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Episode page and full transcript: lerandom.art/episodes/anna-ridler-and-sofia-cr…
In this episode, host Peter Bauman (Monk Antony, Le Random's editor in chief) speaks with pioneering artist duo Anna Ridler (lerandom.art/subjects/anna-ridler) and Sofia Crespo (lerandom.art/subjects/sofia-crespo) about their long-running collaboration bringing machine learning into dialogue with natural history.
They trace their early encounters with deep learning—from memes, browser histories, and speech-to-text to data visualization, encyclopedias, and NeurIPS (lerandom.art/subjects/neurips) Creativity Workshops—and how both arrived at AI through questions of classification and what it means to “understand” the world.
They also discuss fusing natural history and machine learning across their five collaborative projects (including Anna Atkins–inspired cyanotypes, Argentine “artificial memories” and the rain-marked Clematis tiles), working only with their own datasets in the middle of AI copyright debates, rethinking collage and photography in an era of generative models, and what might come next after winning Arab Bank Switzerland’s Artist of the Year prize.
Monday's Editorial:
Holly Herndon (lerandom.art/subjects/holly-herndon) & Mat Dryhurst (lerandom.art/subjects/mat-dryhurst) on Artificial Psychedelia: lerandom.art/editorial/holly-herndon-mat-dryhu…
Also in this episode: Luba Elliott (lerandom.art/subjects/luba-elliott), Mario Klingemann (lerandom.art/subjects/mario-klingemann)
Listen next: Ep. 26, "Infinite Images" in Conversation—Erick Calderon, Sofia Crespo & Tyler Hobbs (lerandom.art/episodes/infinite-images-in-conve…), Ep. 23, Discussing Digital Art in 1Q 2025 (lerandom.art/episodes/discussing-digital-art-i…)
On the Living Timeline: The Shell Record by Anna Ridler (2021) (timeline.lerandom.art/m/the-shell-record-by-an…)
Chapters 📖:
Introduction
How did Anna find deep learning?
How did Sofia start with AI?
Why pair natural history and ML?
How did posthuman ideas emerge?
How did the NeurIPS workshop begin?
Artist or technologist?
What was Sofia's path into art?
Why talk to researchers during COVID?
How did Anna and Sofia meet?
What was their first collaboration?
Why 83 seeds from a vanishing mountain?
What is Snapshots: Orchids?
What is Long Short Term Memories?
What is 3.31424e+126?
What comes next for the duo?
Closing Thoughts
