Meet the community: Karina Zavidova
To share a variety of voices and perspectives in our growing community, we’ve decided to cast a monthly spotlight on one of our members in the form of mini-interviews 🎉 This month, let us introduce you to Karina, our communication lead.
AIxD: Hi Karina, glad to be able to interview you this month! Although we have chatted before, could you share a little background about yourself with our readers? What are you currently working on, and what aspired you to pursue your passion?
KZ: Hi! I have a background in graphic-design-slash-fine arts, so I am trained to work with visuals, but I ended up working with words. Right now, I am a freelancer and I do four types of work: I work as a fundraiser in the cultural field, mainly with autonomous practitioners and small collectives (it’s called ‘grant writer’ in the Dutch English-speaking arts & culture circle, but when I tried to explain what I do to a corporate recruiter they say this is called fundraiser — go figure), I do graphic design from time to time, I do communications at AIxDesign, and I also work in event catering.
Right now I also took a job as a ghostwriter — this is something I have never done before, but of course I said yes. My goal is to stop being a freelancer by 2023 and streamline all my writing and content-making activities into an actual full-time job. I am taking my time to figure out what this job is.
I (surprise surprise) love tech and see myself as a communications professional in tech, but I also want to talk to more people from various fields and do a more dedicated search — that’s not something I could think about in the last few years during the pandemic and now I feel that I am finally having enough space in my life to start exploring options.
I am looking for a challenging environment I care about, where I can grow, and also an environment that is not starved of money and cares about its people (the reason I’m drifting away from the arts, an environment designed to grow superstars and care little about the rest).
AIxD: That’s really fascinating. I am with you on being in a challenging environment could sometimes bring out the best side of us💪. Are you currently working on any projects that you would like to share with us?
KZ: Nothing, I signed NDAs 😅🤝.
But I have a quite an interesting personal project going on — after ten years in the Netherlands with six temporary residence permits, I am going to switch to a permanent permit (by 2023 unless there are delays with processing my application) and eventually become a Dutch citizen in 2023, changing nationality from Russian to Dutch.
I am very curious how my professional situation will change — since my residence permit first was tied to studies (where employment is not allowed) and then to self-employment (when it is not allowed to work as an employee, only as a freelance contractor), it will be the first time I have full access to the job market.
Will my employability improve? Would it be feasible to transition to a new field? In the Dutch cultural field, more than 50% are freelancers, so it didn’t feel very odd to be one. But now I can also try finding my place in the fields where freelancing is not the norm. What is out there? It feels great to begin to realise how many options are there.
AIxD: Congratulations! That’s very exciting and I’m glad that there are a lot more opportunities awaiting you ❤️. Since you are our communication lead and have been collaborating with the AIxDesign team for a bit, may I ask what you find interesting/attractive/worth looking into at the AIxDesign crossover?
KZ: I am interested in the current situation where we have a combination of super-powerful/realistic simulations and a lot of wacky and wonky low-tech-looking stuff and the power dynamic between the two. What I see is that a lot of big brands are embedding the ‘wonky stuff’ into their visual language, the streetwear + high fashion combination that is also translatable to visuals or text.
What I ask myself, as a communications professional who loves tech, is what can we do to make sure that us embracing the ‘wonky stuff’ will lead to the appreciation of creatives who made it and the wider acknowledgment of individual makers and collectives (also more chances for all — moving away from ‘superstars and the rest’ mentality) and not to just subconsciously embedding the ‘wonky stuff’ into the neo-corporate speak.
You asked me if I can share some images to illustrate my point about the ‘wonky stuff’ and to be honest there was nothing particular that came to mind. I mean this visual style where we see images that could be…uhm, a visual analogue of a crocheted top? It is somewhat in the air, in the Instagram stories.
Yet, this mass-produced wonkiness made me think of something else. I am intrigued by the possibility to produce (visuals, texts, anything) in huge amounts, and I can see the statement ‘I can produce something you (or your consumers) like in an indefinite amount’ as a way for artists to negotiate with established entities or to lure.
To illustrate this, I want to put side by side two examples: Metabirkin from 2022, where digital bags were created (in a relatively large amount), subsequently creating the conversation between the artist and the brand, and Female Extension from 1997, where an artist generated 127 (!) net art pieces by fictional female net artists, also to test how the authority would respond (And how would these fictional pieces inform her on her sense of belonging in the world of 90s net art?)
AIxD: Love that observation. For our readers, could you share a tool or method that you have recently worked with and are very excited about recently?
KZ: I love software, and I get genuinely hyped about using good software and project management tools. But I also appreciate it when a piece of software has an element of beauty built into it.
I want to mention Ulysses, my favorite writing app. It is functional, it is beautiful and it is also made by a small team — the subscription costs only €50 a year (half if you are a student) and the support is better than for products that cost ten times more. Oh, and yes, it is in Markdown. I love writing in Markdown. First I was weirded out by it, but then I got used to it and now I am trying to write in Markdown in any other app
AIxD: Thank you for sharing the software with us ✍️! To close our chat, if you could pick one text/book or a podcast which is an absolute must-read or must-listen, what would you recommend?
Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy
The Many Faces of Anonymous
by Gabriella Coleman
AIxD: Thank you for everything you have shared with us today! Can’t wait for the future projects that you will be working on🔥
About AIxDesign
AIxDesign is a place to unite practitioners and evolve practices at the intersection of AI/ML and design. We are currently organizing monthly virtual events, sharing content, exploring collaborative projects, and developing event programs.
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