Qingyi Ren (they/them) is a non-binary digital artist, queer feminist technoscience researcher at Critical Media Lab Basel, and Lecturer in MA Interaction Design at UAL London College of Communication. Their work critically engages with the material-discursive entanglements of technology, gender, and power within Science and Technology Studies (STS).
Qingyi’s practice combines speculative design, algorithmic critique, and feminist epistemology to interrogate machine learning’s colonial and cisheteronormative infrastructures. Through computational art, pedagogical interventions, and STS research, they expose how technical systems reproduce violence—and imagine queerer, embodied alternatives.
Their PhD project “Queerness as Gap” is funded by The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) from 2024 to 2028.
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ABOUT ME
IN BETWEEN
2022
Through a critical examination of the narratives and language employed in face recognition technology, particularly Amazon Rekognition, I have discovered that even artificial intelligence products trained on binary gender databases struggle to define gender in a strictly binary manner. By presenting diverse photographs of individuals alongside Amazon Rekognition's gender classification results, I aim to underscore the performative nature of gender, even within the realm of cyberspace.
Consequently, I have curated a database comprising various results generated by Amazon Rekognition, spanning classifications from 50% to 99% male and female. Leveraging machine learning Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), I have crafted a novel model capable of generating randomized portraits. This endeavor serves as a digital exploration of the performative aspects of gender, echoing and challenging the limitations imposed by technology on our understanding of identity within the digital sphere
“Feeding The Queer Archive”- The Queer Archive, Athens, Greece-From May 12, 2022 to May 22, 2022.
“IN BETWEEN“- Artscloud Digital Art Fair Top 100 Artis, Seoul, Republic of Korea - January 21, 2022-May 31 2022.