Artist Statement
I use art to make the hidden processes of seeing visible. Drawing from vision science and machine learning, I extract patterns from perceptual systems and bring them into the physical world through glass, projection, prints, video, and installation.
I am fascinated by unexpected correspondences between human, animal, and machine vision. Computational systems can develop forms that appear surprisingly organic, while biological perception reveals structures and processes that can seem surprisingly computational. These echoes do not mean that biological and artificial systems are the same; rather, they raise questions about what different kinds of learning systems might discover when faced with the same visual world.
My work brings these different ways of seeing into conversation. By giving otherwise hidden perceptual structures physical and experiential form, I invite viewers to encounter unfamiliar ways of seeing and to reconsider the processes that shape our own perception.
Bio
Ahna Girshick is a visual artist and research scientist whose work investigates the visual patterns and perceptual processes shared by humans, machines, and the natural world. Drawing on her research expertise in vision science and artificial intelligence, she explores how different kinds of intelligence make sense of ambiguous visual information—and what their similarities and differences reveal about perception. Her artworks combine scientific research, data, and algorithms with light-responsive materials including glass, mirrors, and video.
Girshick’s work has been exhibited at Southern Exposure, The Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Ely Center of Contemporary Art, The Intersection of Art and Technology (SF), the White Columns registry (NY) and other venues. Her earlier work includes interactive visual-music projects created with Scott Snibbe in collaboration with Philip Glass and Björk which were exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art (New York) and the Contemporary Jewish Museum (SF). In 2025, she was commissioned by Google to create a three-story site-specific glass installation in San Francisco exploring visual patterns learned by artificial neural networks.
Girshick holds a PhD in Vision Science from UC Berkeley and completed postdoctoral fellowships at NYU and UC Berkeley. She has authored more than 20 peer-reviewed scientific publications, holds five patents, and was named by RE•WORK as one of “30 Influential Women Advancing AI.” Her research has appeared in journals including Nature Neuroscience and SIGGRAPH and has been cited more than 6,500 times.
She teaches in UC Berkeley’s Cognitive Science program, where her courses examine illusions and the shared—and divergent—mechanisms of human and machine perception. Her public talks bring together perception science, artificial intelligence, and contemporary art, with recent appearances at the Commonwealth Club of California and the Internet Archive’s Intersection of Art and Technology salon.
CV
Link to: Curriculum Vitae as PDF
Education
Postdoctoral Fellow in Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 2010-11
Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Neural Science, New York University, NY, NY, 2007-10
Ph.D. in Vision Science, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 2007
M.S. in Computer Science (Cog Sci + Sci Comp minors), University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, MN, 1999
B.S. in Computer Science (AI + HCI emphases), University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, MN, 1996
Commissions
2025 The Grammar of Seeing, Google, 188 Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA. Site-specific installation spanning thirteen windows on three floors of Google’s AI building.
Group Art Exhibitions
2026 Click On My Mouth: Language and Technology, curated by Tanya Zimbardo, San José State University, San José, CA
2025 The Intersection of Art and Technology, San Francisco, CA
Mythologies of Tomorrow, 120710, Berkeley, CA
Ripples, University of California School of Law, San Francisco, CA
2024 ArtFWD, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Novato, CA
Curating AI, 120710, Berkeley, CA
Helping Heads, Personal Space, Vallejo, CA
Doomscapes and the Digital Beyond, ARC Gallery, Chicago, IL
A Way of Seeing Everything & Nothing, Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT
2023 Coded Creativity: Exploring the Intersection of Art and Algorithms, HERA Gallery, Wakefield, RI
Within Sight or From Imagination, Gearbox Gallery. Oakland, CA
Espirit de L’Escalier, I Like Your Work
2022 Mirror Material, Curator Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA
2015 NEAT: New Experiments in Art and Technology, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA
2014 Digital Revolution,Barbican Centre, London, UK
Sónar, Barcelona, Spain
2013 Sound in Space, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Sónar, Barcelona, Spain
Zero1 Garage, San Jose, CA
Select Press
Ahna Girshick (artist interview), Roborant Review, Sept 17, 2025.
DEXIS, Magazine of the Office of Science, US Department of Energy (DOE), p.16, 2025
30 Influential Women Advancing AI in 2019 RE•WORK, Dec 17, 2019.
Women Breaking Barriers in A.I. [interview with Ahna] OnlineEducation. September 2018.
It’s Almost Impossible to Make Bad Music with this App. FastCo Design, Dec. 9, 2013.
REWORK_ (Philip Glass Remixed) app by Snibbe Studio. WIRED, Dec. 13, 2012.
A Magical App For Exploring A Philip Glass Remix By Beck. FastCo Design, Dec. 13, 2012.
Exploring Snibbe's New App Album For Philip Glass' REWORK_, Featuring Beck, Amon Tobin, Nosaj Thing, And More. The Creator’s Project, Dec 13, 2012.
REWORK (Philip Glass Remixed) by Snibbe Studio. Creative Applications Network, Dec 13, 2012.
Metric Release 'Synthetica' Companion Album and App. Rolling Stone, Nov. 12, 2013.
Passion Pit: Gossamer – New interactive music app by Scott Snibbe Studio. Creative Applications Network, July 19, 2012.
The Probabilistic Mind. Science News feature. 180:18. Oct. 18, 2011.
Prior & prejudice. Nature Neuroscience “News & Views”, 14:943–945. July 26, 2011.
Nintendo 3DS and young eyes: Should parents really be concerned? Yahoo! Games, March 23, 2011. [also in The Daily Mail, March 28, 2011]
Nintendo issues warning to kids wanting new 3DS handheld, St. Petersburg Times, January 6, 2011. [also in Minneapolis Star Tribune, January 17, 2011]
Nintendo Warns Parents Of Eye Risks In 3-D Game, National Public Radio, January 3, 2011.
A Real Science of Mind, The New York Times, December 19, 2010.
3-D Movies Can Induce Headaches and Sickness, The New York Times, February 8, 2010.
Scientists uncover why picture perception works, Science Daily News, September 21, 2005.
Select Public Speaking, Panels and Podcast Interviews
Nov 2025 Led workshop on AI transparency for Mozilla Foundation’s Creative Futures Counterstructures residency, The Intersection of Art and Technology, San Francisco, CA
Nov 2025 Art in the Age of AI: Conversations and Creations, panel discussion at Stanford University’s Ctr for Human-Centered AI, Stanford, CA
Oct 2025 Artist talk at The Ampersand Summit, San Francisco, CA
Aug 2025 The Intersection of Art and Technology (TIAT), The Internet Archive, San Francisco, CA
Dec 2024 AI: Threat or Opportunity, Commonwealth Club World Affairs, San Francisco, CA
Apr 2024 Curating AI Panel with Carl Bass, UC Berkeley Prof. Josh Bloom, UC Berkeley Prof. Ken Goldberg, 120710, Berkeley, CA
Apr 2022 California College of the Arts (guest lecture for Cognitive Science), San Francisco, CA
Apr 2021 LOKA podcast interview of Ahna Girshick, Palo Alto, CA
Mar 2021 AI and Storytelling: Combining data science and DNA, with Dr Ahna Girshick | The Teens in AI Podcast, London
Jan 2020 RE•WORK Women in AI, San Francisco, CA
Nov 2018 Open Data Science Conference, San Francisco, CA
May 2018 Rev Data Science, San Francisco, CA
Mar 2018 Women in Data Science, Stitchfix, San Francisco, CA
Mar 2018 Rootstech, Salt Lake City, UT
Nov 2015 Smart Everything, UC Berkeley, CA
Oct 2015 GSV Pioneer Summit, Redwood City, CA
Aug 2015 Smart Data Forum, San Jose, CA
July 2015 TTI/Vanguard Innundata, Philadelphia, CA
Oct 2013 Guest Lecture, Data Visualization course, University of San Francisco, CA
Feb 2013 ZERO1 Garage, San Jose, CA
Nov 2012 Bay Area Science Festival, Berkeley, CA
Jan 2012 Intel Labs, Experience Insights Lab, Hillsboro, OR
Sep 2010 Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, CA
Jun 2010 SRI International, Artificial Intelligence Center, Menlo Park, CA
May 2008 Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL
Apr 2007 Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany
Apr 2007 Albert Einstein School of Medicine, Department of Neuroscience, New York, NY
Apr 2007 UC San Francisco, Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience, San Francisco, CA
Mar 2007 Pictures in Art, Science & Engineering, Berkeley, CA
Mar 2007 University of Rochester, Center for Visual Science, Rochester, NY
Jul 2006 New York University, Department of Psychology, New York, NY
Jun 2006 Université Paris 5, Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Paris, France
May 2006 Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, San Francisco, CA
May 2006 Vision Sciences Society, Sarasota, FL
Sep 2005 Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany
Aug 2005 European Conference on Visual Perception, La Coruña, Spain
Jun 2005 Computational Sciences Graduate Fellowship Conference, Washington, DC
Mar 2005 UC Berkeley Vision Science Retreat, Walker Ranch, CA
Aug 2004 European Conference on Visual Perception, Budapest, Hungary
Jul 2004 Bay Area Vision Research Day, Berkeley, CA
May 2004 Vision Sciences Society, Sarasota, FL
Jun 2000 Non-Photorealistic Rendering and Animation Conference, Annecy, France
Aug 1999 SIGGRAPH (Computer Graphics Conference), Los Angeles, CA
Scientific Publications and Patents
~50 publications, 5 US patents, 6.5k+ citations. See citations on Google Scholar