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BIOGRAPHY

Name: Minne Atairu
Pronunciation: MEE-neh AH-tye-roo

Minne Atairu is a researcher and interdisciplinary artist interested in generative artificial intelligence. Utilizing AI-mediated processes and materials, Atairu's work critically examines and illuminates understudied gaps in Black historical archives. Minne’s academic research focuses on Generative AI, Art and Educational policy in urban K-12 Art classrooms.

Minne has exhibited at The Shed, New York (2023), Frieze, London (2023), The Harvard Art Museums, Boston (2022); Markk Museum, Hamburg (2021); SOAS Brunei Gallery University of London, London (2022); Fleming Museum of Art, Vermont (2021). Minne is the recipient of S+T+ARTS Prize Africa (2024), The Graham Foundation Grant for Research (2023), Community Engagement Grant from Columbia University's Center for Science and Society (2023), Columbia University's Artistic Dialogue Across Disciplines Grant (2022), the Lumen Prize for Art and Technology (2021).

CONTACT

mga2146 [at] columbia [dot] edu
Instagram @minneatairu

ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS

SELECTED PRESS

The New York Times
Aperture Magazine
The Financial Times
Vogue Magazine

Minne Atairu: Events
2024
Strada Nuova: New Road
Strada X OpenAI
2024
HOPE who will turn the tide
Ars Electronica Festival
2024
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater
2024
Art in the Age of AI
Villa Albertine
2024
Photography in the Age of AI
Aperture | IFA Photo Assembly
2024
2024
2024
Small Vo1ce
Honor Fraser Gallery
2023
2023
Guest Speaker for the course titled "Machine Talks Course"
Bard College
2023
Guest Speaker for the course titled "Photography, Exponential"
UCLA
2023
Guest Critic for the course titled "Textile X Technology"
Teachers College Columbia University
2023
Open Call
The Shed
2023
2023
Artificial Intelligence Research in Applied Linguistics
Teachers College Columbia University
2023
2023
Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education. Friend or Foe?
Hofstra University
2023
Generative AI
Creative Commons
2023
The American Pavilion
Frieze London
2023
Creative AI Symposium
Burlington City Arts Center
2022
Temporarily Moved
Kunsthalle Gießen
2022
Using Machine Learning to Reimagine African Art History
University of Luxembourg
2022
AI x Blockchain Workshop for the course titled "Creative Technologies Research Seminar"
Teachers College Columbia University
2022
Posthuman Vernacular
Algorand, Decipher
2022
Then and Now
Macy Art Gallery, Columbia University
2022
Techne Disruptors
Jaipur Lit Festival
2022
Danvas, The New Digital Experience
The Armory Art Fair
2022
September Primer
Macy Art Gallery, Columbia University
2022
Creative Technologies
Macy Art Gallery, Columbia University
2022
Intelligent Art
Humboldt in Academia Summit
2022
Pixel Mitosis
NFT.NYC
2022
Kampüste Dijital Sanat, conversation with Yağmur Uyanık
Akbank Sanat, BASE
2022
Curatorial A(i)gents, Critical Panel
MetaLab, Harvard University
2022
A Pot of Hot Soup
Brunei Gallery, SOAS University of London
2022
Techne Disruptors
India Art Fair
2022
Art History 2060
Davidson College
2022
Uncannyverse
SXSW
2022
Curatorial A(i)gents
Harvard Art Museums
2022
Igun AI @ Openglam, Digitizing Cultures and Languages
Mozilla Festival
2022
Art History 2060
Davidson College
2022
What-if Art Classrooms Decentralized Autonomous Organizations [DAOs]?
National Art Education Association [NAEA]
2022
How might Art Educators make sense of our current entanglements with Artificial Intelligence, and related developments such as NFT’s and the Metaverse?
National Art Education Association [NAEA] Pre-convention
2021
Benin.Looted
Markk Museum
2021
The Digital
ArtxCode
2021
Using Generative Adversarial Networks to Reimagine Benin Bronzes
Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa [DHASA] Conference
2021
IGÙN AI
University of Vermont
2021
Doomscroll
The Wrong Bienniale
2021
AR Festival GardenArs Electronica
2021
September Primer
Macy Art Gallery, Columbia University
2021
May Reflection
Macy Art Gallery, Columbia University
2021
Igùn AI: Prototype I, II & III
MetaLab, Harvard University
2020
Artist Talk: (Im)possible Conversations
Macy Art Gallery, Columbia University
2020
(Im)possible Conversations
Macy Art Gallery, Columbia University
2020
September Primer
Macy Art Gallery, Columbia University
2019
September Primer
Macy Art Gallery, Columbia University
2015
Outside the Spacecraft: 50 Years of Extra-Vehicular Activity
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
Regina Gloriana(AI)
Text-to-Video
2024

ALGORITHM: SORA-1

Regina Gloriana (2024) draws inspiration from two supernatural horror films produced in 1990s Nollywood (Nigeria’s cinema)—Nneka, the Pretty Serpent (1994) and Karishika (1996). Using text-based prompts in SORA, I reinterpret the visual effects that these films deployed to animate Mami Wata—a femme-presenting, amphibious, and shape-shifting West African God—as a terrifying figure. These 90s evangelical films not only sought to dissuade Mami Wata devotion but also arbitrated Pentecostal-Christian values through uncanny VFX that continues to haunt my imagination. For this reason, I have yet to watch the 2020 sequel of Nneka, the Pretty Serpent.

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Deshrined Ancestors (AI, AR)
Image-to-3D, Text-to-3D
2024
Cornrow Studies (AI)
Text-to-Image
2024
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Igùn: Prototype X (AI)
Text-to-3D
2024
The Virgin and Child (AI)
Text-to-Image
2024

ALGORITHM: MIDJOURNEY (V5, V6)

Melanin-rich medieval depictions of the Virgin Mary and Child Christ (also known as Black Madonna, 12C-15C) have ignited centuries of scholarly speculation. Did medieval, European artists delibrately depict Madonnas of African-descent? Did St. Luke paint the Black Madonna of Częstochowa during the Virgin Mary's lifetime? From a live painting session? And if so, is St. Luke's Madonna a faithful representation of the Virgin Mary's racial heritage?

Various theories have been proposed to explain the Black Madonna's complexion, from the technical— oxidation of silver-based pigments, smoke damage from the burning of votive candles and incense, material degradation—to interpretations anchored in biblical text, notably the Songs of Solomon (1:5-6), which celebrates the beauty of Blackness: "I am Black but beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has looked upon me." This perspective stands in stark contrast to interpretations that equate darkness with sin, as expressed in 1 John 1:5: "God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all."

Departing from these theories of "unintentional Blackness", my AI-generated portraits intentionally celebrate the Black Madonna as an unmistakably, unquestionably, unambiguously Black divinity.

    EXHIBITIONS

  • 2024AI for Inclusive and Sustainable Futures, République Française
  • REFERENCES

  • Honegan, A. D. (2024). The Platytéra and Pietà: Black Visual Biblical Allegory in Mark Doox’s Our Lady, Mother of Ferguson and All Those Killed by Gun Violence (2016). Black Theology, 1-25.
  • Cleveland, C. (2022). God is a Black woman.
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Blonde Braids Study, Visual Supplement
Data
2024
Wata Side I-III (AI)
Text-to-Video
2024
To The Hand (AI, 3D)
StyleGAN2, Bronzefill, Clay
2023
Beaded Braids Study (AI)
Text-to-Image
2023

ALGORITHM: MIDJOURNEY (V5.1)

Beaded Braids Study examines how Midjourney (v 5.1) visualizes bead embellishments on braided Black hair. The text prompt includes visual cues from the bold, unapologetic hair and make-up worn by the legendary Kalakuta Queens—a collective of 27 performers and wives of the celebrated Nigerian musician and political activist, Fela Kuti.

The series uncovers how Midjourney (v 5.1) invokes associations between beaded Black hairstyles and Western, colonial conceptions of African indigeneity—the antithesis of the modern imagination, and perhaps, its distorted reflection. The resulting AI-generated images often reflect colonial fantasies of the African woman: "uncivilized," "unmodernized," "unclothed," living outdoors, and adorned with bead-like embellishments.

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Portrait of Mami Wata (AI)
Text-to-Image
2023

ALGORITHM: MIDJOURNEY (V5)

In Nigeria's Niger Delta region, all bodies of water are revered as sacred dwelling for Mami Wata—a femme-presenting, amphibious, metamorphic God whose influence spans fertility, wealth, and healing. Traditionally, artistic depictions of Mami Wata have aimed to capture the entity’s enigmatic nature, manifesting in various forms—a mermaid with non-African traits, “pseudo-Hindu snake charmer”, “human-fish goat-priestess”, mudfish, among other manifestations.

These AI-generated portraits, however, take a different approach by drawing inspiration from Nigerian folktales (Ogboro-Cole, 2015) that depict Mami Wata exclusively in human form. In these narratives, Mami Wata often assumes the role of a femme fatale or a benevolent stranger, intriguing and beguiling in equal measure.

    EXHIBITIONS

  • 2024Small Vo1ce, Honor Fraser Gallery
  • 2023Ground State – Fellowship within the Uncanny, Lagos Photo Festival
  • 2023Electronic Cafe, The School for Poetic Computation
  • REFERENCES

  • Ojaide, T. (2021). Toward a bioregional, politico-historical, and sociocultural identity of the Niger Delta. In The Literature and Arts of the Niger Delta (pp. 13-22). Routledge.
  • Ogboro-Cole, O. (2015). Mami Wata: Short Stories in Nigerian Pidgin English (Vol. 7). ATHENA-Verlag.
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If Braids Were Wata (AI)
Text-to-Image
2023
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Ribbon Studies (AI)
Text-to-Image
2023
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Blonde Braids Study (AI)
Text-to-Image
2023
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Bronze Studies (3D)
Augmented Reality
2022—
Fro Studies (AI)
Text-to-Image
2022
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AI-Restored Benin Bronzes (AI)
Text-to-Image
2022
Box Braids Studies (AI)
Text-to-Image
2022
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Eye See U (AI)
StyleGAN2
2021
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S-T-R-E-T-C-H Wigs (AI)
StyleGAN 2
2021
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Archive-in-Waiting (WEB3)
Data
2024—
Igùn: Prototypes I-VIII (AI)
StyleGAN2
2020—