J. Rosenbaum

Gender Tapestry Activation
2023-02-13 00:00 UTC, 2023-03-11 08:00 - 17:00 (Australia/Melbourne)
For One Day Only!
Gender Tapestry will have a live activation at ACMI in Melbourne in Gandel Lab 1.
Upload your selfie to help train a neural network and become a part of a community mosaic.
When you upload your selfie, the AI will assign you a colour based on your face, and will generate a two-tone image of you which will be added to the mosiac.
Submit an image of your face to experience gender classification with a twist. Instead of a gender you will receive a custom mixed color version of your image based on your classification results. This generated image is then incorporated into a library of images – a dataset used to create a colorful mosaic of GAN-generated works where the user’s image is added to the GAN to disrupt the outcome. As more people are classified, more colors are added to the library, prompting  both the GAN results and the mosaic to grow with increasing complexity.

Break the Binaries
2023-02-18 00:00 - 2023-06-17 23:59 (Australia/Melbourne)
Bend, blend, blur or break society’s binary codes as part of BREAK THE BINARIES, opening soon at Science Gallery Melbourne!
Installations from local and international artists will present a playful and kaleidoscopic view of identity and genders, and their relationship with science, technology, culture, race, sexuality and creativity. With collaboration at its heart, this exhibition will create connections and conversation through personal perspectives, interdisciplinary creative practice and research at The University of Melbourne.
As with all Science Gallery Melbourne exhibitions, BREAK THE BINARIES has been developed together with Curatorial Panel of young people and an Expert Advisory Group, and features a range of interdisciplinary projects across video, sound, sculpture and multimedia. Find out more about them below.
BREAK THE BINARIES builds on GENDERS: Shaping and Breaking the Binary, which took place at Science Gallery London, King’s College London. It will feature key UK artists and collectives including Adham Faramawy and Sadé Mica, whose works boldly reflect a new wave of hybrid creative practice spanning moving image, sound, sculptural installation, advocating for empowerment and social change.
Supported by the UK/Australia Season Patrons Board, the British Council and the Australian Government as part of the UK/Australia Season, in collaboration with Science Gallery London, Kings College London. f

Programmable - Roll for Initiative
2023-03-28 16:00 - 17:00 (Australia/Melbourne)
Slides are now available online in Part 1 and Part 2
The beta module (with the original graphics from Clip guided VQGAN!) is available here: AI Bias Campaign ModuleI’d love to know how you go if you play it!
I’ll be presenting my talk Roll for Initiative at Programmable Melbourne this year as the ending keynote. please come and help defeat the monster of AI bias!
Your team has gathered to fight bias, your tool, AI. How do you muster your forces and all of the abilities at your disposal to fight and slay your fearsome foe? Using all of the lawful and chaotic good tools available, how do you create a balanced party and slay the Beasts of Bias; racism, sexism and queerphobia? Can it be done? Venture together with me into the seedier side of AI as we band together to fight algorithmic injustice and create a better world.
This is a dungeons and dragons themed talk about AI and ethics. I will talk about the key issues facing AI and AI engineers and what we need to do to create better, more equitable AI for all. I will talk about the considerations that need to be made, the issues that exist and how we can all band together to slay this monster.

PyConAU
2023-08-18 00:00 - 2023-08-20 23:59 (Australia/Melbourne)
I’m headed to PyconAu for two talks this year, I’ll be presenting Roll for Initiative as a keynote on the Friday and Gender Tapestry on the Saturday.
Roll for InitiativeYour team has gathered to fight bias, your tool, AI. How do you muster your forces and all of the abilities at your disposal to fight and slay your fearsome foe? Using all of the lawful and chaotic good tools available, how do you create a balanced party and slay the Beasts of Bias; racism, sexism and queerphobia? Can it be done? Venture together with me into the seedier side of AI as we band together to fight algorithmic injustice and create a better world.https://2023.pycon.org.au/program/ZDDVWK/
5e compatable one shot module – PcAu_Campaign ModuleSlides – PyConAU Roll for Initiative Slides
Gender TapestryWhat is gender? It is easy to imagine gender as a linear spectrum, but in my research I have explored the concept that gender is more like a three dimensional spectrum of color. I posit that we all experience gender slightly differently, just like we experience color slightly differently. Therefore, I built an online project using Python and Flask to classify people as individual colors rather than genders, to create a tapestry of gender. and show gender as a literal, individual, spectrum.https://2023.pycon.org.au/program/LZDHUW/ Slides – PyConAu Gender Tapestry slides
Slides for Both talks will be available after and a transcript will be available if you need one.

Symposium on Diversity and Inclusion in Artificial Intelligence
2023-10-16 09:00 - 17:00 (Australia/Melbourne)
J. Rosenbaum will be presenting a paper on their work Gender Tapestry at The CSIRO Data 61 Symposium on Diversity and Inclusion in Artificial Intelligence in Sydney and Online.
In recent years, the impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on many aspects of society have been profound, affecting human lives and experiences in a multitude of ways. There’s a growing realization that AI systems must not only be useful but also ethically and responsibly designed, encompassing principles of diversity and inclusion.

Epoch Loop
2023-11-27 11:00 - 2024-02-11 18:00 UTC | The Loop, 157 Elizabeth St, Hobart, Tas, 7000, Australia
Set in Stone will be showing at Epoch Loop as part of Hobart Current: Epoch through December to February.

Embark on a visual odyssey with my AI-generated marble faces, an exploration of gender evolution. The journey begins with the AI mastering fixed, masculine expressions before gracefully integrating feminine features and then further to break the binary in a looping animation. Watch as the artwork dynamically shifts, breaking free from traditional confines, embracing non-binary expressions of color and joy.

This conceptual artwork delves into the machine’s process of creating gender representations, challenging and evolving its biases. A transgender neural network emerges, navigating the fluidity of gender expression beyond biological norms. The carefully curated datasets, inspired by classical statuary with a modern twist, intentionally introduce and then unravel biases, revealing a metamorphosis as the AI learns and celebrates the diversity of genders and expressions

Epoch Loop is part of Hobart Current: Epoch Public Programs and will continue to screen on The Loop for the duration of the Hobart Current exhibition.

When: Monday 27 November 2023 – Sunday 11 February 2024Monday to Friday: 11.30 am – 1 pm and 4.30 – 6 pmSaturday and Sunday: 1.30 – 3 pm and 6.30 – 8 pm

Where: 157 Elizabeth St, Central Courtyard, Hobart

Screening Schedule

NeurIPS Workshop on ML for Creativity and Design 2023
2023-12-16 08:00 - 17:00 UTC | New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, 900 Convention Center Blvd,, New Orleans, Louisiana, 70130, United States
Gender Tapestry will be shown at the NeurIPS Workshop on ML for Creativity and Design 2023 as part of the artistic display. The schedule is on the website below. you can interact with Gender Tapestry at any time to receive your own custom color by going to https://gendertapestry.com

Gender Tapestry seeks to change attitudes towards gender classification by showing a new modality of gender classification assigning custom mixed, unique colors to users instead of a gender.

This viewing will show the video from the ACMI activation showing the evolution of the neural network and the increasing resolution of the image as more and more people interacted with the classifier. This is the first time this work has been shown at NeurIPS and shows why we need to consider gender as a 3D color spectrum instead of a binary.

RainbowAI Australia
2024-02-16 08:00 - 17:00 UTC | UNSW Kensington, High St, Kensington, NSW, 2052, Australia
J is giving a talk on their Project Gender Tapestry at Rainbow AI at UNSW in Sydney in February. This one day workshop is designed around supporting and connecting queer identifying students and researchers interested in AI technologies.

Rainbow AI is a full-day workshop that will bring together queer students in Australian universities interested in AI.We invite queer individuals and allies working in AI in academia, research, industry, and other fields, to participate in conversations with queer students interested in AI.While the focus group of the workshop is queer students currently enrolled in an Australian university, the workshop welcomes all undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral students who identify as allies.

Execute_Photography
2024-03-01 11:00 - 2024-05-04 17:00 UTC | RMIT Gallery, 344 Swanston St, Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia
Interact with Gender Tapestry, a community driven AI artwork that seeks to explore a new way to during a new installation at Execute_Photography as part of Photo2024Photography is constantly dying and being reborn. AI represents the latest stage of photography’s transformation into a software output, cannibalising the camera and even transforming it into a set of executable text prompts. If it is now clear that photography is a kind of ‘program’, and that images are operational, actionable and scrapable, what does this mean for the future of the medium? Both an exploration and a provocation, this exhibition features work by Australian and international artists speculating on the social and political ramifications of photography’s afterlives.

Exhibition Curators: Alison Bennett, Shane Hulbert, Daniel Palmer, Katrina Sluis

Artists include: Memo Akten, Amrita Hepi, Max Pinckers and Dries Depoorter, Rosa Menkman, Sara Oscar, J. Rosenbaum, Sebastian Schmieg and Alan Warburton

CVPR2024 Art Gallery
2024-06-19 10:30 - 2024-06-21 18:45 UTC | Seattle Convention Center, 705 Pine St, Seattle, Washington, 98101, United States
Gender Tapestry is one of the chosen artworks taking part in this year’s CVPR art gallery online and at the conference.

The CVPR AI Art Gallery will be open to the public Wednesday, 19 June through Friday, 21 June from 10:30 a.m. to 6:45 p.m. PDT. A one-day exhibit pass will be available onsite, and guided tours will also be available on Wednesday and Thursday at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. PDT and Friday at 11 a.m. PDT only. Cash prizes for the best artworks will be awarded on Thursday, 20 June.

Knox Immerse 2024 - Set in Stone
2024-06-28 08:00 - 2024-07-28 17:00 UTC | Knox Library, 425 Burwood Hwy, Wantirna South, Victoria, 3152, Australia
Set in Stone is going huge for Knox Immerse 2024 Festival! This exhibition will show a new site specific installation of my work exhibiting the debiasing of an AI system as well as a new augmented reality interaction with the work using WebAR. Head down to the brand new Knox Gallery to see the installation in the Youth Hive including a large scale wallpaper, AR and a video feed and be immersed in AI for good.

This work is a look at gender through the lens of a biased AI system that becomes un-biased over time showing that we can update our datasets to make better AI systems.I will be conducting a workshop on self expression with AI as well so keep an eye out for more information.

Fort Earth
2024-09-25 00:00 - 2024-10-05 23:59 UTC | Fortyfive Downstairs, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia
Fort Earth is a group exhibition organized by FortHeartCo exploring eco friendly approaches to art. J. Rosenbaum will be presenting a new artwork that responds to the environmental theme by using local AI systems to show our increasing reliance on AI and the environmental impact of AI. The artists in the exhibition are:

Alex DanayAngela MezzatestaAnna SteelAnnette WagnerAutumn TanseyBailey McDermottBen DavisBingo Print ShopBonnie LeeBrigit HellerCallan SkiminCat ParkerCherise MarieChico LeongDanielle CDanish QuapoorDelphine ByrneEddie JamesEmmica LoreEveryday LinesFreya McLeodGarreth PearseGiovanna Da SilvaGlen DowneyGonketaGrace StevensonHarley & HändenHeath JohnsonIan ParadineImogen DavisIngmar ApinisIssac Williams

J. RosenbaumJack MurphyJames HeenanJason ParkerJenna WinshipJohn GatipJonathon HarrisJulia SchmittJulianna NyesteKaitlin BeckettKara InezKate McCarthyKerrie O’JamesKitt Falkner BabbelKyra HannahLance ZunigaLaura BennettLauren FaheyLauren NicholsonLeili WalkerLena StumpfLily Palmer BullLiz SonntagLucinda PennLuke HunterMacarena ThreadsManda LaneMarcie O’NeillMatthew ThorleyMeg KolacMel Jane WilsonMelanie CapleMelanie Sky

Melanie WebbMelody SpangaroMichaela PegumMike MakaMinhi ParkMollie WilsonMorgan Blue StudioMycelium3000N20Nani PuspasariNanou DupuisOlivia ChinPixelsRachel DerumRachelle KoumourisRebecca JonesRhys DelinacRochelle MorrisRonny EldersSam OctiganSim DarcySimon RankinSkubzSteph TesorieroSydney FareyTim AllenTomboyBillTracey LambVicki SoarViki MurrayXander LingerZoe Haynes SmithZoe JonesZoe Milah

Diversity and Inclusion in AI Symposium
2024-11-14 08:00 - 2024-11-15 17:00 UTC
I will be presenting my AI slop research at the Diversity and Inclusion in AI Symposium online this year. I am exploring the linkages between AI slop. The propagation of images and reactions by right wing accounts, the uptick in right wing accounts sharing AI slop. Drawing connections between AI slop and the Ubermenschen, Hitler and Mussolini.

Abstract:

Generative AI is proliferating on social media at an alarming rate. Right wing spheres in particular generate and disseminate political Images with political agendas. These AI-generated images often depict soldiers, sad children, or interior designs. Of particular note are the catfishing-style “I need a husband” posts featuring women with impossible proportions, ostensibly seeking partners. These chimeric creations are bot-driven posts designed to farm engagement. These posts also offer a chilling glimpse into AI-driven beauty standards and the lack of diversity in AI-generated women. These posts reflect a mechanical view of the male gaze. However, an AI cannot truly comprehend the male gaze, and in its attempt to mimic it, it creates beings beyond understanding.

This research project aims to analyze the patterns in these images, explore posting methods and engagement. It will culminate in an artistic piece critiquing both the images and their creation and dissemination methods. By rendering these AI-generated images as classical Greek statues through Gaussian splatting and 3D printing, we aim to create a visual commentary on the intersection of AI, beauty standards, and the male gaze. This artistic approach not only highlights the absurdity of these digital constructs but also invites viewers to critically examine AI’s role in shaping contemporary perceptions of beauty and gender roles.

Slides:

D&I_AISlopDownload

PyConAU - AI Perceptions of Gender
2024-11-22 08:00 - 2024-11-24 17:00 UTC | Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, 1 Convention Centre Place,, Melbourne, Victoria, 3006, Australia
Why does AI perceive gender? Is this something that can be fixed? Should it be fixed? Explore the results of my research encompassing art, AI and gender theory to find out the why and how of gender perception.

My PhD subject was AI perceptions of gender. I will take you through my key findings, my artwork projects created to explore this topic and how that research has progressed today in the days of generative AI. I will explore perception theory, gender theory and art all using AI to show why gender is fundamentally misunderstood by machine learning systems and ask the question why are we still letting machines assign gender to us?

Slides

PCAu_GenderDownload

Tech Leader Chats- how to overcome AI's biased perceptions of gender
2025-01-08 09:00 - 10:00 UTC | Online
Details

How to overcome AI’s biased perceptions of gender

In a world where AI increasingly shapes how we see and represent ourselves, understanding how these systems interpret gender is crucial. Gender is deeply personal and much more than just anatomy, but AI systems often reduce this complexity to simple binary classifications.

To explore this topic, we’re excited to welcome Dr J. Rosenbaum, a Melbourne-based AI artist, researcher and lecturer, who will share key findings and artwork projects from their PhD focused on AI perceptions of gender. J’s research explores how AI interprets and represents gender, challenging the binary frameworks that dominate machine learning to expand them beyond biological essentialism.

In this session, J. will cover:

How and why AI perceives gender

Why gender is fundamentally misunderstood by machine learning systems

The implications for visual representation present in generative people images

How de-biasing data affects generative images

We’ll also have ample time for Q&A with J. – feel free to send us your questions in advance or bring them to the event.

About the speaker

Dr J. Rosenbaum is a Melbourne-based AI artist and researcher with a PhD from RMIT University focusing on AI Perceptions of Gender. Their work explores posthuman and postgender concepts using classical art combined with new media techniques and programming. A globally recognized speaker on AI in art, J has exhibited worldwide and received multiple accolades, including the Midsumma Australia Post Art Prize and City of Melbourne COVID-19 Arts Grant

Programmable Melbourne
2025-03-17 08:00 - 17:00 UTC | Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, 1 Convention Centre Place,, Melbourne, Victoria, 3006, Australia
Join me for my research into AI slop with I need a husband: AI beauty standards and the proliferation of bot driven content.This talk will explore AI slop, catfishing, the right wing pipeline, and is tied together with a new artwork exploring the algorithmic gaze, fascism and AI slop.

Generative AI is proliferating on social media at an alarming rate. Images are generated and disseminated with political agendas, particularly in right-wing spheres. These AI-generated images often depict soldiers, sad children, or interior designs. Of particular note are the catfishing-style “I need a husband” posts featuring women with impossible proportions, ostensibly seeking partners. These chimeric creations are bot-driven posts designed to farm engagement, but they also offer a chilling glimpse into AI-driven beauty standards and the lack of diversity in AI-generated women. These posts reflect a mechanical view of the male gaze. However, an AI cannot truly comprehend the male gaze, and in its attempt to mimic it, it creates beings beyond understanding. This research project aims to analyze the patterns in these images, explore posting methods and engagement, and how it relates to Mussolini, Hitler and current right wing media. I will examine the meaning behind the images culminating in an artistic piece critiquing both the images and their creation and dissemination methods. By rendering these AI-generated images as classical Greek statues through Gaussian splatting and 3D printing, we aim to create a visual commentary on the intersection of AI, beauty standards, and the male gaze. This artistic approach not only highlights the absurdity of these digital constructs but also invites viewers to critically examine AI’s role in shaping contemporary perceptions of beauty and gender roles.Generative AI is proliferating on social media at an alarming rate. Images are generated and disseminated with political agendas, particularly in right-wing spheres. These AI-generated images often depict soldiers, sad children, or interior designs. Of particular note are the catfishing-style “I need a husband” posts featuring women with impossible proportions, ostensibly seeking partners. These chimeric creations are bot-driven posts designed to farm engagement, but they also offer a chilling glimpse into AI-driven beauty standards and the lack of diversity in AI-generated women. These posts reflect a mechanical view of the male gaze. However, an AI cannot truly comprehend the male gaze, and in its attempt to mimic it, it creates beings beyond understanding. This research project aims to analyze the patterns in these images, explore posting methods and engagement, and how it relates to Mussolini, Hitler and current right wing media. I will examine the meaning behind the images culminating in an artistic piece critiquing both the images and their creation and dissemination methods. By rendering these AI-generated images as classical Greek statues through Gaussian splatting and 3D printing, we aim to create a visual commentary on the intersection of AI, beauty standards, and the male gaze. This artistic approach not only highlights the absurdity of these digital constructs but also invites viewers to critically examine AI’s role in shaping contemporary perceptions of beauty and gender roles.

D&I_AISlopDownload

Programmable Sydney
2025-03-20 08:00 - 17:00 UTC | International Convention Center Sydney, 14 Darling Drive, Sydney, NSW, 2000, Australia

Now or Never - Intraconnection
2025-08-25 18:00 - 2025-08-31 22:00 (Australia/Melbourne) | Fed Square, Swanston St, Flinders St,, Melbourne, 3000, Australia
What does it mean to be human—when the boundaries between person, plant, animal and machine begin to dissolve?

Intraconnection is a nightly series of newly commissioned moving-image works developed through Centre for Projection Art’s residency program. Presented on the iconic Fed Square screen for Now or Never, the project explores multi-species entanglement in all its complexity.

This large-scale intervention into public space invites audiences to reflect on kinship, coexistence, and the shared ecologies that bind us, offering moments of empathy, disorientation, and expanded awareness.

My Slopocene Icons artwork will be a part of the screening

🌀 Featuring works by: Ariel Ruby, Emma Roberts and Ben Joseph Andrews, J. Rosenbaum, Max Brading, Melania Jack, Rebecca Najdowski, Shirin Shakhesi and Curated by Yandell Walton. Image credit Ariel Ruby

📍Federation Square 🗓️ Mon 25 Aug – Sun 31 Aug | 6–10pm

Presented in partnership with @centreforprojectionart and @fedsquare for @nowornever.melb

Bunjil Place activation
2025-09-01 17:00 - 2025-09-30 19:00 (Australia/Melbourne) | Bunjil Place, 2 Patrick Northeast Drive, Narre Warren, VIC, 3805, Australia
For the month of September from 5 to 7 pm, the residents of the CfPA will showcase their works on the massive outdoor screen at Bunjil Place. My artwork, “Slopocene Icons,” will be reimagined for Bunjil Place and presented as part of a group of posthuman video and sound works.

Entangled Worlds
2025-10-02 17:30 - 2025-10-05 22:30 (Australia/Melbourne) | Collingwood Yards, 35 Johnston St, Collingwood, Victoria, 3066, Australia
Slopocene Icons will be showing in two locations during Entangled Worlds at Collingwood Yards. These site specific installations will show the emerging AI fascist aesthetic in AI slop and generative AI. Through projection mapping these works will exhibit AI slop made with an intricate pipeline of custom trained AI systems, 3D modeling, 3D printing and more.

“Slopocene Icons interrogates AI slop on social media and juxtaposes it with classical sculpture to draw a connection between AI as an emerging fascist aesthetic. The algorithmic gaze of generative AI echoes the fascinations of 20th‑century dictators with classical statuary as an idealised form of humanity. By bringing together AI slop and classical imagery, Slopocene Icons stages a cautionary narrative. It asks us to examine how generative AI, marketed as neutral and creative, encodes, amplifies, and aestheticises authoritarian ideals, enforcing narrow visions of beauty, gender, and humanity under the guise of progress.”

Featuring:

Ariel Ruby

Ben Joseph Andrews and Emma Roberts

Jen Valender

J. Rosenbaum

Max Brading

Melania Jack

Rebecca Najdowski

Shirin Shakhesi

Presented by Centre for Projection Art and Collingwood Yards.

Supported by City of Yarra and Melbourne Fringe.

Curated by Yandell Walton

Fri 3 Oct — ACTIVATIONS:

Harrison Hall x Mat Spisbah x Nikki Tarling x Luca Dante

Jen Valender x Genevieve Fry

Sarah Aiken

Shirin Shakhesi​​​​​​​

Everything Open - The Beast of AI Slop
2026-01-21 08:00 - 2026-01-23 17:00 (Australia/Melbourne) | University of Canberra, Kirinari Street South, BRUCE, ACT, 2617, Australia
Our adventurers are still recovering from the battle against the automaton of AI bias, but little did they know that lurking beneath the waves was a new monster, waiting to swallow everyone and everything they hold dear. It’s time for a new TTRPG themed talk! This time around AI slop, the beast that devours everything and summons forth endless simulacra. A beast that is everywhere, taking our data, churning out non-stop slop. We will look at what AI slop is and how to combat it, in both the game and real life.

AI slop is a scourge of our time. It has been likened to an oil spill, and even to the atomic bomb in terms of its pollution of the internet. Part of my work is as an AI fact checker and I see a huge amount of AI slop. I will guide you to recognize the key signs, as well as some tricks to protect your data. This talk is a D&D themed talk about AI slop. Much like my previous D&D talk I will alternate between a story as DM, and information we can use to fight the increasing swell of AI slop in our lives. I will provide meaningful tips and insights for how people are fighting, from combatting google AI overviews, to protecting your data, all with a D&D flavor that will hopefully grant us inspiration and bonuses to our perception checks against AI slop.It’s a sequel adventure! and interactive presentation with a playable module coming soon.

EO_AISlopDnDDownload Slides

ACMI+RMIT Audience Lab - Memento Mori
2026-03-14 10:00 - 17:00 (Australia/Melbourne) | ACMI, Fed Square, Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia
I will be testing my latest version of Memento Mori at ACMI for the ACMI +RMIT Audience Lab, an opportunity for us to test interactive works to explore audience receptions at one of Melbourne’s premiere museums.

Memento Mori is an exploration of the environmental damage of generative AI and uses local, ethical AI to track and stamp human presence as a rectangle and then fill it in with an image of nature. Over time these photographic images will lose resolution and gradually be replaced by locally generated works from a hand trained small AI. The results will be chaotic, as the human traces are occluded by the machinic influences.

Come see this work take shape on Saturday the 14th of March, between 10 and 5 and talk to me about Memento Mori.
