Projects per year
Personal profile
Research
How does artificial intelligence (AI) affect the ways in which we, humans, see ourselves and others? My current postdoc project investigates how an aesthetics of “fake faces," that is facial images generated with AI, affect cultural understandings of the face and its relation to identity and emotions.
The project explores AI facial filters, deepfakes, and other forms of facial images generated with AI in ordinary social media practices and in artistic practices.
The project proposes that the democratization of AI, and the consequent spread of AI facial images, is occasioning shifts in the perception and cultural understanding of faces, resulting in a kind of technological prosopagnosia. Prosopagnosia, or face blindness in popular terms, is a neurological disorder where one has difficulties recognizing faces (Edkins 2015). With the proliferation and popularized use of AI facial images, we experience a different kind of prosopagnosia—not in the sense of a neurological disorder, but instead a sort of cultural disorder where it becomes difficult to read, understand, and navigate facial images, and where one is blinded as to what is actually a representation of a real face and what is a “fake” face.
Commissioned
I'm an artist mentor/consultant for artists that work somewhere at the intersections of art and the digital. I have a broad knowledge of digital media in general, but I am particularly interested in AI/biometrics/surveillance. Feel free to contact me anytime.
Cooperation and dissemination
I'm part of the research center Center for Aesthetics of AI Images (AIIM), which can be found here: https://cc.au.dk/en/aiim.
I'm also part of the research program Arts, Aestethics, and Communities, which can be found here: https://cc.au.dk/en/research/research-programmes/arts-aesthetics-communities.
Outside the university institution, I collaborate with artists who I share interests with. I am always open to collaborations with artists and other academic/nonacademic, cultural/noncultural institutions.
Teaching
I teach and supervise subjects related to, but not exclusively, contemporary digital art, digital media, surveillance, biopolitics, subjectivity, the genealogy of the face, and the fem/queer. I also teach more fundamental courses like theory of science.
I'm teaching the following courses in 2025:
S2025 Facial Machines, BA Level, Arts Interdisciplinary Course, AU
F2025 Contemporary Art and Culture, MA Level, Aesthetics & Culture, AU
F2025 Art, Images, and Vision in Digital Culture, BA Level, Arts Internationalization Elective, AU
Education/Academic qualification
Aesthetics and Culture, PhD, The Art of (Dis)Appearing in an Age of Ubiquitous Biopolitical Surveillance, Aarhus University
1 Feb 2018 → 16 Jun 2022
Award Date: 26 Oct 2022
Modern Culture and Cultural Dissemination, Master, Digital Biometrics - A Physiognomic Renaissance, University of Copenhagen
1 Sept 2014 → 31 Jan 2017
Award Date: 9 Mar 2017
Comparative Literature, Bachelor, University of Copenhagen
1 Sept 2011 → 30 Jun 2014
Award Date: 3 Jul 2014
Keywords
- Contemporary art
- Digital art
- Feminist critique of technology
- Queer theory
- Technofeminism
- Decolonialism
- Posthumanism
- The postphotographic
- Media
- Biometrics
- Facial recognition
- Forensic DNA phenotyping
- Composite photography
- Deepfakes
- Selfies
- Facial filters
- Visual culture
- Masks
- Camouflage
- Faces
- Portraits
- Masking ban
- AI
- History of technology
- Physiognomic renaissance
- Biopolitics
- Physiognomy
- Phrenology
- Eugenics
- Anthropometry
- Aesthetics and art
- Aesthetic analysis
- Digital aesthetics
- Applied ethics and bioethics/environmental ethics
- Philosophers
- Gilles Deleuze
- Félix Guattari
- Michel Foucault
- Shoshana Magnet
- Zach Blas
- Heather Dewey-Hagborg
- Adam Harvey
- Micha Cárdenas
- Donna Haraway
- Bernadette Wegenstein
- Eugene Thacker
- Alexander Galloway
- Jenny Edkins
- Emmanuel Lévinas
- Sara Ahmed
- Joseph Pugliese
- Giorgio Agamben
- Kelly Gates
- Lucy Hartley
- Sandra Kemp
- Judith Butler
- Jacques Rancière
- Joanna Zylinska
- Jack Halberstam
- Elizabeth Freeman
- José Esteban Muñoz
- Lee Edelman
- Bernard Stiegler
- Mark BN Hansen
- Hito Steyerl
- Jill Walker Rettberg
- Éduard Glissant
- Hans Belting
- N. Katherine Hayles
- Mieke Bal
- Simone Browne
- Harun Farocki
- Olga Goriunova
- Maurizio Lazzarato
- Lila Lee-Morrison
- Trevor Paglen
- Kate Crawford
- Charles Sanders Peirce
- Paul B. Preciado
- Rita Raley
- Pasi Väliaho
- Eyal Weizman
Areas of expertise
- Contemporary Digital Art
- Queer/Fem
- Digital Media
- Artificial Intelligence
- Biometrics and Surveillance
Fingerprint
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- 1 Similar Profiles
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NEW VISIONS: Image cultures in the era of AI
Philipsen, L. (PI), Bak Herrie, M. (PI) & Michelsen, L. L. N. (PI)
01/12/2022 → 31/12/2026
Project: Research
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The Art of (Dis)Appearing in an Age of Ubiquitous Biopolitical Surveillance
Michelsen, L. L. N. (PI)
Knud Højgaards Fond, Oticon Fonden - William Demants og Hustru Ida Emilies Fond, Augustinus Fonden
01/02/2018 → 31/01/2021
Project: Research
File -
AIsthesis: network for reseach on the aeshtetics of AI imagery
Philipsen, L. (PI), Michelsen, L. L. N. (Participant), Bak Herrie, M. (Participant), Maleve, N. R. M. (Participant) & Bryld Staunæs, A. (Participant)
Independent Research Fund Denmark
03/03/2025 → 29/02/2028
Project: Research
Research output
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Glitch
Michelsen, L. L., 2024, (Accepted/In press) Machine Vision Aesthetics: Critical Terms and Ideas ed. MIT Press. 7 p.Research output: Book/anthology/report › Anthology › Research › peer-review
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Who Sees with Machines? A Review of Jill Walker Rettberg’s (Perhaps Not So) Posthuman Book on Machine Vision
Michelsen, L. L., 2024, In: Electronic Book Review. 2024, 6 p.Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Literature review › Research › peer-review
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Kunstige kinder
Michelsen, L. L. & Zacher Sørensen, M.-M., 28 May 2025, (Accepted/In press) In: Passepartout – Uden titel. 46Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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Biometrics and Its Resistance
Michelsen, L. L., 2020, In: PUBLIC - Art/Culture/Ideas. 30, 60, p. 126-141Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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Er det sandt, hvad vi ser?
Bak Herrie, M., Michelsen, L. L. & Philipsen, L., 4 Aug 2023, In: Weekendavisen.Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Contribution to newspaper - Feature article
Activities
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Galton Reloaded
Michelsen, L. L. (Invited speaker)
14 May 2024Activity: Presentations, memberships, employment, ownership and other activities › Lecture and oral contribution
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Creative Research + Computation in the Aesthetic Practice of Zach Blas
Michelsen, L. L. (Invited speaker)
21 Nov 2019 → 22 Nov 2019Activity: Presentations, memberships, employment, ownership and other activities › Lecture and oral contribution
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Goldsmiths, University of London
Michelsen, L. L. (Visiting researcher)
Sept 2019 → Dec 2019Activity: Visiting an external institution types › Visiting an external academic institution
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Paneldebat: Biometrics and Its Resistance
Michelsen, L. L. (Speaker)
5 Feb 2020Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in or organisation of workshop, seminar or course
Press/Media
Courses
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Contemporary Art and Culture
Michelsen, L. L., Bak Herrie, M. & Philipsen, L. 01/09/2024 → …
Course: Teaching
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Art, Images, and Vision in Digital Culture
Michelsen, L. L., Bak Herrie, M. & Philipsen, L. 01/09/2024 → …
Course: Teaching
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Samtidskunst og -kultur
Iversen, A. K., Sørensen, M.-M. Z. & Michelsen, L. L. 15/08/2022 → 20/12/2022
Course: Teaching