Anna Ridler facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Anna Ridler
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| Born | 1985 (age 39–40) |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Royal College of Art Oxford University |
| Known for | Digital art, Machine learning |
Anna Ridler (born 1985) is a British artist and researcher who lives in London. She creates art using collections of information, often her own unique data sets. Her goal is to tell new and interesting stories through different art forms.
Her artwork has been shown in many famous places. These include the Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate Modern, and the Barbican Centre.
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About Anna Ridler
Anna Ridler was born in London in 1985. She grew up living part-time in Atlanta, Georgia, and part-time in the United Kingdom.
She studied English Literature and Language at Oxford University. She graduated in 2007. Later, in 2017, she earned a Master's degree from the Royal College of Art.
How Anna Ridler Makes Art
A key part of Anna Ridler's art is making her own data sets. She does this by carefully choosing and sorting images and text. This process is often very detailed and takes a lot of effort.
By creating her own data, Ridler can find hidden meanings and ideas. This also changes the usual way data is collected. Normally, people use images already sorted in large online databases. Anna Ridler likes to explore drawing, machine learning, collecting data, storytelling, and technology in her art.
Famous Artworks: The Tulip Series
Some of Anna Ridler's most well-known artworks are part of her 'tulip series'. This series looks at the extreme excitement around "tulip mania" from the past. It compares this to the excitement and risks around cryptocurrencies today.
The series has three main parts:
- A collection of photos called Myriad (Tulips) (2018).
- Two videos made by computers called Mosaic Virus (2018) and Mosaic Virus (2019).
- A website with a special online app called Bloemenveiling (2019).
Myriad (Tulips) (2018)
Myriad (Tulips) (2018) is an art display with ten thousand photos of different tulips. Anna Ridler took all these photos herself over three months. This is about how long a tulip season lasts. She took the pictures while she was in Utrecht, a city in the Netherlands.
Each photo is carefully placed one by one on a black wall. They are held by magnets, creating a very neat pattern. This hard work creates a huge collection of images, or a dataset.
This artwork has been shown in many places. These include the Barbican Centre in London and the Shanghai Centre of Photography in China.
Mosaic Virus (2018, 2019)
Mosaic Virus (2018) is a video artwork. It shows a grid of tulips that are always changing and blooming. For Mosaic Virus (2019), Anna Ridler used three screens. The way the tulips look is controlled by artificial intelligence (AI). This AI uses changes in the price of bitcoin.
The stripes on the tulip petals show the value of the cryptocurrency. Ridler connects this to the "tulip mania" of the 1600s. She shows the excitement and risks around digital money. The artwork is named after the mosaic virus. This virus caused stripes in real tulip petals, which made them more popular and expensive long ago.
Ridler taught a special AI, called a GAN, using her ten thousand tulip photos from Myriad (Tulips). This helped the AI create the changing tulips.
Bloemenveiling (2019)
Bloemenveiling (2019) is an online auction of tulips created by artificial intelligence. This auction happens on the blockchain, using a special app called a decentralized application. You can find it at bloemenveiling.bid.
Anna Ridler worked with a scientist named David Pfau. They wanted to see if blockchain could be used in a poetic way. This artwork explores how technology can create human desire and affect money systems. It does this by making something seem rare, even if it's not.
In this artwork, short videos of AI-made tulips are sold. This happens using "smart contracts" on the Ethereum network. When a tulip is sold, thousands of computers around the world work to check the sale. They check each other's work to make sure everything is correct.
The AI could make endless tulips. But using this huge network of computers makes them seem limited. This process uses a lot of energy, which can be bad for the environment.
Bloemenveiling was shown in Switzerland in 2019.
See also
In Spanish: Anna Ridler para niños
