INFORMAZIONI SU QUESTO EPISODIO
Episode page and full transcript: https://www.lerandom.art/episodes/anna-ridler-and-sofia-crespo-the-natural-history-of-machine-learning
In this episode, host Peter Bauman (Le Random's editor in chief) speaks with pioneering artist duo Anna Ridler and Sofia Crespo about their long-running collaboration bringing machine learning into dialogue with natural history.
They trace their early encounters with deep learning—from memes, browser histories, and speech-to-text to data visualization, encyclopedias, and NeurIPS Creativity Workshops—and how both arrived at AI through questions of classification and what it means to “understand” the world.
They also discuss fusing natural history and machine learning across their five collaborative projects (including Anna Atkins–inspired cyanotypes, Argentine “artificial memories” and the rain-marked Clematis tiles), working only with their own datasets in the middle of AI copyright debates, rethinking collage and photography in an era of generative models, and what might come next after winning Arab Bank Switzerland’s Artist of the Year prize.
Monday's Editorial:
Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst on Artificial Psychedelia: https://www.lerandom.art/editorial/holly-herndon-mat-dryhurst-on-artificial-psychedelia
Also in this episode: Luba Elliott, Mario Klingemann
Listen next: Ep. 26, "Infinite Images" in Conversation—Erick Calderon, Sofia Crespo & Tyler Hobbs, Ep. 23, Discussing Digital Art in 1Q 2025
On the Living Timeline: The Shell Record by Anna Ridler (2021)
Chapters 📖:
00:00 Introduction and episode overview
02:23 Anna’s path to deep learning
03:32 Sofia’s early AI explorations
07:36 Natural history and machine learning parallels
10:30 Posthuman ideas emerging in practice
12:34 NeurIPS Creativity Workshop beginnings
13:34 Artist versus technologist mindset
15:44 Sofia’s nontraditional art journey
21:01 Speaking to researchers during COVID
22:05 Meeting and first encounters
26:11 First Collaboration: Various and Casual Occursions
34:52 Second project: 83 Seeds from a Vanishing Mountain
38:06 Third project: Snapshots: Orchids
42:46 Fourth project: Long Short Term Memories
47:15 Fifth project: 3.31424e+126 : clematis armandii
52:05 Looking ahead together
53:41 Closing thanks and goodbyes
