In An Infinity of Lists, a vocabulary changes its organising principle. John Wilkins’s 1668 scheme sought to classify the world in a universal language. The words first occupy his hierarchy, then move into relationships learned by word2vec. A statistical model supplies a different answer to what belongs together.[1]
The piece forms part of Anna Ridler’s A Perfect Language of Images, made with Oxford English scholar William Poole and shown at the Schwarzman Centre from April to August 2026.[1]
Another part, A Catalogue of Exceptions, turns to coral, fungi and other awkward cases in Wilkins’s classification. Ridler used generative systems spanning 2016–2025 to depict them, allowing different generations of models to give these unsettled categories different visual forms.[1]
Ridler builds her own datasets. In Louis Jebb’s Right Click Save interview, her account of that work makes inclusion and exclusion part of the art itself. Here, classification becomes visible as a creative choice, with each system arranging the same world differently.[2][1]
Sources & further reading
- Anna Ridler: A Perfect Language of Images Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, University of Oxford · Accessed 20 Oct 2026
- An Interview with Anna Ridler Right Click Save · 9 Jul 2026 · Accessed 20 Oct 2026