Linking performative online investigation with contextualising process documentation, the media installation ITERATIVE BODY SYNTHESIS acts as a self-operating research infrastructure and a monitoring interface for sisi.spec, a virtual identity on Instagram. Tracing potentials of synthetic data, a specially developed software architecture samples and analyses the influence of Instagram's image recognition systems on the over- and under-representation of body images on this platform. In a feedback loop, the most consistent patterns between body characteristics and online in-/visibility are evaluated and iteratively cast into an evolving virtual performance of continuous body transformations.

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Michael Wallinger is a media artist whose work strives to fathom the performative, communicative and symbolic agencies of data-driven technologies. Curious how these dimensions permeate our interfaces and impact our experience and understanding of the world and of ourselves, Michael studies how such systems de-/compress relevance and meaning by reducing what is identified as redundant and inefficient.

ITERATIVE BODY SYNTHESIS was implemented in collaboration with Kevin Daryl Ferdinandus (media artist), Alina Smith (media artist & software developer), Claudia Strate (political scientist & writer) and Enrico Zago (digital artist).