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

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. 

'Web of Influence I' is part of the artist's series, 'The Bigger Picture': exploring themes of digital doubles, surveillance, omnipresence, ubiquity, and interconnectedness. 

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' is part of the artist's series, 'The Bigger Picture': exploring themes of digital doubles, surveillance, omnipresence, ubiquity, and interconnectedness. 

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 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.

Frontier Models 1

A collage that merges circuit board patterns with textile motifs in a grid-like background of alternating black, grey, and white. Two hand-drawn arms are on each side of the image, positioned as if gently pulling on thin, white strings that cross the image diagonally. The hands appear soft and somewhat translucent, contrasting with the rigid lines of the circuit board patterns behind them. The strings are woven through both the hands and the background, symbolising the connection between traditional weaving and modern technology. The overall colour palette features muted earth tones, including browns, beiges, and grays, creating a sense of both history and continuity between the natural and technological worlds..

'Textiles and Tech' intertwines the visual elements of circuits and textiles, merging the past and future, wires and strings. The collages draw inspiration from the history of 1960s Silicon Valley, where Navajo women were employed by Fairchild Semiconductor for their weaving expertise to assemble circuits that laid the groundwork for today’s microchips. By compiling archival images of hands, the series seeks to personify the anonymity of tech labor. The strings and wires running through the visuals encourage viewers to reflect: what is uncovered when we pull on these threads?

Textiles and Tech 2

A snow-covered mountainous landscape with steep cliffs. Two large transmission towers stand on opposite sides of the chasm, their bases buried in the snow. Small groups of hikers are seen climbing the icy ridges. Under the melting snow is a canyon of tangle of colourful wires. 

Data Mining 2 

A surreal landscape of snowy cliffs with jagged mountain peaks under a vibrant gradient sky that shifts from orange to pink and purple. People wearing old-fashioned expedition clothing pull ropes across the snow, helping others traverse a crevice of circuits and wires. Tall transmission towers rise from the mountaintops, and in the depths of the canyon below, a grid of electronic circuits is melting the snow.

"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 colors 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 1

The image depicts a series of stone-like hands, fractured and cracked, reaching out in various directions from a chaotic mass of tangled wires. Some hands display broken fingers, while archival tags on others suggest anonymity and erasure. The juxtaposition of human forms and technological wires evokes themes of labor, exploitation, and the often unseen physical work behind the tech industry.

This image portrays a collection of stone, fractured and cracked, reaching out from a chaotic tangle of wires. The disarray of the hands, with broken fingers and archival tags, evokes a haunting sense of anonymity and erasure. This image represents the millions of tech workers who make the high-tech industry physically possible.

Wire Bound

The image shows an illustration of celestial chart featuring concentric rings with Latin inscriptions and zodiac symbols, centered around a sun with a face and 4 plants around it. The upper portion displays angel-like figures in a deep blue border, while the lower half is awash in psychedelic colors—pinks, blues, and greens that create a glitch effect. This distortion partially obscures classical figures or statues at the bottom. The overall composition mixes Renaissance-era astronomical imagery with contemporary digital art techniques.

This set of images explores data manipulation through a technique known as datamoshing. Using a set of archival illustrations depicting various machines alongside animals and human features as a base. The images were imported into audio editing software as RAW data. The image is the transformed into audio and was then manipulated using different effects that are usually applied to sound. The corrupted data was then exported back into image format. This process serves as a metaphor for the complex relationships between humans, nature, and technology. By merging historical imagery with digital manipulation, the piece comments on the evolution of visual technology and how our understanding of images changes with new tools and perspectives. This glitch aesthetic doesn't merely represent errors, but rather opens up new interpretative possibilities.

Image to Audio Corruption 02

The image shows a composition mixing archival illustrations with digital distortion, creating a layered narrative. At the top, we see a bird-like figure surrounded by eyes, symbolizing vison and flight. The middle section has horizontal lines disrupted by a colorful static, reminiscent of corrupted data or signal interference. Below, fragmented human features and eyes emerge from a darker background, their distorted also show some for of digital error.

Image to Audio Corruption 01

The image features a grid of four depictions of a baby, each overlaid with digital distortions and glitches. These distortions symbolise the fragility of data and privacy in the context of nonconsensual data breaches. The glitch effects include fragmented pixels, colour shifts, and digital artefacts, emphasising the disruption and loss of control over personal information. 

The series of powerless babies have been visualised through a series of distortions and glitches which represents losing data and privacy because on nonconsensual data breach.

Distortion Series 

An Escher-like structure depicting the concept of AI model collapse. The image features a swirling, labyrinthine design, representing a recursive loop where algorithms feed on their own generated synthetic data. Elements of digital clutter and noise are interwoven throughout, highlighting the chaotic nature of the internet increasingly populated by AI-generated content. The visual metaphor of a Uroboros, a snake eating its own tail, symbolizes the self-referential cycle of AI training on its own outputs.

This image comments on AI model collapse - a phenomenon where AI systems gradually degrade in quality when training on AI-generated content. As generative AI pollutes the internet with synthetic material—now estimated by AWS researchers to account for 57% of online content—this data is scraped and used as training data, leading to worse results and compromising the effectiveness of future models. The Escher-like structure symbolises this recursive loop of AI slop and enshittification, emphasising the absurdity of algorithms feeding on their own synthetic data, akin to a Uroboros, a snake eating its own tail.

Model Collapse 

A group of vintage figures ride a circular machine, symbolising the endless, repetitive cycle of algorithmic scrolling and shallow interactions.

Infinite Scroll critiques the addictive cycle of digital consumption and the illusion of progress in the tech age. It reflects how addictive design and recommendation algorithms trap users in repetitive, shallow interactions, symbolising the emptiness of endless doom scrolling. Highlighting the tension between the promise of innovation and the stagnation of contemporary digital platforms, the image questions the true value of motion when it lacks purpose or direction.

Infinite Scroll

A traditional Hindu painting is heavily pixelated, with large blocks obscuring key details, symbolizing cultural erasure and distortion by AI aggregation.

This image comments on the erasure and homogenisation that can occur in AI models and datasets. By embedding and aggregating documented cultures, histories, and perspectives, AI often ignores what cannot be computationally captured—particularly oral histories, lost or destroyed records, and cultures that exist outside dominant documentation systems. The resulting "mush" reflects a loss of specificity and richness, as many worldviews and realities are flattened under a U.S.-centric, hegemonic lens, leaving them misrepresented or erased entirely. The image asks whether it's worse to be erased or surveilled through a lens that cannot comprehend the original context.

Erasure by Aggregation

A red-toned illustration shows a man's head surrounded by swirling AI icons, with small, mischievous witch-like figures flying around him. The man's expression appears disoriented and fatigued, symbolizing the mental overload caused by the overwhelming flood of AI tools and news. The witches represent the chaotic, cackling nature of rapid AI developments, adding to the sense of dizziness and confusion.

This image comments on AI fatigue, illustrating how the overwhelming flood of tools and constant influx of headlines leaves most people feeling dizzy and disoriented. With AI icons swirling around the figure’s head, it captures the mental overload and confusion many feel as they struggle to keep up with rapid developments / the fast-paced AI landscape.

AI Am Over It

A collage that merges circuit board patterns with textile motifs in a grid-like background of alternating black, grey, and white. Two hand-drawn arms are on each side of the image, positioned as if gently pulling on thin, white strings that cross the image diagonally. The hands appear soft and somewhat translucent, contrasting with the rigid lines of the circuit board patterns behind them. The strings are woven through both the hands and the background, symbolising the connection between traditional weaving and modern technology. The overall colour palette features muted earth tones, including browns, beiges, and grays, creating a sense of both history and continuity between the natural and technological worlds.

'Textiles and Tech' intertwine the visual elements of circuits and textiles, merging the past and future, wires and strings. The collages draw inspiration from the history of 1960s Silicon Valley, where Navajo women were employed by Fairchild Semiconductor for their weaving expertise to assemble circuits that laid the groundwork for today’s microchips. By compiling archival images of hands, the series seeks to personify the anonymity of tech labor. The strings and wires running through the visuals encourage viewers to reflect: what is uncovered when we pull on these threads?

Textiles and Tech 1

A mosaic-like image of clouds, made of server and data center components, symbolizing the hidden physical infrastructure of cloud computing.

This image critically examines the materiality and ecological footprint of AI, particularly challenging the misleading notion of "cloud computing." Using a mosaic technique, it reconstructs one image from the elements of another, in this case creating the composition of a cloudscape with a photo of a datacentre - visually representing how our understanding of the cloud often obscures the tangible reality of datacentres. While we refer to cloud computing as an intangible concept, this image highlights the physical infrastructure that underpins it, confronting the environmental implications and hidden materials that make the cloud possible.

Cloud Computing 

Diptych contrasting a whimsical pastel scene with large brown rabbits, a rainbow, and a girl in a red dress on the left, and a grid of numbered superpixels on the right - emphasizing the difference between emotive seeing and analytical interpretation.

This diptych contrasts human and computational ways of seeing: one riddled with memory and meaning, the other devoid of emotional association and capable of structural analysis. The left pane shows an illustration from Tom Seidmann-Freud’s Book of Hare Stories (1924) depicting a whimsical, surreal scene that is both playful and uncanny. On the right, the illustration is reduced to a computational rendering, with each of its superpixels (16x16) fragmented and sorted by visual complexity with a compression algorithm. The image was found in the treasure troves of Public Domain Review, where they write: “Hares have been known to serve as messengers between the conscious world and the deeper warrens of the mind” - as this image serves to traverse intuitive and algorithmic vision.

Ways of Seeing

A young brown woman wearing a bright green tracksuit. She is smiling and standing with her side slightly turned to the camera. She has a golden/brown cornrow hairstyle. On her head is a golden/brown structure composed of braided lines and braided spheres at the node of the lines. Some of the braided spheres are attached to the model's cornrows and fall over her shoulders.

Braided Networks 3 captures the model in a bright green tracksuit wearing the braided hair sculpture. The image is taken at an angle that captures the entire hair sculpture, including the nodes that fall from the model's cornrows. This image illustrates the interconnectedness between humans and their data and was inspired by 'Edge Computing' a process that brings computing services physically closer to the user or data source. Braided Networks' is a series of photographs that illustrate neural networks whilst referencing AI bias and the hidden human labour behind AI. The series focuses on a young brown woman with cornrows wearing and/or handling braided hair, sculpted into the form of a traditional network diagram. The hair sculpture builds on existing methods of illustrating neural networks through a combination of spherical braids representing nodes, and linear braids connecting the spheres representing complex layers and architectures within the network structure. Hair braiding is used as a medium to symbolise repetition, patterns, loops and geometry, themes also found in artificial intelligence. The intentional centering of a brown, female model and references to African-Caribbean hair and aesthetics throughout the series responds to a lack of representation and identity-related stereotypes often found within datasets. The time and painful labour involved in styling afro hair mirrors the unjust and unseen human labour behind AI development. Both are often fronted by women of colour yet sold and disposed of to their disadvantage. AI4Media https://www.ai4media.eu/ funded this commission which was made possible with funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 951911.   Creative direction by AIxDESIGN - aixdesign.co. 

Braided Networks 3

This shows a collage image which integrates three layers representing three different contexts with a bold black diagram of a neural network overlay. In the top section, there is a classroom with students working at computer desks. The middle section shows the cooling system for a data centre. The bottom section features an open mine with exposed rocks, showing the process of extractive mining. 

This collage image is intended to represent different parts of the lifecycle of AI. The bottom image is a photograph of mining of the raw materials required to build AI systems; the middle is a photograph of a cooling system, necessary to protect data centres during AI training and deployment; and the top is a group of students in a computer classroom, intended to represent not only the users of AI systems but also the source of data that AI systems surveil and scrape to train. The overlay is a graphical representation of an artificial neural network, connecting these processes and elements together. The collage is built from licensed Adobe Stock photographs and graphics. 

Extraction Network 1

A single tree silhouette is composed of a mosaic of an array of small, colourful images of various types of trees in a collage. The images are projected onto a cutout shape of a tree and overlap in vibrant layers. The tree sits against a dark forest background with a white drop shadow which creates distance between the tree and the forest behind it. The base of the tree features a bright green grass wrapped around the trunk. 

'Seeing the Forest for the Trees'  explores the interpretative learning process of generative AI. The image was created by photographing a handmade maquette, onto which the artist projected a mosaic of tree imagery sourced from Unsplash - a free to license stock photo website. This compilation was then digitally manipulated in Adobe Photoshop. 

The artwork reflects how AI learns and recognises objects through mass data processing, drawing on thousands of images to produce an 'average' or archetypal version of familiar items—in this case, trees. The staged construction of the image highlights how AI generated images are inherently manufactured assemblages which seek to represent the lowest common denominator of training images. 

By using a montage of tree photos to form a single tree, the piece metaphorically raises the question of whether AI can truly 'see the forest for the trees' or if it merely generates simplified, stereotyped representations. This approach reflects on AI’s inherent limitations, as it processes patterns without fully grasping the unique essence of individual images within a broader context.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees

This image uses minimalist line art and adopts a monochromatic colour palette with soft green accents. The composition is built upon a spherical grid system that mirrors Earth's curvature, creating a dynamic digital backdrop and an immersive sense of depth. The image is split into various quadrants which each represent different themes: 'for better', 'for worse', 'all the time', 'far' and 'near'. In the top left is 'for better', it illustrates hands piecing together cloud-shaped puzzle pieces which have different images within them, including: a heart, a light bulb, a lock, and data symbols. In the top right, 'far' includes elements like satellites and lab equipment. In the middle of the image, 'for worse' illustrates a person holding a smartphone showing face recognition option with 'YES' or 'NO'. In the bottom left, 'all the time' shows a person under surveillance by a camera and being monitored by a digital device. Finally, in the bottom right, 'near' shows a car surrounded by wireless signals and a digital assistant. 

This illustration presents a multi-layered visualisation of AI's integration into modern day society. The composition is built upon a spherical grid system that mirrors Earth's curvature, creating a dynamic digital backdrop and an immersive sense of depth. This foundation represents the underlying
framework of AI systems that span our globe. Humans are shown assembling cloud-shaped puzzle pieces, implying humanity's dual role as both architects and orchestrators of AI technology. The artwork acknowledges AI's imperfections, including glitch-like elements that represent systemic biases and errors
in machine learning. Every day’s AI interactions are captured through various illustrations: children interacting with robotic companions, autonomous delivery systems, satellite communications, smartphones facilitating autonomous vehicle orders, and smart home technologies – all seamlessly woven into our daily lives. At the bottom, a depiction of a tree whose roots morph into flowing data streams and digital pathways, suggest how AI's growth and development are fundamentally nourished by human-supplied information.

The Omnipresent Tapestry

Two men are seated in the front seats of a car and the image is from the perspective as looking over the shoulders of the two individuals. The driver, on the right, holds a smartphone showing Google Maps with a route from Galway to Clifden, displaying the travel time and directions. The passenger, on the left, wears glasses and a dark green hoodie and holds a large, spiral-bound road atlas open to a page showing the west coast of Ireland. The car’s dashboard and controls are visible between them. 

This image shows two men sitting in the front seats of a car. The driver holds a smartphone displaying Google Maps, showing directions from Galway to Clifden, while the passenger holds an open, traditional road atlas on his lap. This scene captures a juxtaposition of old and new navigational tools: the classic road atlas represents traditional methods of travel planning, while the smartphone embodies modern technology with real-time, AI-powered assistance.

The smartphone emphasises how AI is seamlessly integrated into everyday life, providing instant access to directions, traffic updates, and alternative routes. This blend of traditional and digital methods highlights how AI has moved from being a futuristic concept to an essential, practical tool in our daily routines. AI technology is at our fingertips, transforming how we navigate and move through the world by making travel smarter, faster, and more efficient.

Moving Through The World

This image shows the corner of a room, with wooden floor with two walls - one is smaller than the other. On the left smaller wall, glowing app icons, with logos including Netflix, Spotify, OpenAI, and Alexa are arranged in a grid. Multiple sets of dark footprints converge toward these icons on the floor. 

The room’s right side features wooden shelves with various items: stacks of books, a vintage red rotary phone, vinyl records, and framed artwork. These objects are slightly shadowed and appear darker, but occupy the larger wall. On the floor’s bottom left corner, a few footprints veer off in the opposite direction to the other footsteps which were facing the glowing apps. 

This digital painting was created using Procreate. The image shows a glowing wall on the left filled with recognisable app icons like Netflix, Spotify, Alexa, and OpenAI. A trial of footsteps converges towards these icons, symbolising our attention and fascination towards AI. On the opposite side, various physical items, like books, vintage records, a rotary telephone, and paintings, are shrouded in a shadow. Despite this, these objects occupy more space, representing both their substantial historical impact and their persistent relevance in our increasingly digital world. 

The juxtaposition between the shiny icons and these shadowed historical objects invites us to adopt a retrospective and prospective view towards AI, acknowledging AI’s shiny surface and its deeper historical roots. The footsteps that are veering in the opposite direction symbolises the uncertainties and open questions about the future of AI and technology. It suggests that while AI might dominate our focus today, understanding its evolution requires a broader perspective that includes past mediums and future unknowns.

A Corner Of The History

The image is a very detailed, black-and-white sketch-like illustration featuring a complex scene of interconnected figures and technology. The artwork portrays various individuals in different environments to represent the relationship between technology and humans. 

In the foreground, multiple people are surrounded by computer screens filled with data visualisations, charts, and technical information. A woman seated in an armchair appears deep in thought, surrounded by data-filled monitors. Beside her, a man leans over, using a tablet to assist with their inspection of a plant or tree. In the centre, a figure holds a large frame or screen displaying anatomical illustrations, representing the use of AI to analyse medical imagery. To the left, another person is intently observing a computer screen, while a second figure nearby is deeply immersed in analysing data. A woman dominates the right side of the composition, gazing upwards as if in contemplation or envisioning something beyond the immediate scene. The background features more people, including a family holding hands, and other abstract representations of data.

The black-and-white illustration showcases various scenes that capture the role of AI in enhancing and impacting different aspects of human life. To the left, there is a man in front of a computer analysing lots of data – this shows how AI is assisting professionals process large amounts of data more easily. Below him, an elderly woman is sitting comfortably after using AI technology to switch on a light and help her listen to the news. Towards the centre, a man embraces his family, representing how AI can automate time-consuming tasks, allowing people more time to spend with their family. In the lower right, a farmer studies a tablet displaying soil data, indicating how AI can support agricultural insights. Amid these scenes, a content moderator is relieved from the burden of viewing harmful or offensive content, thanks to AI that screens and filters such material. The background is filled with abstract representations of data and pieces of information, signifying the constant presence of AI streamlining and structuring the flow of information around us. However, despite the beneficial uses of AI represented in the image, what is absent is the use of AI to create art. The intricacy of the hand-drawn details of the image reinforce the message that while AI can be transformative and practical in many areas, art remains a deeply human endeavour. 

AI is Everywhere

The painting shows a person standing on a staircase made of green and pink cubes, symbolising a Penrose staircase, in a cosmic environment. The person is reaching towards a glowing cross-shaped structure emitting binary code, representing AI's reach into the future. Surrounding the figure are outlined boxes showing various  elements, such as glasses, medical tools, a self-driving car, and financial symbols, interconnected by white lines. The background is dark with star-like dots and features colour-coded boxes which mark different elements as relating to AI, human involvement, a combination of both, or an area uncharted by AI and humans. 

This painting explores the vast, and ever-expanding use of AI. The universe serves as a symbol or the infinite applications of AI and also reflects its growing presence across all aspects of life. In the centre, there is a figure standing on an abstract representation of a Penrose staircase. The Penrose staircase, also known as the 'impossible staircase' is an optical illusion comprised of four 90 degree turns, forming a continuous loop. The staircase can be ascended and descended forever without ever reaching the end - it is often used as a symbol for infinity and eternity. The image uses the Penrose staircase to refer to the infinite scope of human imagination, which used in combination with AI applications, will enable humans to continue to develop to meet our potential. Surrounding the staircase, there are various symbols enclosed in outlined boxes, each representing different applications of AI: from transport, retail, and medicine, to finance. These outlined boxes, representing the recognition frames used in AI image detection processes. The smaller colour-coded blocks indicate whether the content within the frames are generated by AI, humans, a combination of both, or an area uncharted by AI and humans. 

AI is Everywhere 

An illustration showing a hand holding a smartphone with its camera app open, capturing an image of a cartoon purple cat. The camera screen displays the cat framed with a square outline, and several facial features—such as the eyes, ears, and nose—are highlighted with smaller boxes and connected by thin lines, illustrating an AI recognition process. The cat is slightly blurred in the background outside the phone screen, emphasising the focus on the camera's view. 

This illustration highlights one of the many overlooked ways AI integrates into our daily routines. We often do not realise that everyday tools, such as smartphone cameras, also utilise AI technology. By processing images taken by users, AI can learn from the vast array of data fed to the system. For example, through image recognition capabilities used on photo applications, AI utilises users' images and learns to identify objects, faces, and places. This iterative process also forms the foundations for the generative capabilities of AI, whereby models can also generate images, statements, or answers based on learned information. Snapcat serves as a reminder that every time we use these common features, we are playing a crucial role in the advancement of AI technology through our continuous (often unknowing) interactions.

Snapcat 

This image shows an individual with orange hair interacting with a large, abstract digital mirrored structure. The structure is composed of squares in varying shades of green, orange, white, and black which are pieced together to reflect the individual’s figure. The figure's hand is extended as if pointing to or interacting with the mirrored structure. Behind the  structure are streams of binary code (0s and 1s) in orange, flowing towards the digital grid.

The image breaks down the interactions between humans and technology that support the inner-workings of AI chatbots. The mirror symbolises how our current interactions with AI are based on human prompts and commands which is why the user is faced with a reflection of themselves in the mirror. At present, AI cannot generate its own content, so it reflects the human thoughts and opinions that are fed into systems through training and interaction. The binary code behind the mirror symbolises how human data is converted into computer language which powers AI. These three layers of the image (user, mirror, and code) break down the process of interactions and focus on the blurred lines between human work and AI generation.  

Talking to AI 2.0

This image features a grid of 35 square tiles with blue, pink, burgundy and orange figures inside the tiles interacting with dark green letters of the phrase "Hi, I am AI” set against a yellow background. The figures are positioned in various poses, as if they are climbing, pushing, or leaning on the letters.

This image portrays the varied applications that AI has in different domains and the different feelings that humans feel towards this technology. The text, 'Hi, I am AI' pays homage to the iconic 'Hello World' phrase in programming which is usually the first lesson in coding - pointing to the rich history of AI which has its roots in basic code. Sprawled across the page, this text is behind grid squares which represent different industries. The fact that the text expands across multiple grid squares demonstrates how one AI tool can have uses in different industries. 

The figures within each square all interact with the text, 'Hi, I am AI' in complex and different ways. For example, the body language of the figures show them to be frustrated/ curious/ playful/ sceptical/ indifferent or affectionate towards AI. The image portrays the nuances behind our responses to AI which change contextually and are also heavily driven by our personal beliefs.

There are two versions of 'Exploring AI' available on our library. This one includes different colour figures to better represent the diverse world that we live in. 

Exploring AI 2.0

Talking to AI

This image features a grid of 35 square tiles with a minimalist figures inside the tiles interacting with dark green letters of the phrase "Hi, I am AI” set against a yellow background. The figures are positioned in various poses, as if they are climbing, pushing, or leaning on the letters.

This image portrays the varied applications that AI has in different domains and the different feelings that humans feel towards this technology. The text, 'Hi, I am AI' pays homage to the iconic 'Hello World' phrase in programming which is usually the first lesson in coding - pointing to the rich history of AI which has its roots in basic code. Sprawled across the page, this text is behind grid squares which represent different industries. The fact that the text expands across multiple grid squares demonstrates how one AI tool can have uses in different industries. 

The figures within each square all interact with the text, 'Hi, I am AI' in complex and different ways. For example, the body language of the figures show them to be frustrated/ curious/ playful/ sceptical/ indifferent or affectionate towards AI. The image portrays the nuances behind our responses to AI which change contextually and are also heavily driven by our personal beliefs.

Images of AI library

Women and AI - Reihaneh Golpayegani & Cambridge Diversity Fund

Ground Up and Spat Out - Janet Turra & Cambridge Diversity Fund

Who is AI Made Of - Shady Sharify

The Two Cultures - Zoya Yasmine

Joining the Table - Yutong Liu

prediction - Yaning Wu

Turning Threads of Cognition - Hanna Barakat & Cambridge Diversity Fund

Shadow Work– Decrypting Bletchley Park’s Codebreakers - Hanna Barakat & Cambridge Diversity Fund

Pas(t)imes in the Computer Lab - Hanna Barakat & Cambridge Diversity Fund

Data Lab Dialogue - Hanna Barakat & Cambridge Diversity Fund

Analog Lecture on Computing - Hanna Barakat & Cambridge Diversity Fund

Lovelace GPU - Hanna Barakat & Cambridge Diversity Fund

Puppeteering Virtual Reality - Hanna Barakat & Cambridge Diversity Fund

Colossal Harvest - Hanna Barakat & Cambridge Diversity Fund

Corruption 3 - Kathryn Conrad

Corruption 2 - Kathryn Conrad

Corruption 1 - Kathryn Conrad

No Abnormalities - Elise Racine

Web of Influence I - Elise Racine & The Bigger Picture

Web of Influence II - Elise Racine & The Bigger Picture