xhairymutantx (2025)
Single-channel video, 5:36 min
xhairymutantx is an image and a system, a technological experiment and a commentary on how digital identities are scrutinised and used by others. Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst test the limits of what it means to own your image and identity in a world where everything can be reproduced but not easily controlled.
For the 2024 Whitney Biennial, the artists developed xhairymutantx, an AI model examining the training data behind artificial intelligence. The model generates images of Herndon from text prompts, exaggerating and distorting her distinguishing features, especially her ginger hair. The resulting AI-generated images are archived in an online gallery. Regardless of the prompt, the result is always a strange new iteration of “Holly.” As the images exist in the online ecosystem, they may be included in datasets used to train new AI models.
With xhairymutantx and similar projects, Herndon and Dryhurst perform a dual role as proponents and educators. Their work is on the cutting edge of technological development and AI ethics, addressing consent, copyright and the right to define your digital presence. In 2022, with Jordan Meyer and Patrick Hoepner, they launched Spawning, a platform that lets artists opt out of AI training and co-developed PD12M, a public-domain image-text dataset designed to minimize copyright issues in AI development.
Following their 2024 presentation at the Whitney Biennial, Embedding Study 1 and 2, two AI-generated portraits created with the xhairymutantx model, were included in Christie’s inaugural AI art auction, Augmented Intelligence, in spring 2025.
Berlin-based artists Holly Herndon (US, b. 1980) & Mat Dryhurst (UK, b. 1984) are known for their pioneering work in music, machine learning, and ‘protocol development’. Their expansive practice has led to precedent-setting projects where the technical systems that underwrite creative output are artworks unto themselves.
