in transitu, 2021-Now
white curtain, JPEG, Instagram profile, gender classification AI
Click to load imageA selfie of the artist Ada Ada Ada from her in transitu project next to an image of the gender classification results from that selfie. The results are male, 53% female, male, 99% female and 98% feminine.
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Click to load imageA barechested selfie of the artist Ada Ada Ada from her in transitu project. The word TITS is written on her chest with red lipstick.
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Click to load imageThe first barechested selfie of the artist Ada Ada Ada from her in transitu project. The image was taken in week 45 of 2021.
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Click to load imageGender classification results from the 76th selfie in the in transitu project. The results are male, 94% male, male, 71% female and 58% feminine.
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Click to load imageA person looking at in transitu on display at the opening of Young Danish Photography 2023 at Fotografisk Center in Copenhagen. Photo by Troels Jeppe, Fotografisk Center.
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Click to load imageTwo people looking at in transitu on display at the opening of Young Danish Photography 2023 at Fotografisk Center in Copenhagen. Photo by Troels Jeppe, Fotografisk Center.
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Click to load imageThe 32nd barechested selfie of the artist Ada Ada Ada from her in transitu project. The image was taken in week 24 of 2022.
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Click to load imageThe 61st barechested selfie of the artist Ada Ada Ada from her in transitu project. The image was taken in week 4 of 2023.
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Click to load imageGender classification results from the 79th selfie in the in transitu project. The results are male, 95% male, male, 99.1% female and 96% feminine.
To reduce website CO2e emissions, project images need to be manually loaded.

Click to load imageThe 77th barechested selfie of the artist Ada Ada Ada from her in transitu project. She is wearing smeared lipstick, her mascara is ruined and her eye brows are unified. The image was taken in week 21 of 2023.
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Click to load imageThe 94th barechested selfie of the artist Ada Ada Ada from her in transitu project. She is making a pouty face, while holding the book "At performe transkønnet vrede" by Gry Stokkendahl Dalgas. The image was taken in week 38 of 2023.
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About
in transitu is an ongoing performative photo project on Instagram about how algorithms understand gender.
Each week, I document my gender transition by uploading an image of my bare chest on Instagram. Since the platform doesn't allow female nipples, the question is: when does my body fit the social media site's definition of womanhood?
After running the project for 10 weeks, I decided to give my followers an additional insight into how gender classification algorithms work. While we await Instagram censorship, I provide results from various publicly available gender classification algorithms. This gives a continuous look into how computers attempt to classify human gender.
The project acts as a sort of reverse engineering of Instagram's moderation protocols. In using my own transgender body, I show how inconsistent the inner workings of gender classification algorithms are, whether used for censorship or offered as a software service.
On the 30th of March, in transitu had its first image removed from Instagram. It didn't last long, however, because the image was put back up a week later. I hadn't made a formal complaint over Instagram's decisions. They simply decided that the image did not, in fact, contain female nipples.
As of 17th of September 2025, the project is in a state of censorship limbo. Some images have been completely removed, while others are shadowbanned, have their reach reduced or are marked as sensitive content. Yet the Instagram profile continues to exist as a whole.
Through these discoveries, in transitu continues to bring new perspectives to discussions surrounding gender, "artificial intelligence", algorithms, internet culture, and censorship.
If you want a thorough recounting of all the things that have happened in the course of the project, you can read my freely available article over on Patreon.
When I reached post number 200, I changed the AI classification software used for the project. You can read more about that here.
All the images are taken in my own bedroom with my smartphone. The gender and NSFW classification results come from various sources.
Microsoft results are from LLaVa:7b via Ollama. Meta results are from Llama3.2-vision:11b via Ollama. Google results are from Gemma3:4b via Ollama. Alibaba results are from Qwen3-vl:8b-instruct via Ollama. Amazon results are from the Rekognition API.
See more
Find in transitu on Instagram hereDownload hi-res images from in transitu hereExhibitions & performances
- —Group exhibition. Unwritten: A Record of Resistance @ Dark Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark.
- —Arts & film festival. Blufærdighed Festival, Copenhagen, Denmark.
- —Group exhibition. Young Danish Photography @ Fotografisk Center, Copenhagen, Denmark.
- —Group exhibition. Danish LGBTQ+ VR Museum, Cyberspace.
- —Group exhibition. Klub22 @ Northside Festival, Aarhus, Denmark.
- —Solo exhibition. PRUST @ Kulturnatten, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Press, coverage & media appearances
- —Defying the Censors: Creative Resistance in the Face of Censorship — Woodhull Freedom Foundation
- —Performing Profiling - Algorithmic Enunciation, Transgender Perspectives, and Ada Ada Ada's in transitu — The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics
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- —Machine Learning Processes As Sources of Ambiguity - Insights from AI Art — Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
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- —Online casino streamet til unge og bryster fjernet fra Instagram — DR P1 Kulturen
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- —How to face face recognition? — A Peer-reviewed Newspaper
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- —Ada er topløs på Instagram — TV2 Echo
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- —Det er bare bryster — Techtopia Podcast
Talks, panels & workshops
- —Lecture: Moderating the glitch: A story of more than 300 nipples. Blufærdighed Festival, Copenhagen, Denmark.