Zizi - Queering the Dataset aims to tackle the lack of representation and diversity in the training datasets often used by facial recognition systems. The video was made by disrupting these systems* and re-training them with the addition of drag and gender fluid faces found online. This causes the weights inside the neural network to shift away from the normative identities it was originally trained on and into a space of queerness. 

Zizi - Queering The Dataset lets us peek inside the machine learning system and visualise what the neural network has (and hasn’t) learnt. The work is a celebration of difference and ambiguity, which invites us to reflect on bias in our data driven society.
*A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks (2019)

Instagram @zizidrag - machine learning generated captions and looks trained on drag profiles.
Zizi was originally commissioned as a seven channel video installation by Experiential AI at Edinburgh Futures Institute and Inspace.
Presented as site specific video installation with between 3 and 7 projected video channels.

Exhibitions

PRETERNATURAL: Jake Elwes Solo show, Data Lates | Inspace Gallery, Edinburgh 2019
Real-Time Contraints (virtual browser extension, COVID-19), Arebyte Gallery, London, UK, 2019
Fluid Bodies, E-WERK Freiburg, Germany, 2019
You and AI (touring), Onassis Foundation and Future Everything, Gazometro Rome, Italy, 2020
Critical Borders: Radical (Re)visiions of AI, Center for the Future of Intelligence, Cambridge University, UK, 2020
You and AI, Onassis Foundation, Pedion tou Areos Park, Athens, Greece, 2020
The Third Gender, A.K.T, Pforzheim, Germany, 2020
Among the Machines, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2021
BIAS, Science Gallery Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, 2021
Jake Elwes: Data • Glitch • Utopia (solo show), Gazelli Art House, London, UK, 2022
Riposte - Queer Art Techno Rave, Electrowerkz, London, 2022
UKINTER:ACTIVE - Breaking The Code CPH:DOX, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark 2022
The Horror Show! A Twisted Tale Of Modern Britain, Somerset House, London, 2022 - 23
Glitch. Die Kunst Der Störung, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany, 2023
Zizi - Queering the Dataset (solo display), Gazelli Art House, Mayfair, London, 2023
Surreal Futures, Max Ernst Museum, Brühl, Germany.2024

Jake Elwes (b. 1993) is a media artist who explores machine learning and artificial intelligence. Their work finds poetry and narrative in these systems' success and failures, their sophistication, and limitations, while investigating their code and ethics. In notable work, the Zizi Project, Elwes exposes AI bias by queering datasets with drag performers, simultaneously demystifying and subverting AI systems.

Elwes lives and works in London, having studied at The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL (2013-17). The artist's work has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Somerset House, London; ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; Today Art Museum, Beijing; Yuz Museum, Shanghai; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; 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; Arebyte Gallery, London; E-WERK Freiburg, Germany; Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin; Nature Morte, Delhi, India; Centre for the Future of Intelligence, UK, and they have been featured on TV: ZDF aspekte (Germany) and the BBC Arts (UK).