Berlin-based Estonian artist, Katja Novitskova (b. Tallinn, 1984) is searching for areas where humans, machines, and the environment intersect. Her work focuses on technology, evolutionary processes, digital imagery, and corporate aesthetics.

She scans our chaotic reality for meaningful patterns as if she were a biological search engine. Playful and determined, she explores different concepts of artificial intelligence (AI) and considers the nonhuman intelligence of animals as a model for AI.

‘For me, watching an animal, whether it’s a fly or a mouse, an ape or an octopus, is more exciting than watching a movie’, Novitskova says. She has looked at countless animal images for this artist’s book, a special edition of the Ringier Annual Report 2017.

Novitskova closely collaborated with PWR, a cloud-based design studio with a physical presence in Berlin and Amsterdam. The result is a visual tour de force, that Novitskova calls a ‘mutant child’ with PWR’s Hanna Nilsson and Rasmus Svensson as algorithm parents and the artist as content parent. What ended up on the pages was not a conscious choice, but the result of artistry and artificial intelligence.

Since 1998, Ringier annual reports have been created by artists whose work is featured in the Ringier Collection. Publisher Michael Ringier and curator Beatrix Ruf initiated the series as a means of firming links between art and the activities of the Swiss-based, global media company Ringier.