Art, authenticity and artificial intelligence 

At IAS, artists bring different perspectives to complex questions that cross disciplinary boundaries. Visser's residency will create room to explore human cognition and self-awareness in algorithmic times, with an emphasis on originality and identity.

Visser asks whether qualities often attributed to ‘real’ artists, such as authenticity and intrinsic drive, are affected by the increased mediation of ideas by artificial intelligence: “Does digital technology literally change our minds and therefore our identity?” Through these questions, Unfluence asks what remains of the individual in a culture shaped by algorithms.

Rethinking stories, images and truth  

Visser's work questions how stories and images shape our understanding of reality. Facts and imagination, convention and cliché, genes and memes are of equal importance in (re-)shaping narratives that have been – (un-)consciously forgotten. Visser's interest in connecting art with science and everyday life runs through her career, beyond her artistic practice. From 2014 to 2017, she was Chair of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts (KNAW/AVK). In 2017, she was Artistic Director A.I. of the International Documentary Filmfestival (IDFA). And between 2020 and 2024, she developed the Temporary Master Programme F for Fact at the Sandberg Instituut/ Gerrit Rietveld Academie. This program explored the role of imagination in relation to different forms of knowledge, archiving and perceptions of truth.

At IAS, Visser will bring these interests into dialogue with researchers from different fields. Her residency offers an opportunity to consider how artistic practice, if anything, can show how to live and play with the insecurities and instabilities of a rapidly changing technological landscape. Questions of originality, identity and truth are being reshaped, time and again, along the way.