2024
Happiness Machine
Installation ‘Happiness machine’
[Pose-landmark detection system, Camera, Aluminium,
Irrigation nozzle, Tube, Water]
110 x 110 x 150 cm
2024
Sculpture ‘BLOB #2’
[Wet Clay]
90 x 70 x 60 cm
2024
[Pose-landmark detection system, Camera, Aluminium,
Irrigation nozzle, Tube, Water]
110 x 110 x 150 cm
2024
Sculpture ‘BLOB #2’
[Wet Clay]
90 x 70 x 60 cm
2024
In the gaze of algorithms, human bodies are sculpted by data flows. Surveillance systems track how we move and express, while moulding us into simplified, predefined forms. These systems prioritize basic emotional states, fueling emotions like happiness. Treated as malleable data containers, BLOBs (Binary Large Objects), we are reduced to the data we produce or lack. Simplified to analyzable shapes, we are left with only the most basic expressive features."
In this installation, the clay sculpture embodies this condition. Shaped in a predefined "happy" pose to satisfy the pose recognition system, its survival depends on water. A feedback mechanism irrigates only when its form aligns with the algorithm's expectations. Yet, this act of validation, meant to preserve, gradually strips it of its identity. Too much water risks dissolution, softening the figure, while too little causes it to dry out and crumbles away, returning back to soil. Here, the act of being seen becomes both a lifeline and a form of erasure, caught between becoming and being in systems that prize visibility over human complexity.
Teaser
2022
OUR MIND AS A HOST
Video Installation
[Database with 1866 images,
321 sounds of parasites
and surveillance technologies]
750 x 300 cm
Documentation video
New species are entering our world and living at our expense. As parasites, hidden surveillance technologies are preying and feeding on us. When they find a weak spot, their biometric algorithms crawl under our skin without consent. They modify behavior, interpret and maybe even shape one’s being, often without us noticing.
A database of 1866 images and 321 sounds of parasites and surveillance technologies is assembled. Their appearance and behavior is compared, like surveillance algorithms and parasitologists do to analyze their find. In the montage, a mental phenomenon is used, where the viewer creates- from two images, a third image in te brain. Therefore,these images are expected to interact in the mind of the viewer; even though they are in reality unrelated. Visual similarities lead the edit, and ‘‘control’’ the viewer’s eyes over the screen. As unpredictable and elusive parasites and surveillance technologies are, the images appear a-rhythmic, in different sizes and places, which makes it hard to isolate and identify one byitself.
So the work is, as a parasite in the brain, manipulating perception -and can only exist- in our mind as a host.
2024
Lifetime Approval Rate 96%
Sculpture ‘HAND 14’
[Silicone]
21x18 cm
2023
Mechanical Sculpture ‘HAND 21’
[Silicone, Mechanics]
23x17 cm
2023
Video Installation ‘Lifetime Approval Rate 96%’
[Annotation work on A training platform,
Laion-5B Database, Recorded heartbeat,
Raspberry pi, LCD Screens, Speaker]
Variable size
2024
Sculpture ‘Training data’
[Silicone]
Variable size
2023
[Silicone]
21x18 cm
2023
Mechanical Sculpture ‘HAND 21’
[Silicone, Mechanics]
23x17 cm
2023
Video Installation ‘Lifetime Approval Rate 96%’
[Annotation work on A training platform,
Laion-5B Database, Recorded heartbeat,
Raspberry pi, LCD Screens, Speaker]
Variable size
2024
Sculpture ‘Training data’
[Silicone]
Variable size
2023
Documentation video
Hands, central to human expression and labor, have long carried hidden emotions and involuntary messages. Once symbols of resilience and alienation in the shift from manual craftsmanship to mechanized industry, hands now navigate the blurred boundaries between physical and digital spaces. In Ilse Kind’s work, hands take on new meaning within the digital age, shaped by Artificial Intelligence.
This dual installation features Hand 14, Hand 21, Hand 45 and Hand 71, sculptures that physically resemble AI-generated hands: distorted and anatomically flawed. Their unfamiliar gestures signal the hidden dependence of AI systems on human resources; particularly those of undervalued annotation workers. Their hands, compelled by economic necessity, tirelessly train AI systems what human reality looks like. This dynamic reflects how human labor is quietly absorbed and discarted to create the illusion of autonomous technology, leaving their contributions obscured and unacknowledged.
The video work Lifetime Approval Rate 96% reveals these hidden mechanisms, offering a glimpse into the biases interwoven in databases, and the relentless, repetitive clicks that are the lifeline of AI systems.
By blending AI-generated forms with their human origins, the installation explores the hidden relationship between creator and creation exposing the pervasive extraction of value from the hands that sustain our evolving technological ecosystem.
[Accompanying essay ’Handwerker; a human resource farm’ on request ︎]
2022
SPONSORED
Book ‘Sponsored’
[Ink on paper, saddle stitch binding]
21 x 21 cm (1080 x 1920 px)
2022
New dummy in production
[Ink on paper, saddle stitch binding]
21 x 21 cm (1080 x 1920 px)
2022
New dummy in production
‘’The relationship with my phone used to feel like a one-way relationship. But now it is getting more intelligent and is able to talk back sometimes. Swiping from advertisement to advertisement, I’m in a continuous feedback loop of who I consciously- but also unconsciously am. Or maybe; of who I should be?’’
This ongoing conversation is laid bare in a photobook novel, where brutally honest data is kept chronologically. The feedback loop manifests itself directly, with a huge delay, or not at all. It is not always clear what influences what, yet biases present themselves. In the narrative, elements like maintaining a healthy lifestyle, migration and being in a relationship are misconstrued as signs of pregnancy, contrary to reality. These assumptions found in the personalized ads, result in a distored self-perception. As the story unfolds, the ads seem to take sides, endorsing the partner's perspective in conflicts and subtly probing whether the user is trapped in a toxic relationship. Initially promoting casual alcohol consumption and dating, the ads gradually escalate to the point of advocating behaviors that result in liver problems and sexually transmitted diseases.
2021 - now
PAREIDOLIA ‘SELFIE’ & ‘ANXYIETY ATTACK’
Prints ’Selfie’
[Hacked surveillance cameras,
crystalgloss dibont print]
Variable sizes
2021 - now
Video ’Anxiety Attack’
[Hacked surveillance camera,
Image recognition tagging system,
Sound Design by MYNRG ]
1920 x 1080px
08:55
2022
[Hacked surveillance cameras,
crystalgloss dibont print]
Variable sizes
2021 - now
Video ’Anxiety Attack’
[Hacked surveillance camera,
Image recognition tagging system,
Sound Design by MYNRG ]
1920 x 1080px
08:55
2022
Over 770 million security cameras worldwide are watching over us. Even though, they are here to secure us from danger -like yet another god who is always by our side- it is easy to enter their minds and become a viewer through their eyes. While breaking into surveillance cameras, I started to feel empathy for them. I developed the tendency to recognize animalistic- and human traits in security systems. A sense of pareidolia might even occur to them -the security systems- as well. Seeing familiarities where there are none.
How do they view themselves? Who’s domesticating who?
