{
  "guid": "16c09f00-0a16-5a11-92b7-7c065b7f1046",
  "id": 559,
  "date": "2024-12-30T00:15:00+01:00",
  "start": "00:15",
  "duration": "00:40",
  "room": "Saal ZIGZAG",
  "slug": "38c3-hacking-victorian-bodies-from-grid-to-vector-space",
  "url": "https://events.ccc.de/congress/2024/hub/de/event/hacking-victorian-bodies-from-grid-to-vector-space/",
  "title": "Hacking Victorian Bodies: From Grid to Vector Space",
  "subtitle": null,
  "language": "en",
  "track": "Art & Beauty",
  "type": "Talk",
  "abstract": "This performative lecture by SOLID FLESH Collective explores how generative AI can reshape historical body representations into tools for imagining new bodily futures. Drawing from Muybridge\u2019s chronophotography, which fixed bodies into a rigid scientific grid, we investigate AI\u2019s capacity for fluid, multidimensional embodiment. Using open-source AI models to \u2018resurrect\u2019 Muybridge\u2019s subjects and defy commercial censorship, we reveal speculative possibilities for bodily motion and identity. Our work positions the \u2018vector body\u2019\u2014a digitally-mediated form of self-imagination\u2014within a broader conversation on identity fluidity, algorithmic embodiment, and liberating futures beyond conventional body ideals.",
  "description": "In this performative lecture, the SOLID FLESH Collective reimagines how artistic practice can transform historical methods of body representation into tools for imagining radical new forms of embodiment. SOLID FLESH Collective, a hybrid space bridging the realms of gym, gallery, and think tank, examines how Muybridge\u2019s chronophotography once \u2018solidified\u2019 bodies within a rigid grid, contrasting it with generative AI\u2019s potential for unprecedented fluidity in self-reimagining.\r\n\r\nWe present a series of experiments in \u2018resurrecting\u2019 Muybridge\u2019s subjects, using open-source AI tools to transform scientific documentation into speculative fictions. When commercial AI flagged these Victorian images as \u2018pornographic,\u2019 this rejection spurred us to explore alternate approaches, resulting in the creation of wonderfully surreal, inhuman movements with animDiff\u2014as if the AI, uninformed by human motion, were an animator imagining it for the first time.\r\n\r\nThe lecture positions the AI-mediated body within a multidimensional vector space of possibilities, spanning dimensions of gender, age, class, and experience. Through our custom ComfyUI workflow and selected clips from our ongoing film project (solidflesh.com), we show how this \u2018vector body\u2019 allows for forms of self-imagination that break free from the solidifying gaze of the camera. Our technical explorations engage larger questions around identity fluidity, algorithmic embodiment, and the possibility of a new, digitally mediated somatic imagination.\r\n\r\nAs mainstream AI development often reinforces conventional body ideals, we speculate on alternative futures, asking how these technologies might instead enable liberating bodily self-conceptions. Moving beyond Muybridge\u2019s grid and current AI\u2019s polished limitations, we explore what approaches to algorithmic embodiment might emerge when we embrace the glitches and \u2018failures\u2019 of these systems.",
  "logo": null,
  "persons": [
    {
      "guid": "46e47dd1-1d40-5942-ae62-a14119738e95",
      "name": "Marcin Ratajczyk",
      "public_name": "Marcin Ratajczyk",
      "avatar": "https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2024/fahrplan/media/avatars/24.10.20_basel_selfie_2_VqhQKpB.png",
      "biography": null,
      "url": "https://events.ccc.de/congress/2024/hub/de/user/speaker_46e47dd1-1d40-5942-ae62-a14119738e95/"
    }
  ],
  "links": [],
  "origin_url": "https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2024/fahrplan/talk/M733LV/",
  "feedback_url": "https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2024/fahrplan/talk/M733LV/feedback/"
}