By Tobias Lauritzen
In a workshop in Østerbro, Ada sits in front of her computer and rebels against Big Tech. Not by leaving technology, but by going directly into it, into the algorithms and social media that the tech giants have become incredibly rich by monopolizing.
In the performative and gender political photo project in transit Ada has been uploading photos of her naked torso to Instagram since 2021 as part of the documentation of her gender transition from male to female. On the platform, female nipples are categorized as pornographic material and therefore prohibited. The work in transit asks the question: When does a body become feminine enough for the algorithm and thus censored?
"The work is a protest against how social media censors the female body and minorities. I have succeeded in exposing how little they really have control over the rules at Meta," says Ada.
“Because sometimes the pictures get removed, sometimes they don't. The system can't figure out if my body is male or female. I'm some kind of glitch. A flaw in the system. I guess you could say I'm fucking with their codes and rules,” she says and continues.
“There’s something liberating about technology not being able to understand our human reality. We’re far too complex. One day I look angry in the pictures and get categorized as a man. Another day I’m wearing lipstick and then my topless picture is removed. The computer reads me stereotypically because it’s trained that way, and it becomes activist for me to expose its lack of complexity. If we can trick the machine and Big Tech, we can control our own destiny far more than we think.”
But for Ada, it's also scary when social media can't enforce their own rules:
“Because how can they live up to the moral codes and rules for discrimination such as hate speech, racism and bullying?”
Photo: Installation CLIP+Replace+Loop
Man must not blindly trust the machine
Today, many people use artificial intelligence (AI) and chatbots to make decisions both big and small. They seek love advice, help with illness, or answers to everyday questions: “What should I eat for dinner? How should I decorate my living room?”
“I am very skeptical about the trust we have in machines, and my art challenges that 'machine bias'. Many people think that when the answer comes from the machine, it can be trusted. But in reality, machines are quite stupid. They are a good tool, but not a tool I can trust. That's why I want to help others see the computer for what it is.”
Ada, who has a background as a programmer, explains that when we elevate the computer to be magical or even intelligent, we simultaneously give power to those who develop the technology.
“We must not forget that technologies are filled with ideologies and values that come from those who make them. In Denmark, we have a strong tradition of women's liberation and free abortion, but do we share those views with the US? We need to reflect on what the companies want with us. We are talking about American and Chinese multi-billionaires. Their systems are built around one ambition: to make money. You have to remember that when you ask the computer for advice. It was also put into the world to make the rich richer.”
The Internet was once a sanctuary
Ada, like many other children from the 1990s, grew up with the internet. Back then, the internet was a place with room for diversity. For Ada, it also became a place to explore her artistic identity, and not least a place to find the courage to come forward as a trans woman. Because on the internet, she met other trans people for the first time through forums, group chats and blogs.
“I grew up on the internet. I played with the code on my Myspace page. Back then, there was freedom to determine your own expression on social media. Today, it’s a much more limited expression, for example on Instagram. There’s very little you can, very little you’re allowed to express.”
Listening to Ada, the internet appears like a city in transformation: Old neighborhoods are being razed to the ground while new metallic skyscrapers are rising and covering the horizon. But somewhere out there, the old neighborhood still exists, it's just getting smaller and smaller.
“Almost all traffic on the Internet today goes through the tech giants. We should ask ourselves whether they really should own the entire Internet. Today they control almost all apps and websites, but they have also started to own the infrastructure itself. They own, acquire and build data cables, data centers, protocols, software and much more that makes the Internet work.”
Being represented by data is like losing a part of yourself. Glitchy Queer AI work, 2024.
The many investments worry Ada because she experiences that the increasing power of the tech giants has consequences for those who do not share the companies' political beliefs.
“If you have a political stance that they don't agree with, you get banned from their platforms. They don't play by democratic principles like freedom of speech. For example, queer people and other groups like Palestinians, feminists, and sex workers are the ones who are being censored.”
My body is my tool
In the video work Being represented by data is like losing a part of yourself from 2024, Ada uses the images from the project in transit to train an AI model on its own body. But the model is deliberately fed incorrectly.
“I have given the system incorrect settings to provoke errors and deformations.”
The result is unsettling and liberating. In the video work, the body becomes data, and the data cannot hold the body: A mouth opens along the arm. The skin flows out of itself. The body becomes both recognizable and alien at the same time.
The er Ada, we're watching the video, but that's also something else. Maybe it glitch, the error, she mentioned earlier. Everything that cannot be defined and categorized runs across the screen: Half human, half machine and half gender?
The video is voiced over by a distorted computer voice of Ada's own voice, describing the internet as a place that once felt free, but then became a marketplace. A place where certain bodies and attitudes were slowly made undesirable.
“The work is about how algorithms and data depend on categorical and stereotypical understandings of the world,” says Ada.
Photo: Installation CLIP+Replace+Loop
Power back to the people
For Ada, the ambition with her art is very clear.
"I want to influence people and their understanding of technology with my works. I want to give people peace of mind that computer systems are not as scary as they think. Give power to the human being and away from the computers, away from those who make money from them," says Ada and concludes with a question that is probably the driving force behind her practice:
“Is it good for society that people with far too much money can own the entire internet and lay undersea cables in the ocean, without thinking about the well-being of nature, animals or humans? I sees art as a special form of language that can make us see the power structures we live under.”
AI boom drives investment in undersea data cables
- Major technology companies such as Meta, Google, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services are currently investing massively in undersea fiber cables to support AI and global data centers.
- CNBC estimates that investments in subsea cables will reach around $13 billion over the next two years. A doubling compared to 2022–2024.
- AI requires enormous amounts of data and high bandwidth between data centers, increasing the need for new high-capacity cables.
- Meta has launched “Project Waterworth”, a global cable network of approximately 50.000 kilometers, which will connect five continents and strengthen the company's AI infrastructure.
- At the same time, undersea infrastructure has become a security policy focus area. Several countries fear sabotage, surveillance and cable breaks in line with increasing geopolitical tension.
- Several lawyers and politicians point out that control over data cables is increasingly becoming a strategic issue in line with energy and supply infrastructure.
Sources: CNBC, Washington Post, Reuters, TechCrunch and company information from Meta.
Cover image: Being represented by data is like losing a part of yourself. Glitchy Queer AI work, 2024.