AI&AI Artificial Intelligence as a Tool for Revealing Fluid Identity

Contextual insight

The AI&AI project began with a simple yet provocative question: Can one entrust their artistic identity to a system that, by its very nature, seeks order?

Identity is fluid, changeable, often contradictory in modern society, and yet always under pressure from structures that attempt to fix and define it. These include social norms, visual codes, gender categories, algorithms, and other instruments that will inevitably be reinvented in the future. They simplify complexity, standardize uniqueness, and strive for recognition and control. That is the techno-world we live in, where our views and clicks demonstrate our willingness to build it up.

Artificial intelligence, as one of these systems, appears particularly dangerous in this context. It operates through predictability, repetition, and categorization, with learned algorithms becoming agents that lead our identities into shaped categories welcomed by established structures. But precisely this made it a starting point for my interest:

Is it possible to use AI, a reinvented system geared toward stability, as a tool for expressing fluid identity?

In this project, I explore how interacting with AI can not only visualize but also intensify the conflict between the fluid nature of identity and the rigid structure of algorithms. I am interested not only in how AI structures "see" and interpret the body, image, and voice, but also in how it can become an artistic instrument that illuminates mechanisms of fixation, transforming them into a field for critique and play.

Thus, in this project AI is considered not just a co-author but simultaneously: a mirror that reflects accepted norms; a tool that provokes new forms; a system that can be disassembled, deconstructed, and visualized.

In this text, I will attempt to reflect on the following questions that emerged during the process:

– What does it mean to be an artist in dialogue with a system today? – What might identity look like when co-constructed with artificial intelligence, yet resisting its urge toward simplification and normalization? – How can we use AI not only as a visualizing instrument but also as a critical partner, one that inadvertently reveals the boundaries of the very system it embodies?

Where It All Began: The Path to the Idea

The idea we are now describing in terms of fluid identity and artistic interaction with AI was not present from the start. On the contrary, we arrived at it through a process of research, trial, and shifting focus, but at the end this path became a vital part of the project itself.

The initial starting point was not identity as such, but rather the question of what role artificial intelligence might play in transforming social systems, particularly digital platforms and social networks. We were interested in whether AI could be not only a mechanism of normalization, but also an agent of change, a mediator capable of identifying, softening, or even overcoming rigid algorithmic constraints.

It was from this angle that we began thinking about artistic intelligence as a hypothetical entity embedded in a platform for artists. We imagined it as a digital assistant that doesn’t merely serve the user but collaborates with the artist: helping them to consciously construct their artistic identity, to protect their creative intentions, their visual language, and their right in an art world. 

Therefore, we modelled a fictional social network for artists, a space where the algorithm doesn’t dictate templates but instead helps users see and interpret their own uniqueness. In this initial project, AI supposed to become a mediator between the artist and the system, acting both as a guide and a critical tool. It didn’t aim to fix identity, but rather revealed zones of resistance, elusiveness, and paradox.

Over time, our focus shifted from social infrastructure to the principles underlying algorithmic systems themselves, and we began to question: how does the system see us and what it overlooks? How can the artist use this “blindness” as material?

Thus, working with AI artistically became not just a critique of platforms, but a way of engaging with structure from the inside in order to change its language, form, and digital perception.

The Original Idea: Social Artistic Network

As already mentioned, the starting point was the reflection on how artificial intelligence could act as a mediator between the artist and the system. We imagined AI as a potential defender and guide. One that helps artists express themselves within a digital platform without losing their individuality.

Initially, the project focused on the possibility of transforming existing social media algorithms, making them more sensitive to artistic thinking, non-standard approaches, and the layered nature of identity. In contrast to algorithms that reward repetition and popularity, our AI was designed to support uniqueness and depth.

Core features of the platform included:

– Verification and freedom: different levels of professional identification, including the possibility of anonymous publication and independence from social status; – AI and promotion: algorithms that promote original works rather than clichés; the artist could disable rankings or personalize feedback; – NFT and authorship: automatic creation of NFTs when uploading works, protection of intellectual property, and a transparent licensing system; – Collaboration and community: tools to find co-authors, launch joint projects, and initiate offline initiatives; – Artistic research: an integrated archive of texts, interviews, and analyses on contemporary art; – Innovative storage system: the ability to program the fate of one’s work — deletion, disclosure, or transfer via AI;

The idea of the project was to create a digital environment where the artist doesn’t adapt to the system, but the system can be tuned to the logic and sensitivity of artistic practice and preferably can be trusted. In this context, AI is not just a technical moderator, but a partner capable of revealing and emphasizing the complexity, instability, and originality of identity, acting accordingly.

This realization led us to deeper questions, not only practical but also conceptual. On the one hand, we felt the platform idea was strong in terms of concept and we clearly understood the kind of space we wanted to create, one in which the artist could work with their identity in dialogue with the system. But on the other hand, it became clear that its technical and organizational implementation was far beyond our capabilities. The scale, the level of complexity, the need for business modeling and robust IT architecture — all of this made the project virtually unreachable in its initial form.

Transition to Installation

As a result, we began looking for a way to preserve the core idea while bringing it back into the field of artistic practice. This shift happened organically due to our competence: we turned to TouchDesigner and began creating an installation as a more tangible form of reflecting on the same questions.

The idea was to still collect certain data about an imaginary identity and offer it to artificial intelligence for self-reflexive processing (self-summarization). Based on this data, a subjective, agentive, potentially autonomous image would emerge, preferably capable of self- expression.

We asked ourselves: – What does agency mean in the context of an artificial subject? – How would we want such a subjectivity to manifest? – Could it speak, react, communicate? What to expect? 

This is how the project gradually entered the domain of communication, representation, and perception, where human and algorithm are not abstract concepts but participants in mutual dialogue. One of the most logical outcomes of this exploration became the literal dialogue between the viewer and the installation.

Through joint discussions and reflection, we decided to create instead an adapted to our idea prototype of the website with free from all the complex features originally imagined. This solution both simplified the task and helped us visualize how a conceptual link between the social platform and the installation could function, even in minimal form.

Visual Identity and Installation Atmosphere

The central element was a visual metaphor of identity, embodied in a sculpture presented both as a 3D digital object and as a physical ceramic piece. This sculpture became a kind of emblem of the project, that visually expressing the hybrid nature of the subject, combining human, animalistic, and cybernetic forms in one body.

The human body served as the foundation, but its shapes gradually flowed into traits of animal and machine origin, generating a sense of transition, ambiguity, and inner shift, which was important for us to express. 

The sculpture, created for the installation, acted as both a semantic and visual anchor. The inspiration for its form and idea came from the texts of Donna Haraway, particularly her Cyborg Manifesto, where she argues that a cyborg is not necessarily a mechanical body, but a new form of subjectivity already deeply integrated into everyday human life. Simply interacting with digital devices is enough to become a cyborg at the level of thought, perception, and memory.

We reflected this idea in the sculptural image: the human foundation merged with cybernetic and zoomorphic elements, creating a figure that was simultaneously familiar and alien, hybrid and ambiguous. This image was intentionally not definitive — it questioned the very boundaries between the human and non-human, biological and technological, highlighting fluidity and instability as core characteristics of modern identity.

We also paid special attention to the dialogues themselves. Here, we were inspired by the ideas of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and their concept of the schizophrenic flow as a source of creative potential. Their joint work Anti-Oedipus is dedicated to the generation of desire, and this theoretical approach deeply resonated with us.

Public Presentation

Once all elements of the project were assembled, we moved on to the stage of public presentation, which took place as part of a theoretical festival at ArtEZ School. The room included both students and external examiners, and it was important for us not only to demonstrate how the system works, but also to create a coherent atmosphere in which the viewer didn’t just observe but became part of the installation.

The spatial composition was arranged so that the interaction process would begin immediately upon entry. We set up two computers with the website we had developed already open. Two participants were invited to fill out the questionnaire simultaneously, a simple yet personal form including questions related to self-perception, subjectivity, and internal states. Once the forms were completed, the data was transmitted to the server in real time, processed by the system, and used by the artificial intelligence to generate a dialogue, in which the “responding voice” became the AI-created persona.

The generated text was projected onto the wall through TouchDesigner also in real time. Thus, the audience could not only observe how their own words were being transformed into a new voice but also literally hear themselves differently, refracted through the lens of the algorithm as if it were an inner monologue or a voice constructed from fragments of their input.

The effect was similar to watching a film scene — where the viewer first becomes a participant, and then a witness to their own transformation.

This structure allowed the installation to function on multiple levels as an interactive experience, communication system, and as a visually staged statement.

It activated not only perception but also personal involvement, offering each participant a path from data input to unexpected self-reflection with its own agenda, now in a different voice, through a different system, even a different body.

Post-presentation reflection, Public Engagement and Critical Feedback

The public presentation of the work sparked evoked many different reactions from visitors. Many participants were curious about how their data was used and expressed both fascination and caution regarding the role of AI in the dialogue-making process. The interface encouraged playful experimentation, but also provoked deeper questions about authorship, agency, and the ethical handling of personal input. These spontaneous interactions gave valuable insights into how the audience perceives collaboration with non-human systems and their role within such a speculative setup.

The AI&AI project became not only an attempt at artistic expression, but also a deep exploration of the boundaries between system and subject, between algorithm and creativity, between fixed structure and fluid identity. Beginning with an ambitious idea for a platform for artists, we moved from a technological model to an installation from structure to body, from interface to poetic dialogue.

It's safe to say that a digital system derived from artificial intelligence, even if framed in a human-readable form—as a personality or mediator—is becoming a new frontier in artistic research. While previously, for such experiences, we read voluminous literature, tried to create fictitious interlocutors, and collected feedback from colleagues and random encounters, the situation is now changing. Almost any opinion given by a living person, even a true professional, is tinged in one way or another with personal positioning.

At the same time, AI is a vast repository of internet archives and other sources on which it was trained. Naturally, a person can manipulate it and set it to completely insane settings, where the companion will only produce inconsistent and illogical answers, but overall, this "mediator" will be based on neutral judgments and the most rational decisions. At the same time, it also has a tendency to adapt to the personality with which it interacts—akin to the biological or forced fluidity we see everywhere: from bacteria and viruses that change their form to displaced persons who must rewrite their identity to fit into a social construct.

Equally, this allows the user themselves to launch an experiment in their positioning, shifting identities in a safe digital zone that can accommodate any agenda.

Perhaps this is why some eagerly anticipate a society where cyborgs exist beyond the screen of a gadget, while others fervently strive for digital isolation, fearing the loss of a controlled, understandable reality that is less accessible to fluidity and endless transgression.