These gestures are the residue on the screen of an iPhone from human touch (the grease of one’s finger). The gestures and twitches are often recognisable according to the app. For example, the swiping left and right of Tinder, and the imprint of stubble from a phone call. Each image derives from a different app, displaying the material remnants of interacting with a virtual window.

Jake Elwes (b.1993) is an artist living in London currently working to queer artificial intelligence with drag performers. Across projects that encompass moving-image installation, sound and performance, Elwes’ work finds unusual ways of demystifying, mapping and subverting technology. Their work searches for poetry and narrative in the successes and failures of digital systems. Works include deepfake drag in The Zizi Project (2019 – ongoing), glitching oppressive algorithms in Machine Learning Porn (2016) and reframing AI generated marsh birds back into nature in CUSP (2019). They have been making art exploring the aesthetics and ethics of machine learning systems since the very first generative AI models in 2016. Elwes’ work also calls for us to challenge who builds these systems and for what purpose, and whether we as artists and queers can reclaim these technologies to build our own digital utopias.

Elwes studied at The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL (2013-17) and their work has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Somerset House, London; ZKM, Karlsruhe; Today Art Museum, Beijing; Frankfurter Kunstverein; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; Honor Fraser Gallery, LA; Fundacion Telefonica Museum, Madrid; Ars Electronica, Austria; Zabludowicz Collection, London; Sculpture in the City, London; Science Gallery Dublin; RMIT Gallery, Melbourne; Onassis Foundation, Athens; E-WERK Freiburg, Germany; Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin; Nature Morte, Delhi; Centre for the Future of Intelligence, Cambridge and they have been featured on ZDF aspekte, ARD ttt (DE), BBC Radio 4 Front Row, and BBC1’s Kill Your TV - History of Video Art (UK).