be removed from a large number of stock photos acquired for promotional purposes. One of the unwanted ‘objects’ present in the image files is the Mediterranean Monk Seal. Ampersand notes that the number of photographs of the Mediterranean Monk Seal (less than 600) coincides with the number of surviving individuals of this highly endangered species of seal. Recognizing this coincidence as a type of magical entanglement, Ampersand seeks a way to preserve the cutout figures.
2022
GOLDEN WATERMELON
YOUNG ARTISTS AWARD — 1st PRIZE
PULA (CRO)
not just random & rare
PERFROMANCE, 25′
Her apartment, a found cardboard box, a hole and then Ampersand thinks about Alan Turing’s paper on pattern formation by reaction-diffusion The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis, his death, her visual memory and the nostalgia machine. Also, Dominik Brandibur made these pants.
2021
COMPLICITY OF ANONYMUS MATERIALS
CURATED BY: DARKO VUKIĆ
PODGORICA (MNT)
GMK
ZAGREB (CRO)
ANTISEZONA: ANTIREPERTOAR
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART
ZAGREB (CRO)
Foaming in her eyes
ONLINE-PERFORMANCE SERIES, FOUR 30′ EPISODES
An online-performance series by drag specialist in computer ophthalmology Anne Ampersand. Each 30 minute episode consists of choreographed layers of sequences featuring amorphous talking heads, blurry alien landscapes and estranged objects produced by feeding curated Image and video material from both found and personal archives into machine learning algorithms. Instead of analytically pointing to the issue of data bias, Anne Ampersand searches for moments in which the unincluded still manages to make an appearance. Like an air bubble stuck between signal and noise, its presence is felt as a movement trapped in digital matter. A foam, popping and rippling in different rhythms.
2020
EPISODE 1-2
SALON MLADIH
ZAGREB (CRO)
2021
EPISODE 3
UTOPIA OF EXTENDED HERE & NOW
ZAGREB (CRO)
RE-CONNECT FESTIVAL
TEHRAN (IR)
Foaming Lab
DRAG WORKSHOP
PHOTO — AMY PICKLES & MARTIN SIEWEKE
2022
KIN(S)SCORES
CURATED BY: LILIA MESTRE & GODA PALAKAITE
APASS, BRUSSELS (BE)
2023
COVERT TECHNOLOGIES #1
VARIA, ROTTERDAM (NL)
Featured image — not just random & rare, 2021