The undying sun hangs in the sky, as people gather around signal towers, working through their digital devices.

Generative AI systems help automate communication, schedule meetings, and even generate content, enabling collaboration across the globe. However, with this freedom there are also challenges such as the weight of time differences and the pressure to be always available.

Across time, the sun never sets. Exploitation? Oppression? Or convenience? This is the precarious balance of digital nomadism. The mouse-cursor-shaped birds still wreak havoc in the sky—but will they transform into stars, lifting the moon and guiding the nomads safely into the gentle night?

This series consists of digital illustrations, created by me at home, in cafés, on the subway, and even on airplanes. By using digital painting techniques, I aim to immerse myself further into the 'digital' theme. The very methods of illustration are evolving under digital technology's influence—even career paths are being reshaped by technological advancements (such as AI).

This image was selected as a winner of the Digital Dialogues Art Competition, which was run in partnership with the ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) and supported by the UKRI ESRC.

Digital Nomads Across Time

Within the frames are people bound to their office cubicles; beyond them, individuals work freely from diverse locations, connected through digital signals.

Some people work in cubicles within office spaces, while others operate in more flexible environments. In the top-left corner, I depict a group of figures throwing the computer to symbolise the threats, lack of regulation, and exploitation that can accompany this newfound freedom, especially in the age of AI. 

Similarly, the mouse-cursor-shaped birds continue to create chaos in the sky, representing the unpredictable challenges that AI and automation pose for those working outside traditional structured – creatives, gig workers and freelancers. This series is composed of digital illustrations, created by me at home, in cafés, on the subway, and even on aeroplanes. By employing digital painting techniques, I aim to stay closely aligned with the theme of 'digital'. The way illustrators work is also being reshaped by digital technology—even career trajectories are being influenced by technological advancements (such as AI).

This image was selected as a winner of the Digital Dialogues Art Competition, which was run in partnership with the ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) and supported by the UKRI ESRC.

Digital Nomads Beyond the Cubicle 

Through signals from communication towers, people exchange ideas via digital transmission across different locations, accomplishing their work and building a digital community.

Thanks to advancements in digital technology, people can now work from various places, including those closer to nature, reflecting a shift in work environments. However, at the same time, birds resembling mouse cursors are causing chaos in the sky. Through this imagery, I highlight the challenges and unknown risks brought by such AI-driven communities. 

This series consists of digital illustrations, created by me at home, in cafés, on the subway, and even on aeroplanes. By using digital painting techniques, I aim to align more closely with the theme of 'digital'. The way illustrators work is also being influenced by digital technology—even career development is impacted by technological advancements (such as AI).

This image was submitted as part of the Digital Dialogues Art Competition, which was run in partnership with the ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) and supported by the UKRI ESRC.

Digital Nomads: Digital-Based Connection

The back of an individual is shown as they are placing their hand on a finger print scanner. In the right corner, there is also a CCTV surveillance camera which is directed at the individual. 

The image represents the increasing use of biometric and security surveillance such as facial reocgnition and fingerprint scanning to idnetify invidiuals. While the technology can be used to enhance security, the constant surveillance of individuals can erode individual's privacy and human rights. There have also been examples of biometric systems, particularly facial recognition, which have been misused and exhibit bias, leading to discrimination and targeting of groups. 

This image was selected as a winner in the Digital Dialogues Art Competition, which was run in partnership with the ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) and supported by the UKRI ESRC.

Surveillance

Illustrations of six data workers, working at computers in isolation from each other. Painted background includes hazy image of cubicles; digital overlay of glass fractures.

The image is intended to represent independent data gig workers who work in isolation not only from the larger project with which they might be engaged (e.g., flagging graphic images for video platforms, tagging data for commercial AI systems or weapon systems) but also from other human workers (through distance, physical separation, or technological buffers like headphones). In the image, people at computers face away from one another and float above a painted backdrop of dim, empty cubicles, overlaid with fractured glass. This multimedia image uses a mix of traditional and digital techniques, including licensed individual pen and ink illustrations of workers by Rose Willis, a watercolor background, and public domain digital overlays by RawPixel.

This image was selected as a winner in the Digital Dialogues Art Competition, which was run in partnership with the ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) and supported by the UKRI ESRC.

Isolation

An imposing building with two doors and a red brick background, newspaper cuttings of job listings are also collaged into the background. One door is at ground level where a businessman is carrying a large box labelled AI as he is about to enter the building. The second door is high above ground with no apparent means of entry. There is a large flashing neon sign which reads Entry Level above the door. Three young people are below looking up at the door.

In this image, I wanted to explore how employers are beginning to adopt AI for specific, often low-level and repetitive tasks. I represented this through the figure of a businessman literally carrying AI into the workplace through a back door. This door sits at ground level which is a reference to the traditional pathway where young people entered the workforce at the bottom and worked their way up. In contrast, a group of young people are shown gazing up at a front entrance high above their heads, symbolising how the entry point into the workforce is becoming less accessible. By outsourcing foundational tasks to AI, employers may close off opportunities for young people to build digital skills and gain early career experience. The goalposts being moved, as it were, as a result of AI adoption. This image was created using collage tools on Canva.com.

This image was selected as a winner in the Digital Dialogues Art Competition, which was run in partnership with the ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) and supported by the UKRI ESRC.

Entry Level

Illustration of a surreal office scene with neon birds interacting with digital elements around three people near servers and file cabinets; one bird writes on a digital mesh, another carries a paper.

"The image is inspired by the widely cited 2021 paper titled, 'On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big' by Emily Bender, Timnit Gebru, Angelina McMillan-Major and Shmargaret Shmitchell. 

The 'stochastic parrot' is a metaphor for large language models (like ChatGPT) that generate text by statistically predicting the next word based on large datasets, rather than by understanding the meaning, truth or context of the user prompts. The illustration's glitchy parrots represent this idea, showing how their outputs are often uneven and varied. Some of the parrots are leashed, symbolising attempts to maintain AI under control, while other respond to human commands more autonomously. The image reflects the emerging, often improvised ways humans and AI are learning to work together. 

This image was selected as a winner in the Digital Dialogues Art Competition, which was run in partnership with the ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) and supported by the UKRI ESRC.

Stochastic Parrots at Work

Woman working simultaneously as a delivery worker, remote employee, and caring her child, representing the opportunities and risks of work digitalization

AI-enabled platform work and remote work are presented as activities that may help reconcile paid and unpaid labor, though this reconciliation often involves tensions. The image particularly touches on how these more precarious jobs impact mothers and people with caregiving responsibilities. 

The image was created digitally using Procreate and Adobe Fresco. The inspiration for this piece stemmed from a reflection on how to visually represent multiple job holding (moonlighting) in contemporary societies, a situation deeply shaped by digitalisation.

This image was selected as a winner in the Digital Dialogues Art Competition, which was run in partnership with the ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) and supported by the UKRI ESRC.

Digitalisation and Moonlighting 2

Woman working simultaneously as a delivery worker, remote employee, and caring her child, representing the opportunities and risks of work digitalization.

AI-enabled platform work and remote work are presented as activities that may help reconcile paid and unpaid labor, though this reconciliation often involves tensions. The image partciaurly touches on how these more precarious jobs impact mothers and people with caregiving responsibilities. The image was created digitally using Procreate and Adobe Fresco. The inspiration for this piece stemmed from a reflection on how to visually represent multiple job holding (moonlighting) in contemporary societies—a situation deeply shaped by digitalisation. This image was selected as a winner in the Digital Dialogues Art Competition, which was run in partnership with the ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) and supported by the UKRI ESRC.

Digitalisation and Moonlighting 1

Two workers running inside a scroll wheel embedded in a computer mouse, controlled by a giant capitalist hand.

1 or 2 knowledge workers, running inside a wheel embedded within a computer mouse, struggles to keep pace as a powerful hand (representing employers or capitalistic forces).The image reveals that despite AI and digital adoption, rising productivity expectations often trap workers into producing more with less. Rather than easing labour, AI technologies risks raising the baseline demands, accelerating the pace of work under the illusion of progress.

This image was selected as a winner in the Digital Dialogues Art Competition, which was run in partnership with the ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) and supported by the UKRI ESRC.

Wheel of Progress

A row of knowledge workers operate sewing machines producing piles of spreadsheets and reports

This image illustrates digital transformation gone wrong, where AI becomes a tool for intensified extraction. Workers operate sewing machines endlessly producing streams of spreadsheets and reports. Instead of liberating labour, AI automation can lock workers into more exhausting cycles of output, without increasing agency or rewards.The image is hand-drawn in ProCreate.

This image was selected as a winner in the Digital Dialogues Art Competition, which was run in partnership with the ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) and supported by the UKRI ESRC.

Knowledge Sweatshop

A digital collage blending classical and modern imagery. In the foreground, a hand holds a smartphone capturing a photo of an ancient Roman-style temple. Surrounding the scene are oversized receipts, coins with and a travel ticket. A long, blue receipt winds across the image. In the background, a painting of a European square with fountains and classical architecture is visible, merging past and present themes of travel, commerce, and documentation. The smartphone like a billing machine emits and endless receipt. 

As AI tools make it easier to produce content, the pressure to constantly deliver perfect, high-performing material intensifies. But behind that ideal lies a more precarious reality which is shaped by platform metrics, unpredictable income streams, and a growing reliance on AI-generated content for editing, scheduling, and even writing captions.This image reflects the underlying economic instability and hidden costs behind this all. The classical architecture and picturesque backdrops mirror the algorithm-driven aesthetic social media influencers are pushed to uphold. These expenses aren't always visible to audiences, but they accumulate in the background of every curated post. The receipt winding through the image evokes a literal and metaphorical trail of expenditures, both financial and emotional, that comes with turning travel into labor.

This image was submitted as part of the Digital Dialogues Art Competition, which was run in partnership with the ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) and supported by the UKRI ESRC.

Keep your Receipts 

An archival image of a medieval dinner scene. On one side, there is a Penelope (from Greek mythology) weaving, but instead of thread, it is a board of binary code. On the other side, there is a a drink spilling and other figures looking distressed/chaotic. 

The image is a digitally altered medieval-style illustration featuring Penelope (from Greek mythology) labeled by name. She appears seated, engaged in weaving—but instead of traditional thread, the loom is overlaid with binary code (1s and 0s), symbolising the opaque processes of algorithmic technologies. This piece contrasts manual weaving with algorithmic generation, and invites questions about who programs, who controls, and who gets displaced or disoriented in the development and deployment of AI. The chaotic table and spilled drink represents the poor implementation of technologies and the unintended consequences that arise when workers are excluded from planning and oversight. 

The piece combines digital collage and image manipulation, layering classical woodcut imagery with binary code overlays, glitch patterns, and digital motifs like web graphics and transparency grids. A mash-up of medieval manuscript aesthetics and contemporary data visualisation. The clash of styles underscores the tension between old systems of labor and new algorithmic frameworks. All images were taken from public domain.

This image was selected as a winner as part of the Digital Dialogues Art Competition, which was run in partnership with the ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) and supported by the UKRI ESRC.

Deceptive Dialogues

Traditional Tibetan weaver in Dharamsala India working at a loom, framed by yellow bounding boxes that classify different elements of textile craft. The image features digital distortion effects and fragmented views of weaving tools and finished textiles. Text has been selectively blanched from the composition, symbolizing whose voices are included or excluded in conversations about digital transformation.

'Woven Dialogues' captures the artistry of a traditional weaver from Dharamsala, blending heritage with digital manipulation to explore how dialogue about technology evolves in the modern world. Central to the work is the technique of text blanching—removing or editing text from the original image—which symbolizes the fragility and erasure of cultural narratives and workers' voices as they are rewritten or obscured in conversations about digital transformation.

The yellow classification boxes superimposed on the weaving process represent how technological systems often categorize and segment complex human practices, determining which elements are considered valuable in digital advancement. Like a textile that requires all threads to create a cohesive whole, meaningful digital dialogues require the integration of diverse perspectives—including those of traditional craftspeople who are often excluded from technological conversations."""

Woven Dialogues

A digital collage showing two Japanese women in traditional clothing handling laundry. The image has been digitally manipulated with pixelation effects and a background pattern reminiscent of circuit boards or digital textiles. Yellow rectangular frames highlight and fragment different parts of the women's bodies and their work, suggesting algorithmic classification or the compartmentalization of labor in digital systems.RetryClaude can make mistakes. Please double-check responses.

This digital collage juxtaposes historical images of Japanese women performing traditional laundry work against a backdrop that evokes modern technology. I combined public domain photographs with a textile pattern reminiscent of semiconductor circuitry, then applied digital manipulation techniques including pixelation and posterization to create visual tension between old and new. The prominent yellow bounding boxes reference AI classification systems and computer vision technology, suggesting how algorithms fragment, categorize, and commodify human labor.

Pixelated Labour

A digital collage showing miniature human figures from historical paintings of agricultural workers placed on a green circuit board with computer chips. The image has a mirrored composition with the right half pixelated. The tiny human figures appear to be walking on or standing atop the electronic components, creating a striking contrast between traditional farm labor and modern digital technology.

This digital collage juxtaposes traditional agricultural workers with modern computer circuitry. I extracted figures from historical paintings of farm laborers and carefully placed them onto an electronic circuit board with microchips, creating a surreal landscape where rural workers navigate a technological terrain. The right half of the image is intentionally pixelated, symbolizing the digital degradation and fragmentation of traditional labor in our increasingly technologically advanced world.

Occupational Circularity 

Delivery drivers on bikes and scooters going into a portal. On the right-hand side, there is a smartphone held by a hand onto a colourful background. On the phone, it is written the words “employment rights” and “wellbeing”. 

The mixed-media image explores the precarious conditions of gig economy workers, particularly delivery riders, and critiques the algorithmic systems that govern their work. The centre of the image shows a tunnel-like grid which ends towards a dark centre which represents the 'black hole' of AI labour exploitation. The vibrancy of the image hints at the promises of algorithmic work which bring freedom and flexibility, however, the reality can be stark as individuals are forced into exploitative and opaque practices. 

The Path

Black and white image of lady carrying a large phone chip framed inside an iphone.

This is a lady who appears to be delighted to be working. Originally taken during world war 1 at a glass factory I have changed her carrying load from a glass roll to a phone chip set.  By placing her within the clean frame of an iPhone, I wanted to contrast the polished surface of modern technology and AI against the often-invisible, embodied labour behind it. This images sparks important questions about who is building the infrastructure for AI technologies, and whose labour is becoming more precarious, outsourced, and unpredictable as we automate? The piece was created using public commons photos, stitched and edited together into a collage.

Continued Opportunity

A vintage photograph of two donkeys hitched to a wooden cart feeding in a brick street with a collage of technology as their load.

This collage depicts two donkeys with carts overflowing with vibrant, high-tech gadgets. While organisations may be equipped with the latest AI tools, platforms, and infrastructures, their progress often stalls. In this way, the image reflects on how digital transformation and AI adoption may be dragging old models and techniques with shiny new names. In this analogy, the donkeys and cart are actually weighed down by the load of the latest technology, and they will not move faster without revisiting the nature of their existence. 

The piece was created using public commons photography, stitched and edited together into a collage.

Continued Adoption

A set of devices which have vintage photos with modern chips stitched in as collage style showing individuals as if they were working with the technology. 

"The collage features images of workers from the Gold Rush and World War I inside the clean borders of modern digital devices. The image prompts us to think: what does a 'good job' look like in the age of AI? Today, as AI redefines what work is visible, valuable, or viable, the piece prompts reflection on the modern equivalents of those physically demanding, high-risk jobs. Outsourced labour in data training labelling, gig economy workers, and content moderators prop up the AI industry, yet remain hidden behind sleek interfaces. 

Continued Mining

The collage shows 4 archival images of women. In these of the images, the women are nude. There is also one portrait of a woman with yellow shapes and bounding boxes on her face. 

The number of deepfakes online doubles every six months, and experts estimate there will be more than 5.2 million by 2024. Of these, 90% involve non-consensual pornography targeting women. In much of the world, laws against deepfake pornography are lacking. Over 3,000 websites focused on intimate image abuse have been able to operate without restriction. This image aims to bring awareness to the issue by deconstructing and simplifying the process of creating a deep fake illustrated through 19th-century oil paintings of portraits and nudes.

19th Century Shallowfake P0rn

The collage features an artwork showing rabbits and frogs dancing around a pond on the left. On the right, this image is depicted in simplified, emoji-style symbols. 

What do we see and what is seen by computers? The illustration from the children’s book mimicked by what we can think of as a simplified version of what would be seen by computer vision algorithms - 17 rabbits, 10 flowers, 8 frogs, 3 clouds, the body of water and a meadow deconstructed through emojis, that are so deeply embedded in our daily communications that they have found their way into visual culture helping us convey meaning beyond words and letters. 

Gazing through the Computer's Rabbit Hole

The collage shows multiple repeated tabs with the words "people who liked this also liked...". In the middle, there is a painting of a woman feeding a goat. The goat has been highlighted in a yellow bounding box. The background is a painted nature scene. 

The image explores the hidden mechanics behind recommendation systems on social media. Have you ever wondered how platforms seem to know exactly what you're interested in, like that carpet you're considering buying? And what about the vast amounts of personal data we unknowingly leave behind while navigating our online lives? The image visualises the invisible algorithms that shape our online experiences, highlighting how our behaviours are tracked and used to predict our desires and choices.

You Might Also Like

Inside the frame of a mobile phone screen, a woman is depicted walking and looking over her shoulder. Behind her, there is an outdoor scene with the sky, tree, fences, and pavement. A hand is shown grabbing the phone and tapping the record button. On the left side of the phone, a small portion of the same sky, fences, and pavement is displayed in a different scale, representing the world outside the screen. On the right side of the phone, three figures of the same woman are shown against a plain blue background, progressively transforming from minimally glitched to heavily glitched.

This image focuses on data manipulation in cases where individuals are filmed and their videos are shared without their consent. When such videos enter the online world, personal data becomes significantly susceptible to manipulations that further infringe on privacy rights. For instance, this data could be subjected to algorithmic analysis to predict its potential virality, incorporated into datasets for AI training purposes, or heavily edited using AI tools. The glitched figures are used to illustrate how an image of a person can be altered to the point where its origin is no longer traceable. This leads to a lack of transparency and deprives right-holders of control over their data across digital spaces.

Telling Tales

The black and white image shows a high shot of the tops of a city scene. At eye level are the tops of the tall buildings on either side of the street, in the middle of the image, it tunnels down to the road below. The street is fairly empty, but cascading down from the sky are pixels which look like a QR code pattern – almost like these represent the clouds. 

Giant QR code-like patterns dominate the cityscapes, blending seamlessly with the architecture to suggest that algorithmic systems have become intrinsic to the very fabric of urban life.

The street scene shows looming buildings which are transcended by digital codes. Their presence blurs the line between real and algorithmically fabricated, pushing viewers to question whether this is a true reflection of daily life or a digital reconstruction. The horizon fades into a dense network of codes, creating a skyline that suggests AI’s omnipresence.

The stark black-and-white aesthetic not only underscores the binary nature of these systems but also hints at what may and may not be encoded and, therefore, lost—such as the nuanced “color” and complexity of our world. Ultimately, the piece invites viewers to consider the pervasive nature of AI-powered surveillance systems, how such technologies have come to define public spaces, and whether there is room for the “human” element.

Adobe FireFly was used in the production of this image, using consented original material as input for elements of the images. Elise draws on a wide range of her own artwork from the past 20 years as references for style and composition and uses Firefly to experiment with intensity, colour/tone, lighting, camera angle, effects, and layering.

Glitch Binary Abyss II

The left side incorporates a digital interface, showing code snippets, search queries, and comments referencing Woolf’s ideas, including discussions about Shakespeare’s fictional sister, Judith. The overlay of coding elements highlights modern interpretations of Woolf’s work through the lens of data and AI.

The center depicts a dimly lit, minimalist room with a window, desk, and wooden floors and cupboards. The right side features a collage of Cambridge landmarks, historical photographs of women, and a black and white figure in Edwardian attire. There is a map of Cambridge in the background, which is overlayed with images of old fountain pens and ink, books, and a handwritten letter. 

This image is inspired by Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. According to this essay, which is based on her lectures at Newnham College and Girton College, Cambridge University, two things are essential for a woman to write fiction: money and a room of her own. This image adds a new layer to this concept by bringing it into the Al era. Just as Woolf explored the meaning of “women and fiction”, defining “women and AI” is quite complex. It could refer to algorithms’ responses to inquiries involving women, the influence of trending comments on machine stereotypes, or the share of women in big tech. The list can go on and involve many different experiences of women with AI as developers, users, investors, and beyond. With all its complexity, Woolf’s ideas offer us insight: Allocating financial resources and providing safe spaces-in reality and online- is necessary for women to have positive interactions with AI and to be well-represented in this field.

Women and AI

The image features a silver meat grinder. Going into the grinder at the top are various culturally symbolic, historical, and fun icons – such as emojis, old statutes, a computer, newspapers, an aeroplane. At the other end of the meat grinder, coming out is a sea of blue and grey icons representing chat bot responses like 'Let me know if this aligns with your vision' in a grey chat bot message symbol. 

The outputs of Large Language Models do seem uncanny often leading people to compare the abilities of these systems to thinking, dreaming or hallucinating. This image is intended to be a tongue-in-cheek dig, suggesting that AI is at its core, just a simple information ‘meat grinder,’ feeding off the words, ideas and images on the internet, chopping them up and spitting them back out. The collage also makes the point that when we train these models on our biased, inequitable world the responses we get cannot possibly differ from the biased and inequitable world that made them.

Attributions - Studio of: Willem van de Velde II, Michele Tosini  https://nationalgalleryimages.ie/groupitem/40/
This image was created using Canva: www.canva.com

Ground Up and Spat Out

A detailed digital collage inspired by the aesthetic of medieval manuscript illustrations, depicts a vibrant scene of construction workers building a structure. The traditional elements, such as figures in traditional Persian gowns, wooden ladders, ropes, and woven sacks, are interwoven with modern technological motifs like circuit boards, QR codes, and cloud icons. Bright, glowing, golden networks of interconnected nodes and symbols of digital technology overlay the scene, blending the past and present. On the left, Arabic calligraphy is imprinted onto the paper. The composition uses contrasting textures and colours to juxtapose and interweave the themes and eras.

This artwork captures humanity’s collective endeavour in building artificial intelligence, drawing inspiration from Persian Negargari (miniature painting). It emphasises that AI is not the result of sudden breakthroughs but centuries of collaboration among minds, cultures, and technologies.

Inspired by Kamal-ud-Din Behzad’s late 15th-century painting “Construction of the Khawarnaq Palace” (circa 1494 CE), the piece celebrates human creativity and labor in crafting a structure that reaches toward the heavens. By blending traditional Persian Negargari with modern AI symbols—such as circuit boards, cloud storage, and digital glitches—the artwork  underscores that AI is rooted in human effort, shaped over time through the fusion of data, labor, and algorithms, whilst also highlighting the interplay of heritage and technology. "

Who is AI Made Of

The black and white image shows a city scene with a large sky scraper in the middle. Embedded on the large tower building is a QR code pattern in white. In the paved road leading to the block is also a QR code like pattern. The street is fairly empty in the city with a few trees lining the side walks. The shot is taken from a low angle, so it as if the user is looking up to the tower block building. 

Giant QR code-like patterns dominate the cityscapes, blending seamlessly with the architecture to suggest that algorithmic systems have become intrinsic to the very fabric of urban life. Towering buildings and the street are covered in these black-and-white codes, reflecting how even the most basic aspects of everyday life— where we walk, work, and live — are monitored.

The stark black-and-white aesthetic not only underscores the binary nature of these systems but also hints at what may and may not be encoded and, therefore, lost—such as the nuanced “color” and complexity of our world. Ultimately, the piece invites viewers to consider the pervasive nature of AI-powered surveillance systems, how such technologies have come to define public spaces, and whether there is room for the “human” element.

Adobe FireFly was used in the production of this image, using consented original material as input for elements of the images. Elise draws on a wide range of her own artwork from the past 20 years as references for style and composition and uses Firefly to experiment with intensity, colour/tone, lighting, camera angle, effects, and layering.

Glitch Binary Abyss I

This image shows a large white, traditional, old building. The top half of the building represents the humanities (which is symbolised by the embedded text from classic literature which is faintly shown ontop the building). The bottom section of the building is embossed with mathematical formulas to represent the sciences. The middle layer of the image is heavily pixelated. On the steps at the front of the building there is a group of scholars, wearing formal suits and tie attire, who are standing around at the enternace talking and some of them are sitting on the steps. There are two stone, statute-like hands that are stretching the building apart from the left side. 

In the forefront of the image, there are 8 students - which can only be seen from the back. Their graduation gowns have bright blue hoods and they all look as though they are walking towards the old building which is in the background at a distance. There are a mix of students in the foreground. 

Senate House at the University of Cambridge hosts graduation ceremonies and is notable as the site of C.P. Snow’s 1959 lecture, 'The Two Cultures' Snow highlighted the divide between science and the humanities in the Western world, arguing this separation hindered progress on global challenges. This image symbolises the persistent STEM-humanities divide, marked by distrust and isolation, which has limited collaboration. In light of AI, a new interdisciplinary movement is bridging these fields to address issues like climate change, medicine, and wildlife conservation.

The image divides Senate House into three parts: the top, representing the humanities, is inscribed with text; the bottom, symbolising STEM, is embossed with mathematical formulas; and the pixelated middle layer reflects the digital era’s call for the merging between these fields. The stone hands on the left represent the British education system's rigid traditions, historically favouring humanities over science and pulling these two disciplines apart.

On the steps, a group of traditional Cambridge students (white, affluent, and male) contrasts with the diverse graduates in blue gowns. These figures represent a growing emphasis on inclusivity and interdisciplinary learning, particularly in AI, to enrich knowledge and critical thinking.

The original image was taken from Unsplash and was photographed by Chris Boland (https://www.chrisboland.com/)

The Two Cultures 

Twelve characters inspired by the twelve Chinese Zodiac animals are all gathered around a long square table. The characters each have a human like body, but their heads each represent different zodiac animals. On the table are various tools and machines related tp technology – like computers, hardrives, files, data charts, files and keyboards. The characters all seem to be engaging in conversation with one another. Behind the table is an apple tree, with red apples amongst the green leaves on the branches. The room's walls are gradient orange, pink, purple to green and there is a series of 01 lining the walls - representing binary code. At the back of the room there is a 'window' which is shaped like a traditiona; 'window' tab on a computer. Inside the window is the classic computer desktop depicting a green field and blue sky with clouds. In the centre of the window is an old style Microsoft logo. 

This illustration draws inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece The Last Supper. It depicts a grand discussion about AI. Instead of the twelve apostles, I replaced them with the twelve Chinese zodiac animals. In Chinese culture, each zodiac symbolizes distinct personality traits. Around the table, they discuss AI, each expressing their views with different attitudes, which you can observe through their facial expressions. The table is draped with a cloth symbolizing the passage of time, and it’s set with computer-related objects. On the wall behind them is a mural made of binary code. In the background, there’s an apple tree symbolizing wisdom, with its intertwining branches representing neural networks. The apples, as the fruits of wisdom, are not on the tree but stem from the discussions of the twelve zodiacs. Behind the tree is a Windows 98 System window, opening to the outside world.  

Through this piece, I explore the history of AI and computer development. Using the twelve zodiacs, I emphasize the diversity of voices in this conversation. I hope more people will join in shaping the diverse narratives of AI history in the future. 

Joining the Table 

Three cartoon-style people of similar stature (one instructor and two students) are seated around a circular table. The instructor is wearing a dress shirt with a nametag and is a wheelchair user. The students are wearing a t-shirt and a jumper respectively and are not wheelchair users. A speech bubble appears above the instructor's head to depict the collection of biomedical data from an individual that is then inputted into an AI algorithm to predict long-term cardiovascular disease risk (denoted here by the icon of a broken heart). 

"prediction" provides a hypothetical vignette of AI education. Using simple, icon-based imagery, it depicts a small-group seminar in which an expert (here, a wheelchair user) explains risk prediction algorithms for cardiovascular disease to two students within the health sciences. Disabled people may interact with health systems more frequently than the general public, and this artwork touches on the value this group brings to those systems and their AI-ification.

prediction 

A collage featuring a vintage illustration of a woman’s head mapped with labeled sections resembling a phrenology chart. The mapped sections are overlaid by a neutral network diagram– depicting crisscrossing black lines. Two anonymous hands extend from the left side, pulling on two wires from the diagram.  In the background is a panel of the Turing Machine with numerous knobs and switches, highlighting a connection between the history of computing, psychology, biology, and artificial intelligence. 

'Turning Threads of Cognition' is a digital collage highlighting the historical overlay of computing, psychology, and biology that underpin artificial intelligence. 

The vintage illustration of a head (an ode to Rosalind Franklin, a British chemist who discovered the double helix of DNA) is mapped with labeled sections akin to a phrenology chart. The diagram of the neutral network launches the image into the modern day as AI seeks to classify and codify sentiments and personalities based on network science.  The phrenology chart highlights the subjectivity embedded in AI’s attempts to classify and predict behaviors based on assumed traits.  The background of the Turing Machine and the two anonymous hands pulling on strings of the “neural network,” are an ode to the women of Newnham College at Cambridge University who made the code-breaking decryption during World War II possible. Taken together, the collage symbolizes the layers of intertwined disciplines, hidden labor, embedded subjectivity, and material underpinnings of today’s AI technologies. 

Turning Threads of Cognition

A black-and-white image depicting the early computer, Bombe Machine, during World War II. In the foreground, the shadow of a woman in vintage clothing is cast on a man changing the machine's cable. 

“Shadow Work – Decrypting Bletchley Park’s Codebreakers” is a visual interjection into the history of early computing in the UK. The Bombe Machine was an early computer that helped British cryptologists like Alan Turing decipher Germany’s Enigma-encrypted messages during World War II. About 7,500 women worked in Bletchley Park, England, where they played a vital role in operating the computers used for code-breaking decryption. The shadow of the woman symbolizes the overlooked labor provided by Jean Valentine, Margaret Rock,  Mavis Lever, Ruth Briggs, and many others, without whose efforts Alan Turing, Gordon Welchman, and Bill Tutte’s infamous advancements would not have been possible. Overlooked labor is not merely a historical anecdote. It is increasingly accelerated by the rise of AI as the labor of data cleaners, content moderators, and warehouse workers, etc. remains hidden from public view.

Shadow Work– Decrypting Bletchley Park’s Codebreakers

A woman sits atop a computer console from the 1950s in a vintage computer lab. One window possesses columns from Nevile’s Court at Trinity University at Cambridge University, and the other window depicts six potted flowers and sunlight. The background is black and white, and the image of the woman and the sunny window are warm tones. 

“Pas(t)imes in the Computer Lab” subverts the “domestic” painting of a woman knitting next to a window to recontextualize her craft as weaving the wires of an early computer. Outside the window are the columns of Nevile’s Court at Cambridge University– an ode to the women of Newnham College that made the code-breaking decryption during World War II possible. The visual subversion of a “pass time” of computing offers a critical reading of the vital labor that underpins AI technology. Overlooked labor is not merely a historical anecdote. It is increasingly accelerated by the rise of AI as the labor of data cleaners, content moderators, and warehouse workers, etc. remains hidden from public view.

Pas(t)imes in the Computer Lab 

A computer lab with three rows of four desks, each occupied by students working at computers. Overlaying the computer lab are red lines connecting through nodes, symbolizing the flow of communication, data exchange, and interconnected networks. 

The image depicts a Cambridge University classroom learning about AI. The image seeks to deconstruct notions of learning about AI as “new” by drawing upon visual diagrams of data science networks to visually ground images in the origins of computing. Simultaneously, it seeks to capture the flow of information and communication in a classroom. 

Data Lab Dialogue

A black-and-white surrealist collage of a classroom lecture. The center features an oversized computer keyboard with the two keys “A” and “I” highlighted in red. In the foreground, a vintage illustration of a woman in historical attire kneels as she interacts with the keyboard. Behind her, an audience of Cambridge students are seated in rows observing the lecture.

This surrealist collage is a visual narrative on education about AI. The juxtaposition of historical and contemporary images underscores the tension between established institutions of learning and the evolving, boundary-pushing nature of AI. The oversized keyboard, with the “A” and “I” keys highlighted in red, serves as a focal point, symbolising the dominance of AI in contemporary discourse, while the vintage image of the woman in historical attire kneeling at the outdated keyboard symbolises a reclamation of voices historically marginalised in technological innovation, drawing attention to the need for diverse perspectives in educating students about future of AI. Visually reimagining the classroom dynamic critiques the historical gatekeeping of AI knowledge and calls for an educational paradigm that values and amplifies diverse contributions.

Analog Lecture on Computing 

A pixelated black-and-white portrait of Ada Lovelace where the arrangement of pixels forms intricate borders and repeating patterns. These designs resemble the structure and layout of GPU microchip circuits, blending her historical contributions with modern computational technology.

Through distortion, this image depicts a pixelized and reconfigured portrait of Ada Lovelace cast on a microchip. Ada Lovelace was an English mathematician who discovered that a computer could follow a sequence of instructions beyond pure calculation. Her contributions laid the groundwork for programmable computing that underpins algorithms driving AI advancement. As GPU (Graphics Processing Units) microchips are maximizing parallel computing for accelerating tasks like machine learning, the image blending Lovelace’s historical contributions with modern computational technology.

Lovelace GPU

An anonymous figure examines handwritten notes overlaid with a blue light projection resembling a virtual reality interface. The projection brings the notes to life, highlighting details such as a reference to the intricate ceiling of King’s College Chapel and a diagram of a man encircled by a series of numbers, blending historical imagery with futuristic technology.

This artwork reimagines the use of technology like Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in education as more than tools for optimization and emphasizes their potential to support creative forms of learning. The anonymous hand studies their handwritten notes vis-a-vis Augmented Reality projections. By highlighting visual references to King’s College Chapel overlaid with diagrams measuring humans, the image envisions image generation expanding beyond efficiency to embrace diverse ways of understanding. 

Puppeteering Virtual Reality 

A historical-style painting of a young woman stands before the Colossus computer. She holds an abstract basket filled with vibrant, pastel circles representing data points. The basket is attached to the computer through a network of connecting wires, symbolizing the flow and processing of information.

'Colossal Harvest' combines the history of UK computing with a critical reading of diversity in AI development. A young, anonymous, woman is juxtaposed with a digital image of the Colossus machine, an early computer that helped British cryptologists like Alan Turing decipher Germany’s Enigma-encrypted messages during World War II. 

While approximately 7,500 women worked in Bletchley Park to operate the computers used for code-breaking decryption, these women were all white. Through digital collage, this image presents a critique of the continued legacies of computing, highlighting the dependence on data harvested that disproportionally rely upon and systemically discriminate communities of color.

Colossal Harvest

Repeating image of four skulls with increasing doubling, blurring, ghosting, pixelation, and horizontal glitching.

This image represents both the way that AI models training on their own output leads to model collapse and the way that corrupted data can lead to problematic and potentially damaging outputs.
 
Design created using public domain images and effects in Rawpixel; glitches created using https://snorpey.github.io/jpg-glitch-electro; final edit in Adobe Photoshop.

Corruption 3 

Repeating image of four skulls with increasing doubling, blurring, ghosting, and pixelation

This image represents both the way that AI models training on their own output leads to model collapse and the way that corrupted data can lead to problematic and potentially damaging outputs.
 
Design created using public domain images and effects in Rawpixel.

Corruption 2 

Repeating image of skulls with increasing doubling, blurring, ghosting, pixelation, and horizontal glitching

Corruption 1

This image shows a blue xray image of a person's chest - it shows the ribs, the faint outline of a heart, and other organs. The image features yellow squares surrounding the organs (left lung, trachea, right lung, heart, diaphragm) - each of them feature labels such as: normal, midline, normal size. There is text in the right bottom corner in white which states 'no abnormalities detected'. 

'No Abnormalities is part of the artist's series, 'Algorithmic Encounters': By overlaying AI-generated annotations onto everyday scenes, this series uncovers hidden layers of meaning, biases, and interpretations crafted by algorithms. It transforms the mundane into sites of dialogue, inviting reflection on how algorithms shape our understanding of the world.

No Abnormalities 

This image features 3 images of a street. Overlying the image are different shapes which are arranged to look like QR code symbols. These are in white/blue colours and intersect one another. The first image is clear, but the second is slightly more pixelated, and the final image is very pixelated. 

This artwork explores the concepts of interconnectedness, complexity, and transparency in a world shaped by AI. It uses abstract buildings and geometric lines to illustrate how AI is everywhere, seamlessly woven into the fabric of daily life. The vibrant red, green, yellow, and grey buildings with their brick-like textures represent the physical world. White lines resembling digital circuits flow through these structures, symbolizing the invisible data networks and algorithmic systems that power modern society, everything from critical infrastructure to online shopping experiences. These lines—some fractured, others continuous—reflect the ubiquity and complexity of AI. Despite being built, deployed, and trained by humans, algorithmic systems are difficult to explain. This includes how such systems influence decisions and actions. The image similarly struggles with transparency; the lines’ origins and destinations are unclear. The piece prompts viewers to reflect on how AI, a product of human ingenuity and interactions, is omnipresent and yet operates just beneath the surface of our understanding.

Adobe FireFly was used in the production of this image, using consented original material as input for elements of the images. Elise draws on a wide range of her own artwork from the past 20 years as references for style and composition and uses Firefly to experiment with intensity, colour/tone, lighting, camera angle, effects, and layering. 

Web of Influence I

This image features an image of a pixelated street. Overlying the image are different shapes which are arranged to look like QR code symbols. These are in white/blue colours and intersect one another. 

Web of Influence II

There are 6 different arrangements of lines with circles. In each image, there are 4/5 lines in different colours: yellow, blue, pink, and turquoise. The middle circle is blue, and the other lines stick out at different angles surrounding the circle.  

'Toy Models I' is part of the artist's series, 'Toy Models': This series finds beauty in toy models, which serve as simplified representations of complex systems.

Toy Models I

The image shows a pixelated image of a street. While it is heavily pixelated, you can make out lamposts, people walking on the sidewalks, and stalls/buildings that line wach side of the road. In the forefront, there is a stack of hay and a dog which is sniffing it. There are various yellow boxes outlining different parts of the image including: the light of a lamp post, the dog, a hay stack, and an old-style building. 

'Street Fair' is part of the artist's series, 'Algorithmic Encounters': By overlaying AI-generated annotations onto everyday scenes, this series uncovers hidden layers of meaning, biases, and interpretations crafted by algorithms. It transforms the mundane into sites of dialogue, inviting reflection on how algorithms shape our understanding of the world.

Street Fair

This features a repeated 3 images of a distorted circle in a square with a bright blue background. Each are slightly different but they are all bright, neon colours including blue, green, pink, and red. The grains are varying weights and threads which run horizontally along the circles. 

'Static' is part of the artist's series, 'Back to Basics': A minimalist exploration of foundational digital elements like static and circuits, reflecting the raw, unembellished essence of technological systems.

Static

This image shows a pixelated room, it looks like a typical bedroom or office. Most of it is heavily pixelated, but a shelf, table and plant, windows and clock can be recognised. These are all outlined in yellow boxes. 

'Morning View' is part of the artist's series, 'Algorithmic Encounters': By overlaying AI-generated annotations onto everyday scenes, this series uncovers hidden layers of meaning, biases, and interpretations crafted by algorithms. It transforms the mundane into sites of dialogue, inviting reflection on how algorithms shape our understanding of the world.

Morning View 

The image features a pixelated landscape with a stretch of grass. There is a water tower in the middle and a communication tower to the right. The image also features a small sun in teh sky and a cow/sheep. These features are all outlined in yellow boxes with percentages indicating the image recognition confidence.

'Moon over Fields' is part of the artist's series, 'Algorithmic Encounters': By overlaying AI-generated annotations onto everyday scenes, this series uncovers hidden layers of meaning, biases, and interpretations crafted by algorithms. It transforms the mundane into sites of dialogue, inviting reflection on how algorithms shape our understanding of the world.

Moon over Fields 

This features two images, the background image is a road with a zebra crossing. Overlaid is an image of a typical street with buildings either side and cars lined up on the side of the street - this is pixelated in black and white. On top of both of these is a pixelated image of a tree and a white car. 

'Is This Even Real III' is part of the artist's series 'Is This Even Real': This series questions the boundaries between the digital and physical worlds, blending distortions, overlays, and pixelations to challenge our perception of reality. Each piece invites the viewer to reflect on the tension between what is authentic and what is constructed, encouraging a deeper interrogation of these digital layers.

Adobe FireFly was used in the production of this image, using consented original material as input for elements of the images. Elise draws on a wide range of her own artwork from the past 20 years as references for style and composition and uses Firefly to experiment with intensity, colour/tone, lighting, camera angle, effects, and layering. 

Is This Even Real III

This features two images, the background image is a road with a zebra crossing. Overlaid is an image of a typical street with buildings either side and cars lined up on the side of the street. There are also trees and a large stretch of road which centres the image. The whole image has a purple filter and a pixel effect. 

'Is This Even Real II' is part of the artist's series 'Is This Even Real': This series questions the boundaries between the digital and physical worlds, blending distortions, overlays, and pixelations to challenge our perception of reality. Each piece invites the viewer to reflect on the tension between what is authentic and what is constructed, encouraging a deeper interrogation of these digital layers.

Adobe FireFly was used in the production of this image, using consented original material as input for elements of the images. Elise draws on a wide range of her own artwork from the past 20 years as references for style and composition and uses Firefly to experiment with intensity, colour/tone, lighting, camera angle, effects, and layering. 

Is This Even Real II

There are 16 different small square images in this collage. Each of them have a grid background and different neon coloured square patterns in the squares. One looks like a flower, another looks like a random array of pixels, and the other is 4 blue squares. 

'Game of Pixels x Toy Models' is part of the artist's 'Game of Pixel's series: A dynamic, playful exploration inspired by Conway’s Game of Life, where patterns emerge and evolve through the interaction of pixels. The series explores the interplay between micro and macro perspectives, using pixels as a metaphor for both foundational building blocks and complex systems, while revealing what is gained and lost as we shift between scales.

Game of Pixels x Toy Models 

This features a distorted college of 5 images. The left image has a circle with a blue background and bright, neon grains throughout. The other 4 images feature various degrees of zoom of the circular image. The image has lots of patterns and bright colours. 

Game of Pixels x Static' is part of the artist's 'Game of Pixel's series: A dynamic, playful exploration inspired by Conway’s Game of Life, where patterns emerge and evolve through the interaction of pixels. The series explores the interplay between micro and macro perspectives, using pixels as a metaphor for both foundational building blocks and complex systems, while revealing what is gained and lost as we shift between scales.

Adobe FireFly was used in the production of this image, using consented original material as input for elements of the images. Elise draws on a wide range of her own artwork from the past 20 years as references for style and composition and uses Firefly to experiment with intensity, colour/tone, lighting, camera angle, effects, and layering. 

Game of Pixels x Static 

This image features a pixelated selfie featuring an individual with long brown hair and a fringe. The person has their tongue out and is smiling too. Most of the parts of the image are pixelated with red and yellow squares focusing on certain parts of the image. By each square is also a label and a recognition percentage, including: dark hair (87%), right eye (91%), left eye (94%), ear (27%), mouth-smiling (90%), uncertain feature. The squares are mainly outlined in yellow, but 'ear' and 'uncertain feature' are in red. 

'Emotion: Joy' is part of the artist's 'Algorithmic Encounters' series: 
By overlaying AI-generated annotations onto everyday scenes, this series uncovers hidden layers of meaning, biases, and interpretations crafted by algorithms. It transforms the mundane into sites of dialogue, inviting reflection on how algorithms shape our understanding of the world.


Emotion: Joy

The image shows a road side scene from Dharamsala with image squares surrounding certain parts of the image with recognition percentages including: prayer flags (95%), bare tree (91%), clothing (94%), snow-covered mountains (89%), dog (92%), side mirror (86%). The squares and text are yellow. 

Dharamsala is part of the artist's 'Algorithmic Encounters' series: By overlaying AI-generated annotations onto everyday scenes, this series uncovers hidden layers of meaning, biases, and interpretations crafted by algorithms. It transforms the mundane into sites of dialogue, inviting reflection on how algorithms shape our understanding of the world.

Dharamsala

Students at computers with screens that include a representation of a retinal scanner with pixelation and binary data overlays and a brightly coloured datawave heatmap at the top.

This image represents the interest of technology companies (including but not limited to AI) in the data produced by students. Young students at computers with retinal scanners on their screens suggest the uptake not only of data entry but also of biometric data. The representation of pixelation, binary code, and the data-wave heatmap at the top suggest the ways that student work - and bodies - are abstracted by the datafication process.
 
Design created using public domain images and effects in Rawpixel.

Datafication 

A snowy landscape with icy cliffs and towering mountains. Several explorers are shown climbing and navigating the snowy terrain, some using ropes to bridge gaps. Below the cliffs, a grid of blue electric circuits and transmission towers dot the mountains, blending the natural and technological elements of the scene. The sky is a vividly toxic green, with a orange sun glowing in the background.

This triptych series is a visual exploration into ""new frontier"" of AI technology. The base of these images depicts “The Ascent of Mont Blanc”— an effort to summit the mountain, painted in 1855  by John MacGregor. Reappropriating the intention of these paintings, the collage overlays images of wires and circuits that are “melting the ice”—an ironic commentary on “progress” in the name of environmental extraction

The juxtaposition of gradient backgrounds with layered microchips, wires, and cell towers offers an ironic visual commentary on digital colonialism and the visual language of high-tech companies.  The use of playful colours contrasts with the fragile foundations of AI infrastructure, rooted in digital colonialism and climate costs. This work positions AI as a system built on labor, material, and capital—revealing the often invisible labor in electronics manufacturing throughout the Global Majority."

Data Mining 3

This illustration depicts a progression from a fish to a woman, showcasing transitional stages that defy classification boundaries, emphasising fluid states.

This image shows a gradual transformation from fish to woman and vice versa - questioning the rigid boundaries of classification and emphasising the fluid, in-between states where entities cannot be neatly boxed into one category or the other. It is particularly reminiscent of early image-generation GAN models, where images could be generated at the midpoint between two concepts in latent space, outputting entertaining visuals while highlighting the complexity, ambiguity, and limits of data labelling.

Limits of Classification 

A rock embedded with intricate circuit board patterns, held delicately by pale hands drawn in a ghostly style. The contrast between the rough, metallic mineral and the sleek, artificial circuit board illustrates the relationship between raw natural resources and modern technological development. The hands evoke human involvement in the extraction and manufacturing processes.

'Rare Metals' highlights the human labor that underpins the material realities of modern technology. Archival images of hands — some cast in cement, others hand-drawn — symbolise the toxic burden of data cleaning in China and the immense human cost of mineral extraction in the Congo. Some hands are ghostlike, their translucence reflecting the often-invisible nature of this labor. Others delicately manipulate threads of rare earth metals, essential for manufacturing computer chips. By using hands and strings as visual metaphors, the series seeks to uncover the hidden stories of "anonymous" labor that fuel AI technologies.

Rare Metals 2

Rare Metals 1

This image shows a fragmented panorama of a serene Finnish landscape, divided into four horizontal sections. The topmost section shows a distant shoreline dotted with buildings and rolling hills, painted in muted green-blue hues. Below, a body of water stretches across the frame. The third and fourth section show a zone of tall grass at the water's edge and some foliage from trees. The image color palette shifts subtly from pale aqua at the top to deeper teal tones at the bottom. This fragmented presentation of the landscape evokes thoughts of memory, perception, and the layered nature of our relationship with the environment.

This image explores digital imagery, data manipulation, and environmental issues through a technique known as datamoshing. Using archival landscape photographs of Finnish lakes and mountains as a base, the images files were corrupted by opening them in a text editor and inserting fragments of news articles about AI data centres and their resource consumption directly into the image files code. This process results in visually distorted landscapes that symbolically represent the impact of technology on natural environments. The corrupted images can be seen as a visual metaphor for the environmental costs of digital infrastructure, particularly the high energy and water usage of large-scale AI operations. 

Glitched Landscape 

A digital collage merging an ornate historical painting of a pioneer scene with images of data and wires. The painting is partially glitched, with sections of digital circuitry and matrix-like grids overtaking the classical imagery. In the scene, pioneers on horseback and on foot appear to be embarking on a journey, but the technological distortion dominates the background, blending history with a sci-fi aesthetic. 

This image explores the visual culture of generative artificial intelligence landscapes, positioning it as a "new frontier" that echoes the 1850s to 1870s Manifest Destiny paintings (often associated with the Hudson River School). The base image, titled “Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way” by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutz (1868), is one of many propagandistic paintings that worked to lure settlers westward while “conveniently” concealing the ethnic cleansing of Indigenous populations. Similarly, AI-frontier models usher in new forms of colonisation within the digital realm. Their technical prowess often overshadows the environmental and labor exploitation that underpins them. Through collage, this image seeks to make the invisible visible.

Frontier Models 3

The image shows a surreal landscape with vast green fields extending toward distant mountains under a cloudy sky. Embedded in the fields are digital circuit patterns, resembling an intricate network of blue lines, representing a technological infrastructure. Five large computer monitors with keyboards are placed in a row, each with a Navajo woman sitting in front, weaving the computers. In the far distance, a cluster of teepees is visible.

This image seeks to reveal the histories of hidden labor in computing. The base of the collage is an oil painting of Navajo women weaving. Inspired by the history of computing in 1960s Silicon Valley, where the Fairchild Semiconductor company employed Navajo women, the image collapses time to depict overlooked histories in a modern context. As Lisa Nakamura who writes, “ Looking inside digital culture means both looking back in time to the roots of the computing industry and the specific material production practices that positioned race and gender as commodities in electronics factories. This labor is temporally hidden, within a very early period of digital computing history, and hidden spatially.” (937)

Weaving Wires 2

Digital collage featuring a computer monitor with circuit board patterns on the screen. A Navajo woman is seated on the edge of the screen, appearing to stitch or fix the digital landscape with their hands. Blue digital cables extend from the monitor, keyboard, and floor, connecting the image elements.

Weaving Wires 1

Two ceramic-like hands grip and pull on delicate threads that emerge from a "woven circuit board." The contrast between the rigid, heavy material of the hands and the soft, fragile threads creates a visual paradox, symbolising the insertion of human touch into the mechanised world. The image evokes a sense of personified anonymity, questioning whose histories and labours are being revealed or concealed when the threads of technology are pulled.

This image depicts a woven computer circuit board. The intricate wires are pixelated into color blocks, and two ceramic hands pull on the threads of the woven circuit. The paradox of cement hands and soft computer infrastructure offers a visual irony – inserting the “hands” into the machine. This image is consistent with the ongoing theme of personified anonymity; what (or whose) histories are revealed when pulling on threads?

Woven Circuit 

A digital landscape painting of green fields and distant blue mountains. The image has a pixelated, glitchy effect with redaction boxes drawn over parts of the landscape. The text "redacted" appears in the top-right corner within one of the boxes. The pixelated areas within the redaction box consist of small, colored squares.

This digital collage examines how the violence of Westward Expansion in the early 1800s has been strategically sanitised in historical narratives and fuelled by 19th century art. The base image, George Catlin’s “Comanche Warriors, with White Flag, Receiving the Dragoons” (1834-1835), portrays a meeting between Comanche warriors and U.S. Army “Dragoons.” By overlaying elements that mimic computer-vision algorithms and pixel redactions, the collage draws a parallel to how contemporary media censors "violative" content, thus echoing how historical records often obscure or "redact" the violent realities of U.S. expansion. The redacted pixels symbolise this erasure, critiquing the ongoing practice of glossing over unsettling parts of history.

Frontier Models 2

A highly-contrasted digital landscape of a train going West with settlements in the bottom left. The image has 5 boxes symbolising computer vision, with text that reads "settler" “beckoning mountains” and “the future awaits” and “indigenous population” which is non-existent.

This image explores the visual culture of generative artificial intelligence landscapes, positioning it as a "new frontier" that echoes the 1850s to 1870s Manifest Destiny paintings (often associated with the Hudson River School). The base image, titled “Across the Continent: Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way" by Frances Flora Bond Palmer (1868) is one of many propagandistic artworks that intended to lure settlers westward while “conveniently” concealing the ethnic cleansing of Indigenous populations. Through collage, this image reappropriates the idea of ‘the next frontier’ as AI-frontier models to draw attention to the not-so-new forms of colonisation within the digital realm.

Images of AI library

Digital Nomads Across Time - Yutong Liu & Digit

Digital Nomads Beyond the Cubicle - Yutong Liu & Digit

Digital Nomads: Digital-Based Connection - Yutong Liu & Digit

Surveillance - Reihaneh Golpayegani & Digit

Isolation - Kathryn Conrad & Digit

Entry Level - Janet Turra & Digit

Stochastic Parrots at Work - IceMing & Digit

Digitalisation and Moonlighting 2 - Julieta Longo & Digit

Digitalisation and Moonlighting 1 - Julieta Longo & Digit

Wheel of Progress - Leo Lau & Digit

Knowledge Sweatshop - Leo Lau & Digit

Keep your Receipts - Nadia Nadesan & Digit

Deceptive Dialogues - Nadia Nadesan & Digit

Woven Dialogues - Elise Racine & Digit

Pixelated Labour - Elise Racine & Digit

Occupational Circularity - Elise Racine & Digit

The Path - Sophie Valeix & Digit

Continued Opportunity - Suraj Rai & Digit

Continued Adoption - Suraj Rai & Digit

Continued Mining - Suraj Rai & Digit