Mosaic Virus
Anna Ridler (UK)
The video work Mosaic Virus is a contemporary version of a classic Dutch still life for the twenty-first century. The project is based on 10,000 tulip photographs which were used to train a model. An artificial intelligence (AI) thus generates an endless flood of images of imaginary tulips whose appearance is directly controlled by the current Bitcoin course. Anna Ridler focuses on current speculation in crypto currencies and draws historical parallels in this way to the “tulip mania” of the 1630s in the Netherlands and Europe. At that time, horrendous prices were paid for tulips that were striped. These stripes were caused by a disease – the so-called mosaic virus.
