Jake Elwes

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Jake Elwes
Jake Elwes speaking at Gazelli Art House 2021, photo by Gretchen Andrew
BornJuly 1993 (1993-07) (age 30)
London, United Kingdom
EducationSlade School of Fine Art
Central Saint Martins
Known forDigital art, Conceptual art, Queer art, Artificial intelligence art, New media art
Parent(s)Anneke and Luke Elwes
Websitejakeelwes.com

Jake Elwes is a British media artist, hacker, radical faerie, neuroqueer, and researcher. Their practice is the exploration of artificial intelligence (AI), queer theory and technical biases.[1] They are known for using AI to create art in mediums such as video, performance and installation.[2] Their work on queering technology addresses issues caused by the normative biases of artificial intelligence.[3][1]

Education and early life

Elwes (pronounced "El-wez") was born in London to Anneke and Luke Elwes a British contemporary artist and painter. They studied at the Slade School of Fine Art from 2013 to 2017, where they began using computer code as a medium.[2] In 2016 they attended the School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe in Berlin with artist and educator Gene Kogan.[2] Elwes was introduced to drag performance by Dr Joe Parslow[4] who holds a Phd in drag performance; drag performance has since become instrumental to Elwes' work.[1]

Career

Zizi - Queering the Dataset, 2019 - film stills

Elwes' work with artificial intelligence is cited as a hopeful strategy to make AI more playful and diverse.[5] They were a 2021 finalist for the Lumen Prize,[6] and received the Honorary Mention of the 2022 Prix Ars Electronica in the Interactive Art + category.[7][8] They have exhibited in museums and galleries in Europe and Asia including Gazelli Art House,[9] Arebyte gallery,[1][10] ZKM,[11] the Onassis Foundation,[12] Zabludowicz Foundation,[13] AIIIII Art Center,[14] Today Art Museum,[15] and the Victoria and Albert Museum.[16]

Installations projecting conversations between two neural networks

Elwes has created works based on the conversations between two neural networks including Closed Loop from 2017 and Auto-Encoded Buddha from 2016. In Auto-Encoded Buddha, a computer struggles with the notion of Buddha's philosophy. This is Elwes' tribute to Nam June Paik's TV Buddha (1974).[2]

The Zizi Project - a deepfake drag cabaret

The Zizi Show 2020, montage of deepfake drag artists

The Zizi Project is a series of works that explore the interaction of drag and A.I. Currently, Zizi is made up of three projects.

Zizi - Queering the Dataset (2019)

Knowing that facial recognition technology statically struggle to recognize black women or transgender people, Elwes set out to "Queer the Dataset" through an open-sourced generative adversarial network (GAN). Elwes added a dataset of 1,000 photos of drag kings and queens into the GAN's 70,000 faces collected in a dataset called Flickr-Faces-HQ Dataset (FFHQ). They then created new simulacra faces, known as deep fakes.[1]

Zizi & Me (2020)

Zizi & Me is a performance and video installation that shows a joint performance between drag queen 'Me The Drag Queen' and her deepfake A.I. clone.[17]

The Zizi Show (2020)

The Zizi Show is a deep fake drag act based on artificial intelligence (AI). It has been presented live and as interactive online artwork. It is an exploration of queer culture and the algorithms philosophy and ethics of AI.[18]

CUSP

CUSP 2019 - film still
CUSP 2019 - montage of machine learning generated birds

In their video work CUSP (2019) Elwes places marsh birds generated using artificial intelligence into a tidal landscape. These digitally generated and constantly shifting birds are recorded in dialogue with native birds. The video work is also accompanied by a soundscape of artificially generated bird song.[19]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Meet the artist queering AI technology". The Independent. 30 July 2021. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d "Episode I. Artificial Intelligence and Drag Performance: Jake Elwes's "The Zizi Project" |". Flash Art. 23 October 2020. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  3. ^ Condliffe, Jamie (15 November 2019). "The Week in Tech: Algorithmic Bias Is Bad. Uncovering It Is Good". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
  4. ^ "CSSD Staff Profiles -Dr Joe Parslow". www.cssd.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
  5. ^ Gleadell, Colin (19 February 2019). "Can AI be a big hitter in the art world? Sotheby's first AI work at auction could sell for £40,000". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  6. ^ "Inside A.I. Art". The Lumen Prize. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
  7. ^ "Inside A.I. Art". The Lumen Prize. Retrieved 12 September 2022.
  8. ^ "Prix Ars Electronica 2022". calls.ars.electronica.art. Retrieved 12 September 2022.
  9. ^ "Zizi - Queering the Dataset | Artsy". www.artsy.net. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  10. ^ "Cede Control of Your Web Browser to This High Tech Exhibition". ocula.com. 27 September 2021. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  11. ^ "Jake Elwes | ZKM". zkm.de. Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  12. ^ "Jake Elwes". www.onassis.org. Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  13. ^ Collection, Zabludowicz. "Jake Elwes | Artist". Zabludowicz Collection. Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  14. ^ "Jake Elwes_Aiiiii Art Center". www.aiiiii.com. Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  15. ^ "TODAY ART MUSEUM | Future of Today·DE JA VU". www.todayartmuseum.com. Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  16. ^ "The Art of Photography". The Open Art Fair. 16 September 2021. Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  17. ^ "The New Real, Edinburgh Futures Institute - The Zizi Project". www.newreal.cc. Retrieved 22 October 2022.
  18. ^ Wade, Mike. "'Deep fake' drag act is the new reality". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
  19. ^ "AIArtists.org - Our Featured Artists". aiartists.org. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
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