Bio — Anna Ridler

Bio

b. 1986, HK.

BIO


 

Anna Ridler (b. 1985) is an artist and researcher who works with systems of knowledge and how technologies are created in order to better understand the world. She is particularly interested in ideas around measurement and quantification and how this relates to the natural world. Her process often involves working with collections of information or data, particularly datasets, to create new and unusual narratives

Ridler holds an MA in Information Experience Design from the Royal College of Art and a BA in English Literature and Language from Oxford University along with fellowships at the Creative Computing Institute at University of the Arts London (UAL). Her work has been exhibited at cultural institutions worldwide including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Barbican Centre, Centre Pompidou, HeK Basel, the ZKM Karlsruhe, Ars Electronica, Sheffield Documentary Festival and the Leverhulme Centre for Future Intelligence. She was a European Union EMAP fellow and the winner of the 2018-2019 DARE Art Prize. Ridler has received commissions by Salford University, the Photographers Gallery, Opera North, and Impakt Festival. She was listed as one of the nine “pioneering artists” exploring AI’s creative potential by Artnet and received an honorary mention in the 2019 Ars Electronica Golden Nica award for the category AI & Life Art. She was nominated for a “Beazley Designs of the Year” award in 2019 by the Design Museum for her work on datasets and categorisation.

Ridler lives and works in London.


CV

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023

Anna Ridler: Circadian Bloom, ZKM, Germany (15 January - 12 February)

2022

Circadian Bloom, Rueff Gallery West, Purdue University, USA (19 September - 7 October)

2020

Laws of Order and Form, The Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK (31 January - 30 March)

The Abstraction of Nature, Aksioma, Ljubljana, Slovenia (19 February - 18 March)

2019

Cryptobloom, A+T Espacio de Fundación Telefónica, Mexico City, Mexico (5-8 September)

Dreaming, Automated, Robert L. Ringel Gallery Purdue University, Indiana, USA (19 August - 27 September)

2018

Traces of Things, Blitz Gallery, Valletta, Malta (22-23 March)

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2023

Ars Electronica Export, Košice, Slovakia (July - September)

Lighten Up! On Biology and Time, EPFL Pavilions, Lausanne, Switzerland (23 March - 30 July)

Expect the Unexpected, Kunst Museum Bonn, Germany (16 February - 30 April)

Forever Flowers, Kunsthalle München, Germany (03 February - 27 August)

One Story Is Not Enough, India Habitat Centre, Delhi, India (25 January)

Nagel Draxler booth at Art Singapore, Singapore (12-15 January)

2022

Digital Serendipity, Akbank Art Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey (7 December - 11 February 2023)

Nagel Draxler booth at Art Cologne, Germany (16-21 November)

DYOR, Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland (08 October 2022 - 15 January 2023)

STARTS4Water, BOZAR, Brussels, Belgium (16 September - 30 October)

In Search of The Present, Espoo Museum of Modern Art (August - Feb 2023)

Kinetismus– 100 Years of Art and Electricity, Kunsthalle Praha, Prague (15 May - 30 September)

Web3 Aesthetics: In the Future Post-Hype of the NFTs, Anna Kultys Gallery, London, UK (6 - 16 May)

Natively Digital 1.3: Generative Art, Sotheby’s, New York, USA (19 - 24 April)

House of Mirrors: Artificial Intelligence as Phantasm, Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund, Germany (09 April - 31 July)

PHYGITAL, Kate Vass Galerie, Zürich, Switzerland (2022)

Flora, Kalyon Kültür, Istanbul, Turkey (19 January - 16 April)

2021

BioMedia, ZKM, Germany (18 December - 28 August 2022)

(un)Holy Light Festival, Leuven, Belgium (11 December  - 19 December)

Art Code, GROUND Solyanka Gallery, Moscow (December)

"BioMedia" ZKM, Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany, (27 November – 9 November 2022)

New Elements, The New State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia, (8 November - 9 March 2022)

Infrastructure, soft, hard, visible, invisible, The Auxiliary, Middlesbrough, UK, (30 September – 3 October)

Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival, Kasseler Kunstverein, (16 November - 21 November)

Reflections on the Water, Feral File (4  October)

Bias, Science Gallery Dublin, Ireland (13th September - December)

Contingent Systems, Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Ontario, Canada (16 September 16 - 6 November)

Artificial Intelligence - AI, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden, Germany (9 Sept - 29 August 2022)

AI: More than Human, Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural, Madrid, Spain (22 July - 9 Jan 2022)

New World Disorder, Werkleitz Centre for Media Art, Halle, Germany (17 June - 4 July)

Proof of Art, Francisco Carolinum, Linz, Austria(10 June - 15 September)

You and AI: Through the Algorithmic Lens, Pedion tou Areos Park, Athens, Greece (1 June - 15 July)

Rediscovering Salford, Salford Museum & Art Gallery & RHS Garden Bridgewater (1 June - September)

AI: More than Human, World Museum, Liverpool, UK (17 May - September)

Breadcrumbs, Nagel Draxler @Art Basel  - Breadcrumbs, Art Basel, Switzerland(15 May - 21 August)

Cairotronica, Cairo, Egypt (26 April - 1 May)

True/False, The Pavilion, Namur, Belgium (13 March - 13 June) 

Staying With Trouble, AIR.ITMO, St Petersburg Russia (11 March - 4 April)

The New Real, online through Edinburgh University (4 March - 4 November) 

VisionarIAs, Etopia Centre for Art and Technology, Zaragoza, Spain (21 January - 22  May)

2020

AI: More than Human, Oct Art & Design Gallery, Shenzhen, China (December - May 2021)

Future Life, LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón, Spain (3 September - 12 December)

Art Souterrain 2020, Montreal, Canada (29 February - 22 March)

Mutations Créations: Neurones, intelligences simulées, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (26 February - 20 April)

The Imagination of Time, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (7 February - 23 February) 

GANland, DAM Gallery, Berlin, Germany (1 February – 21 March)

2019

Peer to Peer, Shanghai Centre of Photography, Shanghai, China (8 December - 9 February 2020)

AI: More than Human,  Groninger Forum, Groningen, Netherlands (6 December - 16 August 2020)

Deux Ex Machina, LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón, Asturias (22 November - 16 May 2020)

Network Effects and Online Imaginaries, M-Cult, Helsinki (16 November  - 15 January 2020)

Mind the Deep: Artificial Intelligence and Artistic Creation, Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai, China (7 November - 9 February 2020)

40 Years of Humanizing Technology,  Design Society Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China (2 November - 6 September 2020)

Peer to Peer, OpenEye Gallery, Liverpool, UK (17 October - 21 December)

Stadstriënnale Hasselt Genk 5, Genk, Belgium (5 October - January 2020)

Beazley Design of the Year, Design Museum, London, UK (11 September - 9 February 2020)

Imagining Our Digital Futures, MUTEK, Montreal, Canada (20 - 25 August)

Future of Today, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China (15 August - 30 September) 

City of Participatory Visions, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany (8 August - 15 September)

Lying Sophia and Mocking Alexa, Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing, China (12 July - 8 October)

Artificial Creators, Eden Project, Cornwall, UK (15 June - 1 September)

AI: More than Human, Barbican Centre, London, UK (16 May - 26 August)

Entangled Realities, HEK Basel, Basel, Switzerland (9 May – 11 August)

Artistic Intelligence, Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover, Germany (27 April - 30 June)

Forging the Gods, Transfer Gallery, New York, USA (18 April - 11 May)

New Technologies, New Visions, Geffen Contemporary Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (April)

Screen Shots: Desire and Automated Image, Galleri Image, Aarhus, Denmark (8 March - 28 April)

2018

Error: The Art of Imperfection, Ars Electronica Export, Berlin, Germany (17 November - 31 March 2019)

AGENCY, Nome Gallery, Berlin, Germany (October - December)

Post Truth: Algorithmic Superstructures, Impakt, Utrecht, Netherlands (October - November)

The Line Up: The Power of Drawing, Centraal Museum, Utrecht, Netherlands (22 September – 18 November) 

Error Fake Failure, Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria (6-10 September)

Artificially Intelligent Display, V&A Museum, London, UK (7 September - 31 December)

Gradient Descent, Nature Morte, New Delhi, (17 August - 15 September)

Measures of Life, Humber Street Gallery, Hull, (21 July - 30 September)

Trajectories, Watermans Arts Centre, London, UK (24 January - 7 March) 

2017

Between AI and Nature, Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria (7-11 September)

Machine Fictions, Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, Cambridge, UK (July)

Alternate Realities, Sheffield Documentary Festival, Sheffield, UK (6-11 June)

EDUCATION 

2015 - 2017 MA, Information Experience Design, Royal College of Art, London

2004 - 2007 BA, English Literature and Language, Oxford University, Oxford

AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS

2020 Delfina Foundation Art, Science and Technology Fellowship

Ars Electronica/Edinburgh University AI Fellowship

2019 Google AMI Fellowship

Beazley Designs of the Year awards nominee 

Honorary Mention in Ars Electronica prix category ‘AI and Life Arts’

UAL Creative Computing Institute Fellowship

 2018 EMAP Fellow

DARE Prize for Radical Interdisciplinary Research, University of Leeds

Adobe Award for Best Creative use of Technology at European Conference for Computer Vision

RESIDENCIES

2021 Water Capitalism, GLUON & Luca School, Belgium, Brussels2020

2020 Ars Electronica AI Lab (postponed)

The Data Mine residency, Purdue University, Indiana, USA

2019 The Tetley, Leeds, UK

Opera North, Leeds, UK, 

2018 Impakt, Utrecht, Netherlands

Blitz, Valletta, Malta

ACADEMIC PAPERS

2019 International Symposium on Computational Media Art (ISCMA)

2017 31st Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS)

ACADEMIC AFFILIATIONS

2020 The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Futures Institute

2019 University of the Arts London, Camberwell College of Arts

2018 Visiting Scholar, University of Leeds

SELECTED TALKS

2021

‘Automated Dreaming: Using AI in a Creative Practise’, University of New South Wales, Australia (virtual)

On Art & AI, Onassis Foundation, Athens, Greece (virtual)

‘Booms and Bubbles: Tulips, Blockchain and manias’, University of Porto, Portugal (virtual)

‘Machine Learning and Art’, Art, Museums and Digital Cultures Internacional Conference, virtual

‘Mechanized Cacophonies: Ars Electronica Home Delivery”, Ars Electronica, virtual

‘Staying With Trouble: Randomness, Viruses & Tulips’, AIR.ITMO, virtual

2020

Using Machine Learning In An Artistic Context: Classification And Its Consequences, HCOMP, virtual

Random Seed: Gardening as A Metaphor for Creative AI, Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria

The New Real: Panel Discussion, Ars Electronica

Women in the Generative Arts, SuperRare, virtual

Machine Visions, at Machine Visions Art AI and Creativity Symposium, Camberwell College of Art, 

London, UK

Machine Learning and Art, Goethe-Institut Couch Session, virtual

The New Real: Machine Learning and Creativity, CogX, virtual

Automated Dreaming: Using AI in a Creative Practise, Pre-histories and Futures of Machine Vision Symposium, V&A Museum, London, UK

Booms and Bubbles: Tulips, Blockchain and manias, Aksioma, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Image, Artificial Intelligence and Creativity, Foto Colectania Foundation Barcelona, Spain

IA IA! Artist Imaginations and Artificial Intelligence, Experimenta Art Science Biennale, Grenoble, France

Dreaming and Doing: AI and Filmmaking, London Short Film Festival, Science Museum, London, UK

The Abstraction of Nature, University of Salford, Manchester, UK

2019

Machine Learning and Tulips, It’s Nice That, Oval Space, London, UK

Automated Dreaming: Using AI in a Creative Practise, Hybrid landscape: natural and artificial practices symposium, C-mine Cultuurcentrum Genk, Genk, Belgium 

Classification and Its Consequences: Symposium on AI and Creativity, Goethe-Institut, Glasgow, Scotland

Automated Dreaming: Using AI in a Creative Practise, Purdue University, Indiana, US

Sorting Things Out: Datasets as an Artistic Practise as part of What Does The Dataset Want, The Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK 

Speaking in Tongues; Atmospheric Memory: The Air of Turbulence Symposium, Future Everything, London, UK

Working with Machine Learning, Manchester International Festival, Manchester, UK

Machine Learning in a Creative Practice, Hek Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Stanley meet Alexa, AI and Filmmaking, BFI, London, UK

AI and Creativity: what makes us human?, Barbican Centre, London, UK

Machine Learning in a Creative Practice, International Symposium on Computational Media Art, Hong Kong, China

2018

The Artistic Potential of Data Sets, Post Binary Conference, Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany

Using Technology Creatively, Science and Media Museum, Bradford, UK

AI in Art, FACT Liverpool, UKDatasets and Decay, V&A Museum (Digital Design Weekend), London, UK

Data and Training Sets in an Artistic Practice, European Conference of Computer Vision, Munich,Germany

Art in an Age of Computational Creativity, Forecast Forum, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin, Germany

The Artistic Potential of Computer Vision, ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany

Deep Fakes or Rendering the Truth, Impakt Festival, Utrecht, Netherlands

The Art of GANs, The Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK

2017

Repeating and Remembering: Fall of the House of Usher, Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria

Join the Resistance, Sheffield Documentary Festival, Sheffield, UK

New Forms, BFI, London, UKArt, Science and Quantum Computing, V&A Museum, London, UK

Action Tells His Story: Language and Machine Learning, Language Games Conference, Chelsea College of Art, London, UK

Fairy Tales and Machine Learning, Data Publics Conference, Lancaster University, UK

 

Selected Press

Sotheby's Stakes Sincerity in “Natively Digital: A Curated NFT Sale”, Whitehot Magazine, June 2021

Gans and NFTs, Art in America, May 28 2021

Wer cool ist, braucht NFTs – oder?, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May 18 2021

Flowers and Bitcoins: Anna Ridler’s Tulips, Art Press, March 1 2021

When algorithms paint pictures, Der Spiegel, November 4, 2020

Algorithms in the Arts, Front Row - BBC Four Radio, August 24, 2020

The age when artificial intelligence and data create art, Chosun, June 30, 2020

The Q Art Conversations: Anna Ridler, Quintessentially, May 29, 2020

Tulip mania and the stock market, VPRO, April 22, 2020

Artificial Abstraction and the Poetics of Machine Learning: The Role of AI in the Art of Anna Ridler and Roman Lipski, Flash Art, March 18, 2020

Anna Ridler offers a bitesize lesson into what machine learning actually is, It’s Nice That, January 17, 2020

The Tools of Generative Art, From Flash to Neural Networks, Art in America, January 8, 2020

From Wetware to Tilt Brush, How Artists Tested the Limits of Technology in 2010s, Frieze, December 21, 2019

De lo digital a lo real. Anna Ridler, Código, August 28, 2019

A British Artist Gathered 10,00 Tulips to Show AI is Beautiful, Bloomberg News, August 13, 2019

Anna Ridler uses AI to turn 10,000 tulips  into a video controlled by bitcoin, Its Nice That, June 28, 2019

17th century Tulip Mania is alive and well - on the blockchain, FastCompany, June 27, 2019 

Free Thinking: AI and Creativity - what makes us human?, BBC Radio 3, June 4, 2019

AI: More than Human, BBC Click, June 1, 2019

How AI is radically changing our definition of human creativity, Wired, May 27, 2019

Digitales Tulpenfieber, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May 20 2019

Artificial Intelligence as a Godlike Tool for Experimentation: Forging the Gods, Hyperallergic, May 8, 2019

Editors pick: Bloemenveiling by Anna Ridler, Clot, April 20, 2019

Artificial intelligence: the art world’s weird and wonderful new medium, Financial Times, March 21, 2019

Using AI to Produce “Impossible” Tulips, Hyperallergic, March 1, 2019

A philosopher argues that an AI can’t be an artist, MIT Technology Review,  Feb 21, 2019

Art made by AI is selling for thousands - is it any good?, BBC Culture, December 12, 2018

The Arts and Artificial Intelligence, Front Row,  BBC Radio 4, November 21, 2018

Has Artificial Intelligence brought us the next great art movement?, Artnet, November 6, 2018

What the Art World Is Failing to Grasp about Christie’s AI Portrait Coup, Artsy, October 29, 2018

AI Art at Christie’s Sells for $432,500, The New York Times, October 25, 2018

When the line between the Artist and the Machine becomes blurred, The Conversation, October 16, 2018

Machine Dreams: Art and Artificial Intelligence, Forbes, September 24, 2018

This AI Dreams in Tulips, FastCompany, September 17, 2018

When Art Created by Artificial Intelligence Sells, Who Gets Paid?, Artsy, September 17, 2018

AI-Generated Art Just Got Its First Mainstream Gallery Show. See It Here - and Get Ready, Artnet, August 29, 2018

‘Gradient Descent’: when Artificial Intelligence meets art, The Hindu, August 13, 2018

Artificial Intelligence Art: Parenting a new genre, Forbes India, August 21, 2018

Is Artificial Intelligence the new artist we need to watch out for?, Vogue India, August 16, 2018

The Work of Art in the Age of Algorithmic Reproduction, Medium, December 12, 2017

Life drawing and machine learning: An Interview with artist Anna Ridler, Alphr, August 14, 2017

Something in the air, Frieze, August 7, 2017

Artificially intelligent painters invent new styles of art, New Scientist, June 29, 2017