Artificial Intelligems
In 2020, Greg Scheirlinckx and Anneleen Swillen founded Artificial Intelligems to explore the artistic potential, as well as roles, impact and challenges of machine learning within jewellery.
At the time, they noticed a lack of academic exploration into AI and contemporary jewelry. Building on Swillen's PhD in arts, in which digital media and co-creation played a key role, they sought to envision jewellery beyond a human-centric perspective. Intrigued by the potential of self-learning algorithms and inspired by ML experiments in fine arts, they began pondering the implications of working with ML on how jewellery is made, worn, presented, and experienced. Can machine learning inspire novel concepts and methodologies for jewellery practice? What opportunities and challenges might this present?
Currently, 3 years later, Artificial Intelligems is growing into an experimental, fluid, interdisciplinary, collective and platform working on the intersection of jewellery, graphic design, music composition, XR performance, dance, data science and machine learning.
Together, they aim to connect people, artistic practices, and technologies to explore more-than-human collaboration and co-creation.
Artificial Intelligems connects people, artistic practices and technologies to explore more-than-human co-creation with machine learning. Currently, this fluid collective consists of dr. Anneleen Swillen (expanded jewellery practice involving research in the arts, education, curation and writing, and co-founder of Artificial Intelligems), Greg Scheirlinckx (composer, sound engineer, and data scientist and co-founder of Artificial Intelligems) in collab with prof. dr. Ine Vanoeveren (XR-performer, contemporary flutist, artistic researcher), Guus Vandeweerd (graphic designer) and lux&auma (a dance collective consisting of Carla Petzolt and Miriam Taschler).
Artificial Intelligems emerged within Anneleen’s current postdoctoral research on 'Jewellery phenomena in a phygital age. (Post-)speculative reflections on co-creating, -presenting and -experiencing jewellery in a digital culture' at Hasselt University and PXL- MAD School of Arts, Hasselt (BE).
Ponton Magazine AR Filter
In the Fall of 2022, Artificial Intelligems was invited by Ponton magazin for a contribution to their first issue. For Ponton, Artificial Intelligems collaborated with photographer Alexander Popelier and model Ebenezer Ankrah to create a unique photo to intra-act with the AR Ornamutations. Discover this phygital piece in the. public
How to wear the Ornamutations AR filters?
Visit the Artificial Intelligems Instagram account.
Click on the stars icon above the image feed.
The Ornamutations will emerge.
You can move, turn and scale the Ornamutations with your fingers on the screen. Play around with them, picturing them in various ways on the body (from a tiny ornament to an all-encompassing creature, morphing with the body). Please note: when you move your phone, ‘bring’ the Ornamutations with you by dragging them with your fingers, otherwise they move out of focus.
Make a screenshot of the Ornamutations on the body by tapping on the circle at the bottom of your screen.
Feel free to share your image(s) (@artificial_intelligems, #artificialintelligems). We'll be happy to see how you wear the Ornamutations, and share your photo on our account!
Lost? Restart.
Avatars
In my work with Artificial Intelligems, I've designed a series of avatars to represent the collective's jewelry pieces, contributing to their more-than-human research. Through these avatars, we're redefining the presentation and perception of jewelry in the digital age, highlighting the embodiment of an object, and what it means to become someone or something else.
Mirrored Dwellers
An artistic exploration into embodying virtual identities and its impact on user experience  by Anneleen Swillen (contemporary jewellery), Guus Vandeweerd (graphic design, XR-design), Ine Vanoeveren (XR-performance), Senneke Van de Wygaert (contemporary jewellery), and Esther Verstreken (graphic design).
Mirrored Dwellers is a performative project that aims to explore virtual identity within the context of Extended Reality (XR). For this project, we experiment with digital adornment, embodiment, personification, user experience and intra-active (Barad) phygital impressions. A selection of Ornamutations has been translated by Guus Vandeweerd into different avatars and a virtual world. During the performance, Ine Vanoeveren embodies an avatars and plays the flute in VR, all the while looking at her own reflection in this virtual world. Through Ine's viewpoint, an experimental poem co-authored with ChatGPT, and scientific allusions, the audience engages. Their presence and diverse perspectives are pivotal in questioning virtual identity, as well as active 'vs' passive spectatorship in XR. Wearing the avatar(s), entails embracing notions of otherness, plurality, and interconnectedness, while touching upon intricate entanglements of more-than-human actors, technologies, practices and environments.
Mirrored Dwellers is an ongoing project since 2023. So far, it has been performed at RITCS, Brussels (23/03/2023) and De Singel, Antwerp (19/04/2023). We plan on further developing this project in 2024.
By Dr.Anneleen Swillen, Prof. Dr. Ine Vanoeveren, Senneke Van de Wygaert, Esther Verstreken and Guus vandeweerd