CURRY + GRADECKI

Infodemic

Derek Curry + Jennifer Gradecki

"'Infodemic' is a neural networkgenerated video that questions the mediated narratives created by social media influencers and celebrities about the coronavirus. The speakers featured in the video have spread misinformation about the coronavirus and are generated using a conditional generative adversarial network, which is used in some deepfake technologies. The dialogue is taken from academics, medical experts, and journalists. In the generated videos, the influencers deliver public service announcements or present news stories that counter the misinformation they have spread. The video’s painterly qualities evoke the mutation of the coronavirus, the instability of truth, and the limits of knowledge."

Derek Curry

Derek Curry is an artist-researcher whose work addresses spaces for intervention in automated decision-making systems. His work has addressed automated decision-making processes used by automated stock trading systems and Open Source Intelligence gathering (OSINT). His artworks have replicated aspects of social media surveillance systems and communicated with algorithmic trading bots. Derek holds an MFA in New Genres from UCLA’s Department of Art and a PhD from the State University of New York at Buffalo. http://derekcurry.com/

Jennifer Gradecki

Jennifer Gradecki is an artist-theorist whose work facilitates a practice-based understanding of sociotechnical systems that evade public scrutiny. Using methods from institutional critique, tactical media, and information activism, she investigates information as a source of power and resistance. Her investigations have focused on social science techniques, financial instruments, intelligence agencies, technologies of mass surveillance and artificial intelligence. She holds an MFA in New Genres from UCLA (2010) and a PhD in Visual Studies at SUNY Buffalo (2019). www.jennifergradecki.com

Curry and Gradecki are currently Assistant Professors at Northeastern University in Boston and have exhibited their work internationally at venues including Ars Electronica (Linz), New Media Gallery (Zadar), AC Institute (New York), Science Gallery Dublin, The New Gallery (Calgary), Critical Finance Studies (Amsterdam), ISEA (Vancouver), Athens Digital Art Festival, Radical Networks (Brooklyn), and the Centro Cultural de España (México). They have published in Big Data & Society, Visual Resources, and Leuven University Press. Their projects have been funded by Science Gallery Dublin, the Puffin Foundation, and the NEoN Festival (Scotland).