DIGITAL NO MAN’S, 2023
Do Androids Dream of Eclectic Steep?
About the work
AI-generated images have nowadays become so realistic that distinguishing the real ones from the fakes is nearly impossible. Trained for days with massive data and GPUs scattered all around the world, they have crossed the borders of the Uncanny Valley into the hills of visual perfection.
What about those digital beings that do not have the resources to complete their training? These low-res synthetic creatures are the low-class citizens of the Humanoid Realm. They can’t afford to train forever nor to be GPU nomads. They are stuck in the Uncanny Valley, always striving to convince the Discriminator they look real enough, always dreaming of climbing the steep hill of human likeness.
An experimental short animated film exploring AI through AI, this project aims to shed light on the inner workings of AI algorithms, specifically those responsible for creating realistic human faces, like the GAN models. The video depicts a fictional dialogue between the Discriminator and the synthetic creatures it evaluates. These creatures engage in a Sisyphean effort, an endless struggle to reach an elusive perfection, as they strive to deceive the Discriminator and rise above their pixelated origins.
About the Artist
Lida Zacharopoulou is an analytics engineer, creative coder and interdisciplinary artist from Athens, Greece. In her artistic research, she focuses on how AI and technology shape our perception of the world, exploring the intricate connections between reality, memory and fiction. Using creative programming, data science and interactive systems combined with speculative research, story-telling and analogue media, her aim is to craft mappings of contingent places and weave narratives of not-necessarily true pasts and possible futures. Drawing inspiration from philosophy, science, nature and the human body, her interests lie in the social, political and ecological impact of technological systems, their reappropriation as a creative tool, and the discussions emerging from using algorithms in the arts.
Her work has been presented at festivals, exhibitions and conferences in Greece and abroad. She has participated in Sónar+D Innovation Challenge (Barcelona, 2019), Medialab-Prado’s Programa La Plaza (Madrid, 2019), FILE Festival (São Paulo, 2023), ROS Film Festival (Alicante, 2023), Apnea Contemporary Art Exhibition (Athens, 2023), Young Artists Exhibition (Costa Navarino, 2023). She is a fellow of EthicAI=LABS program of Goethe Institute with the group project BlackboxAI that won the first place (Sofia, 2022) and led to the publication of the paper “A Multimodal Installation Exploring Gender Bias in Artificial Intelligence” (Copenhagen, 2023). She has been invited as a speaker to take part in panel discussions on AI & Art (Platfroms Project, 2023) and as a leader of a 3-day workshop on creativity, diversity and AI (Sofia, 2024).